{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_55736/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_55736","id":"gutenberg_55736","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55736","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - Religious","Category: Journals","Category: Poetry","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Catholic Church -- Periodicals"],"text":"[Transcriber's note:  This text is derived from\n http://www.archive.org/details/catholicworld07pauluoft]\n\n\n{i}\n\n               The Catholic World.\n\n               A Monthly Magazine\n\n                      of\n\n         General Literature and Science.\n\n                   ------------\n\n                     Vol. VII.\n\n              April To September, 1868.\n\n                   ------------\n\n                    New York:\n\n          The Catholic Publication Society,\n\n                126 Nassau Street.\n\n                      1868.\n\n{ii}\n\n\nJohn A. Gray & Green,\n\nPrinters,\n\n16 and 18 Jacob St., New York.\n\n{iii}\n\n          Contents.\n\n\n  A Heroine of Conjugal Love, 781.\n  A New Face on an Old Question, 577.\n  Anecdotical Memoirs of Emperor Nicholas I., 683.\n  A Sister's Story, 707.\n  Ancient Irish Church, 764.\n  Abyssinia and King Theodore, 265.\n\n  Baltimore, Second Plenary Council of, 618.\n  Breton Legend of St. Christopher, 710.\n  Bretons, Faith and Poetry of, 567.\n  Bible and the Catholic Church, 657.\n  Bishop Doyle, 44.\n  Bound with Paul, 389.\n\n  Catacombs, Children's Graves in, 401.\n  Campion, Edmund, 289.\n  Catholics in England, Condition and Prospects of, 487.\n  Catholic Church and the Bible, 657.\n  Catholic Sunday-School Union, 300.\n  Children's Graves in the Catacombs, 401.\n  Crisis, The Episcopalian, 37.\n  Christopher, St., Breton Legend of, 710.\n  Constantinople, Harem Life in, 407.\n  Conscience, Plea for Liberty of, 433.\n  Condition and Prospects of Catholics in England, 487.\n  Confessional, Episcopalian, 372.\n  Conscript, Story of a, 26.\n  Colony of the Insane, Gheel, 824.\n  Conjugal Love, Heroine of, 781.\n  Council of Baltimore, Second Plenary, 618.\n  Cowper, 347.\n  Country Church, a Plan for, 135.\n  Cousin, Victor, and the Church Review, 95.\n  Cross, The, 21.\n  Count Ladislas Zamoyski, 650.\n  Church, Ancient Irish, 764.\n  Church, Catholic, and the Bible, 657.\n  Church Review, and Victor Cousin, 95.\n  Churches, United, of England and Ireland, 200.\n  Church, Early Irish, 336.\n\n  Draper, Professor, Books of, 155.\n  De Garaison, Notre Dame, 644.\n  Doyle, Bishop, 44.\n  Duties, Household, 700.\n\n  Early Irish Church, 356.\n  England and Ireland, United Churches of, 200.\n  England, Catholics of, Condition and Prospects, 487.\n  Episcopalian Crisis, 37.\n  Episcopalian Confessional, 372.\n  Education, Popular, 228.\n  Edmund Campion, 289.\n  European Prison Discipline, 772.\n  Egypt, Harem Life in, 407.\n\n  Face, New, on an Old Question, 577.\n  Faith and Science, 338, 464.\n  Flaminia, 795.\n  Faith and Poetry of the Bretons, 567.\n  Flight of Spiders, 414.\n  Florence Athern's Trial, 213.\n\n  Garaison, Notre Dame de, 644.\n  Graves, Children's, in the Catacombs, 401.\n  Gathering, Roman, 191.\n  Glastonbury, Legend of, 517.\n  Gheel, Colony of the Insane, 824.\n  Girl, Italian, of our Day, 364, 343, 626.\n  Glimpses of Tuscany--\n    The Duomo, 479;\n    The Boboli Gardens, 679.\n  Good Works, Merit of, 125.\n\n  Harem Life in Egypt and Constantinople, 407.\n  Heroine of Conjugal Love, 781.\n  History, How told in the Year 3000, 130.\n  Holy Shepherdess of Pibrac, 753.\n  Holy Week in Jerusalem, 77.\n  How our History will be told in the Year 3000, 130.\n\n  Insane, Colony of, at Gheel, 824.\n  Italian Girl of our Day, 364, 543, 626.\n  Irish Church, Early, 356.\n  Irish Church, Ancient, 764.\n  \"Is it Honest?\" 239.\n  Ireland, Protestant Church of, 200.\n\n  Jerusalem, Holy Week in, 77.\n  John Sterling, 811.\n  John Tauler, 422.\n\n  King Theodore of Abyssinia, 265.\n  Keeble, 347.\n\n  La Fayette, Madame de, 781.\n  Legend of Glastonbury, 317.\n  Liberty of Conscience, Plea for, 433.\n  Life of St. Paula, sketches of, 380, 508, 670.\n  Life, Harem, in Egypt and Constantinople, 407.\n  Life's Charity, 839.\n  Last Gasp of the Anti-Catholic Faction, 850.\n\n  Madame de La Fayette, 731.\n  Magas; or, Long Ago, 39, 256.\n  Miscellany, 139.\n  Merit of Good Works, 125.\n  Memoirs of Count Segur, 633.\n  Monks of the West, i.\n\n  New Face on an Old Question, 577.\n  Newgate, 772.\n  Newman's Poems, 609.\n  Nellie Netterville, 82, 173, 307, 445, 589, 736.\n  New York City, Sanitary and Moral Condition of, 553, 712\n  Nicholas, Emperor, Memoirs of, 683.\n  Notre Dame de Garaison, 644.\n\n  O'Neil and O'Donnell in Exile, 11.\n\n  Quietist Poetry, 347.\n\n  Race, The Human, Unity of, 67.\n  Rights of Catholic Women, 846.\n  Roman Gathering, 191.\n\n{iv}\n\n  St. Paula, Sketches of her Life, 380, 508, 670.\n  St. Christopher, Breton Legend of, 710.\n  Sayings of the Fathers of the Desert, 76, 227, 572.\n  Sanitary and Moral Condition of New York City, 553, 712.\n  Segur, Count, Memoirs of, 633.\n  Shepherdess of Pibrac, 753.\n  Sterling, John, 811.\n  Science and Faith, 338, 464.\n  Sketches of the Life of St. Paula, 380, 508, 670.\n  Sister Simplicia, 115.\n  Sister's Story, 707.\n  Spiders, Flight of, 414.\n  Story of a Conscript, 26.\n  Story, a Sister's, 707.\n\n  Tauler, John, 422.\n  The Cross, 21.\n  The Church Review and Victor Cousin, 95.\n  The Episcopalian Crisis, 37.\n  The Rights of Catholic Women, 846.\n  The Second Plenary Council of Baltimore, 618.\n  The Story of a Conscript, 26.\n  Theodore, King of Abyssinia, 265.\n  Tennyson in his Catholic Aspects, 145.\n\n  Unity of the Human Race, 67.\n  United Churches of England and Ireland, 200.\n\n  Veneration of Saints and Holy Images, 721.\n\n  Wordsworth, 347.\n  Women, Catholic, Rights of 846.\n\n  Zamoyski, Count Ladislas, 650.\n\n\n------\n\n         Poetry.\n\n\n  All-Souls' Day--1867, 236.\n\n  Benediction, 444.\n\n  Elegy of St. Prudentius, 761.\n\n  Full of Grace, 129.\n\n  Iona to Erin, 57.\n\n  Love's Burden, 212.\n\n  Morning at Spring Park, 174.\n  My Angel, 363.\n\n  One Fold, 336.\n\n  Poland, 154.\n\n  St. Columba, 823.\n  Sonnet on \"Le R\u00e9cit d'une Soeur,\" 306.\n  St. Mary Magdalen, 476.\n  Sonnet, 617.\n\n  Tears of Jesus, 113.\n  To the Count de Montalembert, 516.\n\n  Wild Flowers, 566.\n\n------\n\n         New Publications.\n\n\n  Assembl\u00e9e G\u00e9n\u00e9rale des Catholiques en Belge, 431.\n  Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia for 1867, 574.\n  Appleton's Short Trip to France, 717.\n\n  Book of Moses, 142.\n\n  Campbell's Works, 720.\n  Catholic Sunday-School Library, 431.\n  Catholic Crusoe, 719.\n  Chandler's New Fourth Reader, 575.\n  Chemical Change in the Eucharist, 285.\n  Count Lucanor, 140,\n\n  De Costa's Lake George, 718.\n  Discussions in Theology, Skinner, 573.\n\n  Elinor Johnson, 576.\n\n  Folks and Fairies, 144.\n\n  Great Day, 288.\n  Gillet's Democracy, 719.\n\n  Hints on the Formation of Religious Opinions, 573.\n  Histoire de France, 719.\n  House Painting, 720.\n\n  Infant Bridal, by Aubrey de Vere, 143.\n  Imitation of Christ, Spiritual Combat, etc., 575.\n  Irish Homes and Irish Hearts, 576.\n\n  Life of St. Catharine of Sienna, 142.\n  Life in the West, 287.\n\n  Memoirs and Letters of Jennie C. White--Del Bal, 858.\n  Moses, Book of, 142.\n  Mozart, 288.\n  Margaret, a Story of Prairie Life, 576.\n\n  Newman's Parochial Sermons, 716.\n  Notes on the Rubrics of the Roman Missal, 574.\n  Northcote's Celebrated Sanctuaries of the Madonna, 574.\n\n  Ozanam's Civilization, 430.\n  O'Kane's Notes on the Rubrics, 574,\n  O'Shea's Juvenile Library, 719.\n  On the Heights, 284.\n\n  Palmer's Hints on the Formation of Religions Opinions, 573.\n  Prayer the Key of Salvation, 143.\n  Peter Claver, 142.\n  Problems of the Age, 715.\n\n  Queen's Daughter, 720.\n\n  Red Cross, 575.\n  Reforme en Italic, 143.\n  Rossignoli's Choice of a State of Life, 576.\n  Rhymes of the Poets, 718.\n\n  St. Catharine of Sienna, Life of, 143.\n  St. Colomba, Apostle of Caledonia, 281.\n  Sanctuaries of the Madonna, 720.\n\n  Tales from the Diary of a Sister, 288.\n  The Catholic Crusoe, 719.\n  The Queen's Daughter, 720.\n  The Vickers and Purcell Controversy, 856.\n  The Woman Blessed by all Generations, 860.\n\n--------\n\n{1}\n\n\n         THE CATHOLIC WORLD.\n\n   Vol. VII., No. 37.--April, 1868.\n\n--------\n\n    The Monks Of The West.[Footnote 1]\n\n     By The Count De Montalembert.\n\n    [Footnote 1: _The Monks of tie West, from St. Benedict to\n    St. Bernard._ By the Count de Montalembert, Member of the\n    French Academy. 5 vols. 8vo. For sale at the Catholic\n    Publication House, 126 Nassau Street, New York.]\n\nIn the galaxy of illustrious men whom God has given to France in\nthis century, there is one whom history will place in the first\nrank. We mean the author of the _Monks of the West_, the\nCount de Montalembert. There has not been since the seventeenth\ncentury till now such an assemblage of men of genius and lofty\ncharacter gathered round the standard of the church, combating\nfor her and leaving behind them works that will never die.\nAttacked on all sides at once, the church has found magnanimous\nsoldiers to bear the brunt of the battle, and meet her enemies in\nevery quarter. Even though the victory has not yet been\ncompletely won, with such defenders she cannot doubt of final\nsuccess and future triumph. How great are the names of\nMontalembert, Lacordaire, Ravignan, Dupanloup, Ozanam, Augustin\nCo-chin, the Prince de Broglie, de Falloux, Cauchy, and of so\nmany others! The natural sciences, history, political economy,\ncontroversy, parliamentary debates, pulpit eloquence, have been\nstudied and honored by these men; superior in all those sciences\non account of the truth which they defend, and equal in talent to\ntheir most renowned rivals.\n\nThe figure of the Count de Montalembert stands conspicuous in\nthat group of giant intellects by the universality of his eminent\ngifts. A historian full of erudition, an incomparable orator, and\na writer combining the classic purity of the seventeenth century\nwith the energy and fire of the nineteenth, an indefatigable\npolemic, a man of the world, yet an orthodox churchman, but above\nall a practical and fervent Christian; this great defender of\nCatholic truth has merited immortal praise from his\ncontemporaries and from posterity.\n\nAmong all the works of this energetic champion of the faith. The\n_Monks of the West_ holds indisputably the first place.\n{2}\nIt is the work of Montalembert's entire life. He has put into it\nhis Benedictine erudition, his passionate love for truth, the\ncharming and dramatic power of his style in the narration of\nevents, his inimitable talent for painting in words the portraits\nof those famous characters whom he wishes to present to the eye\nof the reader; and their traits remain ineffaceably stamped on\nthe mind. Especially does the soul of the true Christian breathe\non every page of the volumes. For more than forty years their\nauthor bent piously over those austere forms of the Benedictine\nmonks of the early ages to ask them the secret of their lives, of\ntheir virtues, of their influence on their country and their age.\nHe has studied them with that infallible instinct of faith which\nhad disclosed to him a hidden treasure in those old monastic\nruins, and in those dusty and unexplored monuments of their\ncontemporary literature; the treasure, namely, of the influence\nof the church acting on the barbarians through the monks. This is\nthe leading idea of the whole work. It would be a mistake to\nexpect, under the title of _Monks of the West_, a history of\nmere asceticism, or a species of continuation of the _Lives of\nthe Fathers of the Desert_. Writers no longer treat, as that\nwork does, the lives of the saints. Readers are not satisfied\nwith the simple account of the virtues practised or the number of\nmiracles performed by the canonized children of the church.\nModern men want to look into the depths of a saint's soul; to\nknow what kind of a human heart throbbed in his bosom, and how\nfar he participated in the thoughts and feelings of ordinary\nhuman nature. The circumstances in which he lived and studied,\nthe opinions formed of him by his contemporaries, are weighed,\nand the traces left by his sanctity or genius on the manners and\ninstitutions of his country are closely considered.\n\nThe history of _The Monks of the West_ is nothing else than\na history of civilization through monastic causes. The third,\nfourth, and fifth volumes just published contain a complete,\nprofound, exact, and beautiful account of the conversion of Great\nBritain to Catholicity. No work could be more interesting, not\nonly to Englishmen, but to all who speak the English tongue.\nHence, but a few months after the French edition of these bulky\nvolumes, an English translation of them was given to the public,\nand is now well known and becoming justly wide-spread in the\nUnited States.\n\nIrish and Anglo-Saxons, Americans by birth or by adoption,\nCatholics and Protestants, there is not one of us who is not\ninterested in a work which tells us from whom, and how, we have\ninherited our Christian faith. Even Germans will learn in the\nperusal of these volumes their religious origin; for it was from\nthe British isles that the apostles of Germany went forth to\ntheir labors. The English language is the most universally spoken\nto-day; the sceptre of Britain rules an empire greater than that\nof Alexander or of any of the Caesars. The latest statistics tell\nus that there are one hundred and seventy-four millions of\nBritish subjects or vassals. The two Indies, vast Australia, and\nthe islands of the Pacific Ocean belong mostly to the Anglo-Saxon\nrace, and feel its influence. But what are all those great\nconquests compared to these once British colonies, now called\nNorth America? Who can foresee the height to which may reach this\nvigorous graft, cut from the old oak, invigorated by the virgin\nsoil of the new world, and which already spreads its shade over\nimmense latitudes, and which promises to be the largest and most\npowerful country ever seen?\n{3}\nIs it not therefore useful and interesting to study the religious\norigin of this extraordinary race? Is there an American in heart,\nor by birth, who is not bound to know the history of those to\nwhom this privileged race owes its having received in so large a\nmeasure the three fundamental bases of all grandeur and stability\nin nations: the spirit of liberty, the family spirit, and the\nspirit of religion?\n\nThe history of the conversion of England by the monks answers all\nthese questions. It comprises the apostleship of the Irish, and\nof the Roman and Anglo-Saxon elements during the sixth and\nseventh centuries. The Irish or Celtic portion of the history\ncentres in St. Columba, whose majestic form towers above his age,\nillustrated by his virtues and influenced by his genius. The\nRoman element is represented by the monk Augustine, the first\napostle of the Anglo-Saxons. Lastly, this race itself enters on\nthe missionary career, and sends out as its first apostle a great\nman and a great saint, the monk Wilfrid, whose moral beauty of\ncharacter rivals that of St. Columba. Shortly after these, as it\nwere following in their shadow, walks the admirable and gentle\nVenerable Bede, the first English historian, the learned\nencyclopedist, alike the honor and glory of his countrymen, and\nof the learned of all nations.\n\nWe cannot resist the pleasure of giving, though it be but very\nincomplete and pale, a sketch of the great monk of Clonard, the\napostle of Caledonia, St. Columba.[Footnote 2] Sprung from the\nnoble race of O'Niall, which ruled Ireland during six centuries,\neducated at Clonard, in one of those immense monasteries which\nrecalled the memory of the monastic cities of the Thebaid, he was\nthe chief founder, though hardly twenty-nine years old, of a\nmultitude of religious houses. More than thirty-seven in Ireland\nclaim him as their founder. He was a poet of great renown, and a\nmusician skilled in singing that national poetry of Erin, which\nso intimately harmonizes with Catholic faith. He lived in\nfraternal union with the other poets of his country, with those\nfamous bards, whom he was afterward to protect and save from\ntheir enemies. Besides being a great traveller, like the most of\nthe Irish saints and monks whose memory has been preserved by\nhistory, he had another passion for manuscripts. This passion had\nresults which decided his destiny. Having shut himself up at\nnight in a church, where he discovered the psalter of the Abbot\nFinnian, Columba found means to make a clandestine copy of it.\nFinnian complained of it as a theft. The case was brought to the\nchief monarch of Ireland, who decided against Columba. The\ncopyist protested; anathematized the king, and raised against him\nin revolt the north and west of Hibernia. Columba's party\nconquered, and the recovered psalter, called the _Psalter of\nBattles_, became the national relic of the clan O'Donnell.\nThis psalter still exists, to the great joy of the erudite\npatriots of Ireland.\n\n    [Footnote 2: The Catholic Publication Society will soon\n    publish _The Life of St. Columba_, as given in the third\n    volume of _The Monks of the West_.]\n\nNevertheless, as Christian blood had flowed for a comparative\ntrifle, and through the fault of a monk, a synod was convened and\nColumba was excommunicated. He succeeded in having the sentence\ncancelled; but he was commanded to gain to God, by his preaching,\nas many souls as he had destroyed Christians in the battle of\nCooldrewny. To this injunction his confessor added the hardest of\npenances for a soul so passionately attached, as was that of\nColumba, to his country and his friends.\n{4}\nThe penitent was compelled to exile himself from Ireland for\never. Columba submitted. Twelve of his disciples refused to leave\nhim, and embarking with them on one of those large osier,\nhide-covered boats which the Celtic peoples were accustomed to\nuse in navigation, he landed on an island called Oronsay. He\nascended a hill near the shore, and looking toward the south,\nperceived that he could still see the Irish coast. He re\u00ebmbarked\nimmediately, and sailed in quest of a more distant isle, from\nwhich his native land should be no longer visible. He at last\ntouched the small desert island of Iona, and chose for his abode\nthis unknown rock, which he has made a partaker of his own\nimmortality.\n\nWe should read in M. de Montalembert's work the eloquent\ndescription of the Hebrides, and of that sandy and sterile shore\nof Iona, rendered glorious by so many virtues. \"'We were now\ntreading,' wrote Dr. Johnson, the great moralist of the\neighteenth century, 'that illustrious island which was once the\nluminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and\nroving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the\nblessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local\nemotion would be impossible if it were endeavored, and would be\nfoolish if it were possible.'[Footnote 3] And he recited with\nenthusiasm those verses from Goldsmith's _Traveller_:\n\n  'Stern o'er each bosom reason holds her state,\n  With daring aims irregularly great.\n  Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,\n  I see the lords of human kind pass by;\n  Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band.\n  By forms unfashioned, fresh from nature's hand.\n  Fierce in their native hardiness of soul.\n  True to imagined right, above control,\n  While even the peasant boasts these rights to scan,\n  And learns to venerate himself as man.' [Footnote 4]\n\n    [Footnote 3: _Journey to the Western Islands of\n    Scotland_. By Dr. Johnson,]\n\n    [Footnote 4: _The Monks of the West_, vol. iv. book xi.\n    ch. 3.]\n\nGrace had accomplished its work. Arrived at Iona, Columba, one of\nthe most high-spirited and passionate of the Gaels of Hibernia,\nbecame a most humble penitent, a pattern of mortification to the\nmonks, the most gentle of friends, and a most tender father.\nHaving no other cell than a log cabin for seventy-six years, he\nslept in it on the bare ground, with a stone for his pillow. This\nhut was his oratory and library, into which, after working all\nday in the fields like the lowest of the brothers, he entered to\nmeditate on the Holy Scripture and multiply copies of the sacred\ntext. He is supposed to have transcribed with his own hand three\nhundred copies of the gospels. Devoted to his expiatory mission,\nhe commenced by evangelizing the Dalriadian Scots, an Irish\ncolony formed between the Picts of the north and the Britons of\nthe south. This colony was on the western coast of Caledonia and\nin the neighboring islands, at the north of the mouth of the\nClyde, in that tract of country afterward known by the name of\nArgyle. But these colonists were his countrymen. Soon he was\ncalled to lay hands on the head of their chief, thus inaugurating\nnot only a new royalty, but also a new rite, which afterward\nbecame the most august solemnity in the life of Christian\nnations. This consecration of the Scot Aidan as King, by Columba,\nis the first authentic instance of the kind in the west. Later,\ncrossing the Grampian hills, at the foot of which the victorious\nlegions of Agricola stopped, and venturing in a frail skiff on\nLoch-Ness and the river which flows from it, he confronted those\nterrible Picts, the most depraved and ferocious of the\nbarbarians, disputing, through an interpreter, with the Druids,\nthus attacked in their last retreat.\n{5}\nHe returned often to these savages, so that he finished, before\nhis death, the conversion of the whole nation, dotting with\nchurches and sanctuaries their forests, defiles, inaccessible\nmountains, their wild fens and their sparsely peopled isles. The\nvestiges of fifty-three of those churches are still traceable in\nmodern Scotland, and even the most enlightened Protestant judges\nof the Scottish bench attribute the very ancient division of\nparishes in Scotland to the missionary monk of sacred Iona.\n\nHe never forgot, in the midst of his labors, his beloved Ireland.\nHe had for her all the tender passion of the exile; a passion\nwhich let itself out in his songs, full of a charming melancholy.\n\"Better to die in pure Ireland, than to live for ever here in\nAlbania.\" [Footnote 5]\n\n    [Footnote 5: Vol. iii. book xi. ch. 2.]\n\nTo this cry of despair succeed more plaintive notes breathing\nresignation. In one of his elegies, he regrets not being able to\nsail once more on the lakes and gulfs of his fatherland, nor to\nlisten to the song of the swans with his friend Comgall. He\nmourns especially his having to leave Erin through his own fault,\non account of the blood shed in the battles which he had\nprovoked. He envies his friend Cormac, who can return to his dear\nmonastery of Durrow, to hearken there to the murmur of the winds\namong the oaks, and drink in the song of the blackbird and the\ncuckoo. As for him, Columba, everything in Ireland is dear to\nhim, _except the rulers that govern it!_ In another poem\nstill more characteristic, he exclaims: \"Oh! what delight to\nglide over the foam-crested waves of the sea, and see the\nbreakers roll on the sandy beaches of Ireland! Oh! how swiftly my\nbark would bound over the waters, if its prow were turned toward\nmy grove of oaks in Ireland! But the noble sea must only bear me\nfor ever toward Albania, the gloomy land of the raven. My feet\nrepose in my skiff, but my sad heart ever bleeds.\n...\nFrom the deck of my boat I cast my eyes over the billows, and the\nbig tears stand in my moistened gray eyes, when I look toward\nErin; toward Erin, where the birds sing so melodiously, and where\nthe priests sing like the birds; where the young men are so\ngentle, and the old so wise; the nobles so illustrious and\nhandsome, and the women so fair to wed. ... Young navigator,\ncarry with thee my woes, bear them to Comgall the immortal. Bear\nwith thee, noble youth, my prayer and my blessing: one half for\nIreland; that she may receive seven-fold blessings! and the other\nhalf for Albania. Carry my benediction across the sea; carry it\ntoward the west. My heart is broken within my bosom; if sudden\ndeath should befall me, it would be through my great love for the\nGaels.\" [Footnote 6]\n\n    [Footnote 6: Vol. iii. book xi. ch. 2.]\n\nAn opportunity was afforded him of seeing once more this beloved\nland of which he sang with such ardent enthusiasm. He had to\naccompany the king of the Dalriadians, whom he had just\nconsecrated, to meet the supreme monarch of Ireland and other\nIrish princes and chiefs assembled in parliament at Drumkeath.\nThere was question of recognizing the independence of the new\nScottish royalty, hitherto the vassal and tributary of Erin. But\nas the exile had made a vow never again in this life to behold\nthe men and women of Erin, he appeared in the national assembly\nwith his eyes blindfolded, and his monk's cowl drawn over the\nbandage. Columba was listened to as an oracle in the parliament\nof Drumkeath. He not only obtained the complete emancipation of\nthe Dalriadian colony, but he also saved the order of the bards,\nwhose proscription had been demanded by the king of Ireland.\n{6}\nThey were for ever won over to Christianity by the holy monk,\nand, transformed into minstrels, continued for the future to be\nthe most efficacious propagators of the spirit of patriotism, the\nindomitable prophets of national independence, and the faithful\nchampions of catholic faith.\n\nArrived at the term of his career, the servant of God spent\nhimself in vigils, fastings, and formidable macerations of the\nflesh. He knew in advance and predicted with certainty the day\nand the very hour when he should pass to a better life; and he\nmade all things ready for his departure. He went to take leave of\nthe monks who worked in the fields, in the only fertile portion\nof the island of Iona, on the western coast. He wished to visit\nand bless the granary of the community. He blessed the old white\nhorse which used to carry from the sheep-fold of the monastery\nthe milk which was consumed daily by the brothers. Having done\nthis, he was barely able to ascend an eminence from which the\nwhole island and monastery were visible, and from this elevated\nposition he extended his hands and pronounced on the sanctuary\nwhich he had founded a prophetic benediction. \"This little spot,\nso low and so narrow, will be greatly honored, not only by the\nkings and people of Scotland, but also by foreign chiefs and\nbarbarous nations; it will be even venerated by the saints of\nother churches.\" He then descended to the monastery, entered his\ncell, and applied himself to his work for the last time. He was\nat that time busied in transcribing the psalter. At the\nthirty-third psalm, and the verse, \"_Inquirentes autem Dominum\nnon deficient omni bono,_\" [Footnote 7] he ceased and said:\n\"Here I must finish; Baithan will write the rest.\" After this he\nwent to the church to assist at the vigils of Sunday; then\nreturning to his cell, he sat down on the cold stones which had\nbeen his bed and pillow for over seventy years. There he\nentrusted his solitary companion with a last message for the\ncommunity. This done, he never spoke more. But no sooner had the\nmidnight bell tolled for matins, than he ran faster than the\nother monks to the church. His companion found him lying before\nthe altar, and raising his head, placed it on his knees. The\nwhole community soon arrived with lights. At the sight of their\nfather dying, all wept. The abbot opened his eyes once more,\nlooking around on all with a serene and joyous expression. Then,\nassisted by his companion, Columba lifted as well as he could his\nright hand, and silently blessed the whole choir of monks. His\nhands fell powerless to his sides, and he breathed his last.\n\n    [Footnote 7: \"They that seek the Lord shall not be deprived\n    of any good.\" Ps. xxxiii. 11.]\n\nWhat a scene! Such were the life and death of this great man and\ngreat saint. After having loved Ireland so much, he could repose\nnowhere more appropriately than in her sacred soil. His body was\ntransported thither to the monastery of Down, and buried between\nthe mortal remains of St. Patrick and St. Bridget. Thus those\nthree names, for the future inseparable, became interwoven with\nthe history and traditions, and engraved in the worship and on\nthe memory, of the Irish people.\n\nSuch were the men to whom Ireland owed not only her\nindestructible faith, but also her intellectual and moral\ncivilization.\n{7}\nIt is not sufficiently known that Ireland in the seventh century\nwas regarded by all Europe as the principal focus of science and\npiety.\n\nThere, more than anywhere else, every monastery was a school, and\nevery school a studio of calligraphy, where the artists were not\nconfined to copying the Holy Scriptures alone; but where even the\nGreek and Latin authors were reproduced, sometimes in Celtic\ncharacters, with gloss and commentary in Irish, like that copy of\nHorace which contemporary erudition has discovered in the library\nof Berne. Besides, in all those monasteries, exact annals of\npassing events were recorded; and these annals still constitute\nthe chief source of Irish history. We recognize in them a vast\nand continual development of serious literary and religious\nstudies, far superior to anything found in any other European\nnation. Certain arts even, such as architecture, carving,\nmetallurgy applied to the objects of public worship, were\ncultivated with success; not to speak of music, a knowledge of\nwhich was a common accomplishment not exclusively possessed by\nthe learned, but also by the common people. The classic\nlanguages, not only the Latin, but even in an especial manner the\nGreek, were spoken, written, and studied with a sort of passion,\nwhich shows the sway which intellectual preoccupations held over\nthose ardent Celtic minds.\n\nBut whatever may have been the influence of Columba on the Picts\nand Scots, neither he nor his successors could exercise any\ndirect or efficacious action on the Anglo-Saxons, who became\ndaily more redoubtable, and whose ferocious incursions menaced\nnot only the Caledonian clans, but also the Britons. Other\nmissionaries were therefore needed. Whence were they to come?\nFrom that ever-burning centre of faith and charity from which the\nlight of Christianity had already been brought to the Irish by\nPatrick; to the Bretons and Scots by Palladius, Ninian, and\nGermain--from Rome!\n\n  \"Who then were the Anglo-Saxons, upon whom so many efforts were\n  concentrated, and whose conquest is ranked, not without reason,\n  among the most fruitful and most happy that the church has ever\n  accomplished? Of all the Germanic tribes the most stubborn,\n  intrepid, and independent, this people seem to have\n  transplanted with themselves into the great island which owes\n  to them its name, the genius of the Germanic race, in order\n  that it might bear on this predestined soil its richest and\n  most abundant fruits. The Saxons brought with them a language,\n  a character, and institutions stamped with a strong and\n  invincible originality. Language, character, institutions, have\n  triumphed, in their essential features, over the vicissitudes\n  of time and fortune--have outlived all ulterior conquests, as\n  well as all foreign influences, and, plunging their vigorous\n  roots into the primitive soil of Celtic Britain, still exist at\n  the indestructible foundation of the social edifice of England.\n  ...\n  Keeping intact and untamable their old Germanic\n  spirit, their old morals, their stern independence,\n  they gave from that moment to\n  the free and proud genius of their race a\n  vigorous upward impulse which nothing has\n  been able to bear down.\" [Footnote 8]\n\n    [Footnote 8: Vol. iv. book xii. ch. 1.]\n\nEvery one knows how and by whom those Anglo-Saxons were\nevangelized and converted; every one knows the scene of Gregory,\nafterward pope, with the young slaves in the Roman forum, and the\ndialogue related by Bede from the traditions of his Northumbrian\nancestors. Every one knows that, at the sight of those young\nslaves, struck by the beauty of their countenances, the dazzling\nwhiteness of their complexion, the length of their flaxen locks,\na probable sign of their aristocratic extraction, Gregory\ninquired about their country and their religion.\n{8}\nThe merchant, answered him that they came from the island of\nBritain, where all had the same fresh color, and that they were\npagans. Then, heaving a deep sigh, \"what evil luck,\" he\nexclaimed, \"that the prince of darkness should possess beings\nwith an aspect so radiant, and that the grace of these\ncountenances should reflect a soul void of inward grace! But what\nnation are they of?\" \"They are Angles?\" \"They are well named, for\nthese Angles have the faces of angels; and they must become the\nbrethren of the angels in heaven. From what province have they\nbeen brought?\" \"From De\u00efra,\" (one of the two kingdoms of\nNorthumbria.) \"Still good,\" answered he. \"_De ira\neruti_--they shall be snatched from the ire of God, and called\nto the mercy of Christ. And how name they the king of their\ncountry?\" \"Alle or AElla.\" \"So be it; he is right well named, for\nthey shall soon sing the Alleluia in his kingdom.\" [Footnote 9]\n\n    [Footnote 9: Vol. iii book xii. ch. 1, p. 347.]\n\nWe will not follow the apostolate of the monk Augustine in his\npacific conquests, nor the touching solicitude of the Pope St.\nGregory for his dear favorites. Not because this history lacks\ninterest--we know none more attractive, or in which the glory of\nthe Roman Church shines forth more brilliantly--but it is better\nknown than that of the monk Columba, which has delayed us longer.\n\"We may simply remark that, unlike the churches of Italy, Gaul,\nand Spain, in all of which the baptism of blood had either\npreceded or accompanied the conversion of the inhabitants, in\nEngland there were neither martyrs nor persecutors from the first\nday of Augustine's preaching, during the entire existence of the\nAnglo-Saxon Church. Placed in the presence of the pure,\nresplendent light of Christianity, even before they understood or\naccepted it, those fierce Saxons, so pitiless to their enemies,\ndisplayed, in the presence of truth, a humanity and a docility\nwhich we seek in vain among the learned and civilized citizens of\nimperial Rome. Not a drop of blood spilled in the name of\nreligion stained the English ground. And this prodigy is\nwitnessed at a period when human gore flowed in torrents for any\nor every pretext, no matter how trivial. What a contrast between\nthose times and later ages, when, in the very same island, so\nmany pyres were lighted, so many gibbets raised on which to\nimmolate the English who remained steadfast in the faith of\nGregory and Augustine!\"\n\nThe second volume of _The Monks of the West_ comprises a\nthorough and varied account of the conversion of the\nAnglo-Saxons, not only by the missionaries sent from Rome, but\nalso by those of England herself The great figure of St. Wilfrid\nlooms up in this epoch. As we cannot analyze his noble and holy\nlife, we will resume, at least, some of his traits, as drawn by\nthe pen of M. de Montalembert.\n\n\"In Wilfrid began that great line of prelates, by turns apostolic\nand political, eloquent and warlike, brave champions of Roman\nunity and ecclesiastical independence, magnanimous\nrepresentatives of the rights of conscience, the liberties of the\nsoul, the spiritual powers of man, and the laws of God--a line to\nwhich history presents no equal out of the Catholic Church of\nEngland; a lineage of saints, heroes, confessors, and martyrs,\nwhich produced St. Dunstan, St. Lanfranc, St. Anselm, St. Thomas\na Becket, Stephen Langton, St. Edmund, the exile of Pontigny, and\nwhich ended in Reginald Pole.\" [Footnote 10]\n. . .\n\n    [Footnote 10: Vol. iv. ch. 4, p. 368.]\n\n{9}\n\n\"In addition to all this, Wilfrid was the precursor of the great\nprelates, the great monks, the princely abbots of the middle\nages, the heads and oracles of national councils, the ministers\nand lieutenants, and often the equals and rivals of kings. When\nduty called, no suffering alarmed, no privation deterred, and no\ndanger stopped his course. Four times in his life he made the\njourney to Rome, then ten times more laborious and a hundred\ntimes more dangerous than the voyage to Australia is now. But,\nleft to himself, he loved pomp, luxury, magnificence, and power.\nHe could be humble and mild when it was necessary; but it was\nmore congenial to him to confront kings, princes, nobles,\nbishops, councils, and lay assemblies in harsh and inflexible\ndefence of his patrimony, his power, his authority, and his\ncause.\" [Footnote 11]\n...\n\n    [Footnote 11: Ibidem, p. 369.]\n\n\"His influence is explained by the rare qualities, which more\nthan redeemed all his faults. His was, before all else, a great\nsoul, manly and resolute, ardent and enthusiastic, full of\nunconquerable energy, able to wait or to act, but incapable of\ndiscouragement or fear, born to live upon those heights which\nattract at once the thunderbolt and the eyes of the crowd. His\neloquence, superior to anything yet known in England, his keen\nand penetrating intelligence, his eager zeal for literary studies\nand public education, his knowledge and love of those wonders of\narchitecture which dazzled the Christian nation, and to which his\nvoice attracted such crowds, his constancy in trial, his ardent\nlove of justice--all contributed to make of him one of those\npersonages who sway and move the spirits of their contemporaries,\nand who master the attention and imagination even of those whom\nthey cannot convince. Something generous, ardent, and magnanimous\nin his nature commended him always to the sympathy of lofty\nhearts; and when adverse fortune and triumphant violence and\ningratitude came in, to put upon his life the seal of adversity,\nnobly and piously borne, the rising tide of emotion and sympathy\ncarried all before it, sweeping away all traces of those errors\nof conduct which might have seemed to us less attractive or\ncomprehensible.\" [Footnote 12]\n\n    [Footnote 12: Ibidem, pp. 371-2.]\n\nThe fifth and last volume ends with an elaborate essay of great\ninterest on the Anglo-Saxon nunneries. It is certain that women\nhave taken an active part in the civilization of modern nations,\nmore particularly among the German tribes, whose purity of morals\nastonished the old Romans of the empire. The Germanic races\nconsidered woman as a person, not as a thing. No sooner was the\nlight of the gospel received among them than their women began to\ndistinguish themselves by the ardor of their faith and the\ngenerosity of their devotion. If monasteries cover the land,\nconvents of women rival them in number, regularity, and religious\nfervor. It was the kings and nobles of the Heptarchy who first\nset the example of a cloistered life for men; it was also the\nqueens and princesses who founded the first convents and became\ntheir earliest abbesses. Nothing is more interesting in the whole\nbook, and nowhere is the author more successful, than in his\nportrayal of those primitive natures, still tinctured with\nbarbarism, passing through a complete transformation under the\nlaw of light and charity; to see those nuns devote themselves to\nas earnest a study of Greek and Latin as to that of the Holy\nScriptures; quote Virgil, compose verses during the intervals of\ntheir religious duties and the singing of the office.\n{10}\nAnother remarkable trait is their profound and obstinate\nattachment to one or other of the parties who disputed the\npossession of supreme power in those troubled times--an\nattachment which is explained by the high rank of the abbesses\nwho governed those numerous communities. A single one of those\nhouses, the Abbey of Winbourne, contained five hundred nuns who\nsang the office day and night. Nothing is better calculated to\ngive us a just appreciation of the manners of those times than\nthe faithful description of the interior life of those great\nconvents; the narration of their customs, of their lively faith,\ntheir enthusiasm for science, of their works, their literary\ncorrespondence, and of all the details of their existence.\nWhatever may be the charm which the author has infused into the\nrest of his book, that part of it, in our opinion, which excites\nmost the curiosity of the reader by the novelty of its incidents,\nits charming legends, and which will be read with most avidity,\nis the last chapter on the Anglo-Saxon nuns.\n\nMay this rapid sketch inspire our readers with the desire of\nbecoming better acquainted with this great and magnificent work!\nIn all ages, remarkable books have been scarce, and, by a sad\ninfirmity of the human mind, they have not always been properly\nappreciated during the lifetime of their authors. Almost all have\nbeen obliged to await the judgment of time and posterity to\nconsecrate their glory. Let this not be the fate of _The Monks\nof the West_. Let us read and study this book. We shall find\nin it the history of the conversion of England in the sixth and\nseventh centuries; one of the most powerful arguments in support\nof the great thesis--_that the world has been civilized by the\nCatholic Church_. This point is the high aim, the noble\nthought, the idea and soul of Montalembert's master-piece. By it\nhe has rendered an immense service to the Catholic cause, and on\nthis account he deserves the undying gratitude of all Christians.\n\n--------\n\n         O'Neill And O'Donnell In Exile. [Footnote 13]\n\n    [Footnote 13: _The Fate and Fortunes of Hugh O'Neill, Earl\n    of Tyrone, and Rory O'Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnel: Their\n    Flight from Ireland; Their Vicissitudes Abroad, and their\n    Death in Exile._ By the Rev. C. Meehan, M.R.I.A. Dublin:\n    James Duffy. New York: Catholic Publication House. Pp. 383.\n    1868.]\n\nThe history of the Irish race presents certain features quite\nexceptional, and without parallel either in the ancient or in the\nmodern world. For example, during these last two and a half\ncenturies that strange history has been dual or double--half of\nit in Ireland and the other half in foreign lands. There were the\nIrish in Ireland undergoing the emaciating process of\nconfiscations and plunder, writhing under their penal laws for\nreligion, with occasional gallant efforts at resistance, either\nin support of a dynasty (the Stuarts) or by way of fierce\ninsurrection, as in 1798. And there were the Irish abroad in many\nlands, refugees, exiles, emigrants, who were always plotting and\npreparing a descent from France or from Spain to redeem their\ncountrymen from British oppression, or else giving their service\nas military adventurers to any power at war with England, hoping\nto deal their enemy somewhere, anywhere, a mortal blow.\n{11}\nBut their thought was ever Ireland, _Ireland_. What country\non this earth has ever inspired its children with so deep, so\npassionate, so enduring love?\n\nThese side-scenes in the drama of Irish life have duly repeated\nthemselves from generation to generation, down to the present\nday. We see one of them in the United States this moment. Always,\nalongside of the transactions in the island itself--the\nconfiscations, and ejectments, and famines, and packed\njuries--there is a parallel series of transactions outside among\nthe exiles, all bearing reference to the \"fate and fortunes\" of\nthe Irish at home; all moved and inspired by that insatiable\ncraving to liberate the land of their fathers, and make good\ntheir own footing among the green hills where they were born. Of\nthis collateral or episodical history, Fr. Meehan has selected\none of the most striking and touching scenes, has thoroughly\ninvestigated it in all its aspects, and in this volume presented\nus with a very complete _monograph_ of the outside life of\nO'Neill and O'Donnell, with their followers, from the moment when\nthose chiefs suddenly dropped out of the large space they had so\nlong filled in Ireland proper, and became a part of the external\nIrish world.\n\nFor this task, Fr. Meehan had unusual qualifications and\nadvantages. He had long lived in Rome, where the last years of\nthe illustrious chiefs were passed, and where, in the Church of\nS. Pietro Montorio, their bones lie buried under a simple\ninscription. More than thirty years ago, the sight of this\ninscription (_D.O.M. Hic quiescunt Ugonis Principis O'Neill\nossa--_\"Here rest the bones of Hugh the Prince O'Neill\")\nexcited within his mind an ardent curiosity to explore the\nmystery which has so long surrounded that sad flight of the\n\"earls,\" and their short, feverish life afterward. Since that day\nthe author never lost sight of his object. Though devoted to his\nsacred duties, and occasionally occupied in illustrating some\nother page of the history of his country, as in his excellent\nnarrative of the \"Confederation of Kilkenny,\" (_see Library of\nIreland,_) yet he was always adding to his store of materials\nfor the illumination of this one dark passage in the fortunes of\nthose most illustrious of Irish exiles. At length we have the\nresult; and it leaves nothing to be desired. Yet we feel inclined\nat the outset to reproach the learned author for entitling his\nheroes Earl of Tyrone and Earl of Tyrconnel. Why has he done this\nwhen O'Neill's own epitaph has no allusion to such a title,\nwhich, indeed, was, in his eyes, a mark of disgrace and a badge\nof servitude? He had, it is true, submitted to sink for a short\ntime formally from a high chief into an earl when he was in\nEngland, and had an object to gain by pleasing and flattering\nQueen Elizabeth; but in his own Ulster his name and title was The\nO'Neill; \"in comparison of which,\" says Camden, \"the very title\nof Caesar is contemptible in Ireland.\" [Footnote 14]\n\n    [Footnote 14: Camden: Queen Elizabeth.]\n\nMoreover, it was not until his long and desperate resistance was\nat length subdued, not till most of his warriors lay dead amidst\nthe smoking ruins of Ulster, and he had made his submission to\nMountjoy at Mellifont Abbey, that he consented to wear with shame\nthe coronet of an earl before his own clansmen and kinsmen.\n{12}\nIt was a condition of the queen's \"pardon\" that he should so\nabase himself. When he quitted Ireland, however, he flung down\nhis coronet and golden chain, and never called himself Earl of\nTyrone again. Fr. Meehan himself tells us (p. 161) while\ndescribing the honors paid to the chiefs upon the continent:\n\n  \"Wherever there was an Irish seminary or conventual\n  establishment, alumni and superiors vied with each other in\n  congratulating the _illustrious princes_, for such was the\n  designation by which they were recognized in Belgium, Italy,\n  and all over the continent.\"\n\nBut on this subject it may be remarked that the policy of the\nBritish government in thus forcing the coronets of feudal\nnobility upon the unwilling brows of Celtic chieftains, whether\nin Scotland or in Ireland, has never yet been sufficiently\nunderstood. It was an essential part of the invariable British\nsystem of forcing its own form of social polity upon every part\nof the three kingdoms, as each part fell successively under\nEnglish dominion. It was necessary, as Sir John Davies,\nAttorney-General for Ireland under James the First, declares, to\nabolish what he calls the \"scambling possession\" which Irish\nchiefs and clansmen had in their lands, and compel them to hold\nthose lands by \"English tenure;\" in other words, that the chiefs\nshould become _landlords_ or proprietors of those districts\nwhich had formed the tribe-lands of their clans, and that their\nclansmen should become tenants subject to _rent_, which, in\nthe seventeenth century, had grown to be a commutation for all\nfeudal services. In short, the problem to be solved was to force\nin the already corrupt and oppressive feudal polity (which had\nlong lost its true uses and significance) upon the free system of\nclanship, the ancient and natural social arrangement of the Irish\nand Scottish Ga\u00ebl. Neither did that plan, of obliging chiefs to\nbecome noblemen--and therefore both vassals and\nlandlords--originate with Elizabeth and James, nor with Sir John\nDavies. King Henry the Eighth, a century earlier, offered to Con\nO'Neill, the chief of that day, the dignity of earl, which Con\naccepted as a delicate attention from a foreign monarch, but took\ncare to be a chief in Tyrone--no vassals, no tenants, no \"English\ntenure\" _there_. The O'Brien of Thomond, however, upon that\nearlier occasion, did lay down at King Henry's feet his dignity\nof Chief _Dalcais_, and arose Earl of Thomond; his son was\nmade Baron of Inchiquin; and the MacGilla Phadruig consented to\nbecome \"Fitzpatrick\" and Baron of Upper Ossory. For their\ncompliance, they were rewarded with the spoils of the suppressed\nmonasteries of their respective countries--places which their own\nfathers had founded and endowed for pious uses.\n\nThe process in Scotland was nearly analogous, after the accession\nof James to the throne of England. The Mac Callum More (Campbell)\nwas created Duke of Argyll, and invited to consider himself\nproprietor of all Argyllshire--by English tenure--and landlord\nof all the Campbells. Mac Kenzie was dubbed Earl of Cromarty on\nthe same terms; and so with the rest: but at home those Highland\nnobles were never regarded as anything but chiefs; and it was\nonly by very slow degrees, and not perfectly until after 1745,\nthat the old clan spirit and usages disappeared. Thus, in forcing\nconformity with English land-laws, and gradually bringing the\nsoil of the two islands into immediate dependence upon the\nEnglish sovereign, every step in advance is marked by some chief\nsubmitting to be made earl or baron, and reducing his free\nkinsmen to serfdom.\n{13}\nThose peerages, accordingly, are monuments of subjugation and\nbadges of dishonor. Hugh O'Neill certainly did not value his\ntitle, flung it from him with impatience, quitted earldom and\ncountry to get rid of it, and protested against it on his\ntombstone. For these reasons, many readers of Fr. Meehan's book\nwill wish that the author had given to his heroes the titles by\nwhich they themselves desired to be remembered.\n\nHaving thus vented our only censure, upon a matter rather\ntechnical and formal, the more agreeable task remains, of making\nour readers acquainted with all the merits and perfections of\nthis charming book. Fr. Meehan does not undertake to narrate the\nearlier life and long and bloody wars against the best generals\nof England, but takes up the story where the chief was\ndesperately maintaining himself, and still keeping his Red Hand\naloft in the woody fastness of Glanconkeine, on the side of\nSlieve Gallen, and by the banks of Moyola water, awaiting the\nreturn from Spain of his brother-chief, Hugh Roe O'Donnell, with\nthe promised succors from King Philip. But in those very same\ndays, that famous Hugh Roe had lain down to die in Spain, and\nsuccor came none to the sorely pressed Prince of Ulster. His\ngreat enemy, Elizabeth, too, was on her death-bed, almost ready\nto breathe her last curse. But in her agonies she by no means\nforgot O'Neill. Father Meehan says:\n\n  \"It is a curious and perhaps suggestive fact, that Queen\n  Elizabeth, while gasping on her cushions at Richmond, and\n  tortured by remembrances of her latest victim, Essex, often\n  directed her thoughts to that Ulster fastness, where her great\n  rebel, Tyrone, was still defying her, and disputing her title\n  to supremacy on Irish soil. But of this, however, there can be\n  no doubt; for in February, while she was gazing on the haggard\n  features of death, and vainly striving to penetrate the opaque\n  void of the future, she commanded Secretary Cecil to charge\n  Mountjoy to entrap Tyrone into a submission on diminished\n  title, such as Baron of Dungannon, and with lessened territory,\n  or, if possible, to have his head before engaging the royal\n  word. It was to accomplish any of these objects that Mountjoy\n  marched to the frontier of the north; but finding it impossible\n  to procure the assassination of 'the sacred person of O'Neill,\n  who had so many eyes of jealousy about him,' he wrote to Cecil,\n  from Drogheda, that nothing prevented Tyrone from making his\n  submission but mistrust of his personal safety, and guarantee\n  for maintenance commensurate to his princely rank. The granting\n  of these conditions, Mountjoy concluded, would bring about the\n  pacification of Ireland, and Tyrone, being converted into a\n  good subject, would rid her majesty of the apprehension of\n  another Spanish landing on the Irish shore. It is possible that\n  this proposed solution of the Irish difficulty may have reached\n  Richmond at a moment when Elizabeth was more intent on the\n  talisman sent her by the old Welsh woman, or the arcane virtues\n  of the card fastened to the seat of her chair, than on matters\n  of statecraft; but be that as it may, the lords of her privy\n  council empowered Mountjoy to treat with Tyrone, and bring\n  about his submission with the least possible delay.\"\n\nThe author next carries us through the imposing scene of the\nchief's submission and surrender at Mellifont Abbey, and gives a\nvivid account of that illustrious religious house, and the lovely\nvale of the Mattock in which it stands; of his gloomy resignation\nto his hated earldom; of the organization of Ulster into shires\nor counties, (never before heard of in those parts;) of the new\n\"earl's\" journey to London, along with Rory O'Donnell, the other\n\"earl,\" and Lord Mountjoy, with a guard of horse:\n\n  \"Nor was this precaution unnecessary; for whenever the latter\n  was recognized, in city or hamlet, the populace,\n  notwithstanding their respect for Mountjoy, the hero of the\n  hour, could not be restrained from stoning Tyrone, and flinging\n  bitter insults at him. Indeed, throughout the whole journey,\n  the Welsh and English women were unsparing of their invectives\n  against the Irish chief. Nor are we to wonder at this; for\n  there was not one among them but could name some friend or\n  kinsman whose bones lay buried far away in some wild pass or\n  glen of Ulster, where the object of their maledictions was more\n  often victor than vanquished.\"\n\n{14}\n\nThe new king, James the First, was very desirous to see O'Neill,\nwho had, after his victory at the Yellow Ford, sent an ambassador\nto James at Holyrood, offering, if supplied with some money and\nmunitions, to march upon Dublin, and proclaim _him_ King of\nIreland; but the Scottish king had been too timid to close with\nthis offer. One may imagine with what mingled feelings O'Neill\nonce more revisited that London, and Greenwich Palace, where in\nhis younger days he had been a favored courtier, had talked on\naffairs of state with Burleigh, and disported himself with Sir\nChristopher Hatton, \"the dancing chancellor.\" The author\ndescribes his reception at court:\n\n  \"Nothing, indeed, could have been more gracious than the\n  reception which the king gave those distinguished Irishmen; and\n  so marked was the royal courtesy to both, that it stirred the\n  bile of Sir John Harington, who speaks of it thus: 'I have\n  lived to see that damnable rebel, Tyrone, brought to England\n  honored and well-liked. 'Oh! what is there that does not prove\n  the inconstancy of worldly matters? How I did labor after that\n  knave's destruction! I adventured perils by sea and land, was\n  near starving, eat horse-flesh in Munster, and all to quell\n  that man, who now smileth in peace at those who did hazard\n  their lives to destroy him. And now doth Tyrone dare us, old\n  commanders, with his presence and protection!'\"\n\nReturning to Ireland, \"restored in blood,\" O'Neill lived as he\nbest could, in his new and strange character of an earl, infested\nby spies upon all his movements. \"Notice is taken,\" says\nAttorney-General Davies, \"of every person that is able to do\neither good or hurt. It is known not only how they live and what\nthey do, but it is foreseen what they purpose or intend to do;\ninsomuch, as Tyrone has been heard to complain that he had so\nmany eyes over him, that he could not drink a full carouse of\nsack, but the state was advertised thereof a few hours\nthereafter.\" [Footnote 15]\n\n    [Footnote 15: Sir John Davies's Historical Tracts.]\n\nThe author has taken great pains to ascertain the real nature of\nthose dark intrigues against O'Neill and O'Donnell, which\nresulted four or five years after in the timely escape of those\ntwo \"earls\" from the toils of their enemies--the only measure\nthat could save them from the fate of Sir William Wallace and of\nShane O'Neill. O'Neill found himself embroiled in endless\nlaw-suits; with Montgomery, Bishop of Derry; with Usher,\nArchbishop of Armagh, who each claimed a large slice of his\nestates; with the traitor O'Cahan, his own former Uriaght, or\nsub-chief, who entered into the conspiracy against him, seduced\nby the promises of Montgomery and the Lord-Deputy Chichester. The\ntruth was, that the \"undertaking\" English of the north coveted\nhis wide domains, and could not comprehend how a rebellious\nO'Neill could possibly be allowed to possess broad lands in fee,\nwhich they wanted for themselves. Fr. Meehan has cast more light\nupon these wicked machinations than any previous writer had the\nmeans and authorities for; and it now appears plain that the\nchief agent of these base plots was Christopher St. Laurence, the\ntwenty-second baron of Howth, and one of the ancestors of the\nnoble house of that title, now gloriously flourishing amongst the\nIrish nobility.\n{15}\nFr. Meehan's researches have brought home to this noble caitiff\nthe famous anonymous letter dropped in the Castle-Yard of Dublin,\nand also a detailed deposition, shamelessly setting forth his own\nlong-continued espionage, and on the faith of conversations with\nseveral persons, charging Tyrone, Lord Mountgarrett, Sir Theobald\nBurke, and others, with a plot to bring in the Spaniards, and to\ntake by surprise the Castle of Dublin. O'Neill knew nothing, at\nthe time, of the conspiracy against him; but had a very shrewd\nsuspicion that the Lord-Deputy Chichester and the northern\nAnglican bishops were resolved to have his blood, in order to get\nhis estate confiscated. One of the McGuires, who was himself in\ndanger from these machinations, escaped to the continent. The\nauthor says:\n\n  \"Meanwhile, Cuconnaught Maguire, growing weary of his\n  impoverished condition, and longing to be rid of vexations he\n  could no longer bear, contrived, about the middle of May, 1607,\n  to make his escape from one of the northern ports to Ostend,\n  whence he lost no time in proceeding to Brussels, where Lord\n  Henry O'Neill was then quartered with his Irish regiment. The\n  latter presented him at the court of the archdukes, who\n  received him kindly, and evinced deep sympathy for their Irish\n  coreligionists, and especially the northern earls, with whose\n  wrongs they were thoroughly conversant, through Florence Conry,\n  fathers Cusack and Stanihurst. Father Conry, it would appear,\n  informed Maguire that King James would certainly arrest Tyrone,\n  if he went to London; and Maguire, on hearing this, despatched\n  a trusty messenger to the earls to put them on their guard, and\n  then set about providing means for carrying them off the Irish\n  shores. The influence of Lord Henry with the archdukes procured\n  him a donation of 7000 crowns, [Footnote 16] with which he\n  purchased, at Rouen, a vessel of fourscore tons, mounting\n  sixteen cast pieces of ordnance, manned by marines in disguise,\n  and freighted with a cargo of salt. From Rouen the vessel\n  proceeded to Dunkirk, under command of one John Bath, a\n  merchant of Drogheda, and lay there, waiting instructions from\n  Ireland.\"\n\n    [Footnote 16: The archdukes were greatly indebted to O'Neill,\n    who gave ample employment to the queen's troops in Ireland\n    during the war in the Netherlands, and thus prevented the\n    English from aiding, as they wished, the revolted provinces.]\n\nThis Bath, on his arrival in Ireland, at once sought both O'Neill\nand O'Donnell, and informed them, on sure information procured by\nLord Henry O'Neill, Hugh's son, that they would both be certainly\narrested, and at the same time placed at their service McGuire's\nship, which he commanded. It needed great tact and coolness on\nthe part of O'Neill to conceal from the Lord-Deputy his intention\nof departure. But at last--\n\n  \"At midnight, on that ever-memorable 14th of September, 1607,\n  they spread all sail, and made for the open sea, intending,\n  however, to land on the island of Aran, off the coast of\n  Donegal, to provide themselves with more water and fuel.\n\n  \"Those who were now sailing away from their ancient patrimonies\n  were, Hugh, Earl of Tyrone, with his countess, Catharina, and\n  their three sons, Hugh, John, and Bernard. With them also went\n  Art Oge, 'young Arthur,' son of Cormac, Tyrone's brother;\n  Fadorcha, son of Con, the earl's nephew; Hugh Oge, son of\n  Brian, brother of Tyrone, and many more of their faithful\n  clansmen. Those accompanying Earl Rory were Cathbar, or Caffar,\n  his brother; Nuala, his sister, wife of the traitor, Nial\n  Garve; Hugh, the earl's son, wanting three weeks of being one\n  year old; Rosa, daughter of Sir John O'Doherty, sister of Sir\n  Cahir, and wife of Cathbar, with her son, Hugh, aged two years\n  and three months; the son of his brother, Donel Oge; Naghtan,\n  son of Calvagh, or Charles O'Donel, with many others of their\n  trusted friends and followers. 'A distinguished crew,' observe\n  the four masters, 'was this for one ship; for it is certain\n  that the sea never carried, and that the winds never wafted,\n  from the Irish shores, individuals more illustrious or noble in\n  genealogy, or more renowned for deeds of valor, prowess, and\n  high achievements.' Ah! with what tearful eyes and torn hearts\n  did they gaze on the fast receding shores, from which they were\n  forced to fly for the sake of all they held dearest! 'The\n  entire number of souls on board this small vessel,' says\n  O'Keenan, in his narrative, 'was ninety-nine, having little\n  sea-store, and being otherwise miserably accommodated.' It was,\n  indeed, the first great exodus of the Irish nobles and gentry,\n  to be followed, alas! by many another, caused, in great\n  measure, by a similar system of cruel and exceptional\n  legislation.\"\n\n{16}\n\nThere is a most interesting account of their stormy voyage in\nthat small vessel; but after much hardship and danger, they made\nthe port of Havre, and went up the River Seine to the ancient\ncity of Rouen. The English ambassador at the court of Henry the\nFourth of France, had the assurance to demand of the French\ngovernment to arrest the refugees, but received a short answer:\n\"Writing to Lord Shrewsbury, October 12th, 1607, Salisbury\nalludes to O'Neill's voyage thus: 'He was shrewdly tossed at sea,\nand met contrary winds for Spain. The English ambassador wishing\nHenry to stay them, had for his answer, _France is free_.'\"\n(P. 123.)\n\nFrom Normandy the party proceeded to Flanders, where they were\nreceived by the archdukes with the highest distinction ever shown\nto sovereign princes and their _suite_. At Brussels O'Neill\nmet his son, the Lord Henry, then commanding a regiment of Irish\nfor the archdukes, and also another young O'Neill, destined to do\ngreat things in his generation, namely, Hugh's nephew, Owen Roe.\nOur author thus introduces him:\n\n  \"Even at the risk of interrupting O'Keenan's narrative, we may\n  observe that none of these Irish exiles could have foreseen\n  that a little boy, with auburn ringlets, then in their company,\n  would one day win renown by defending that same city of Arras\n  against two of the ablest marshals of France. Nevertheless,\n  such was the case; for, thirty-three years afterward, Owen Roe\n  O'Neill, son of Art, and nephew to the Earl of Tyrone, with his\n  regiment of Irish, maintained the place against Chatillon and\n  Meillarie, till he had to make a most honorable capitulation.\"\n  [Footnote 17]\n\n    [Footnote 17: August, 1640. See Hericourt's Sieges d'Arras.]\n\nAnd the same Owen Roe, still later, in the Irish wars of King\nCharles's day, fought and won the bloody battle of Benburb\nagainst the Scottish Presbyterian army, and trampled their blue\nbanner on the banks of that same Blackwater which had seen the\nglorious victories of the Red Hand. From Brussels the fugitives\nhad an intention of proceeding to Spain, but were diverted from\nthat purpose by the archdukes, and they finally set out for Rome.\nThe narrative of their journey across the Alps is exceedingly\ninteresting; and on their arrival at Milan, they were welcomed\nwith high honors by the Spanish governor, the Conde de Fuentes,\nand by the nobility of the province; but it need hardly be said\nthat, in all their movements, they were closely watched by\nBritish spies; and every attention shown to them was the subject\nof violent remonstrance on the part of English ambassadors.\nFather Meehan gives us the letter of Lord Cornwallis, then\nambassador at Madrid, to the lords of the privy council,\nexpressing his loyal disgust at the splendid hospitalities of the\nGovernor of Milan:\n\n  \"'_To the lords of the privy council_.\n\n  \"'Having lately gathered, amongst the Irish here, that the\n  fugitive earls have been in Milan, and _there much\n  feasted_ by the Conde _de Fuentes_, I expostulated it\n  with the secretary of state, who answered that they had not yet\n  had any understanding of their being there; that the Conde de\n  Fuentes was not a man disposed to such largess as to entertain\n  strangers in any costly manner at his own charge; and that sure\n  he was he could not expect any allowance from hence where there\n  was intended no _receipt, countenance,_ or _comfort_\n  to any of that condition. I sent sithence by Cottington, my\n  secretary, concerning one _Mack Ogg_, lately come hither,\n  as I have been advised, to solicit for these people; which was,\n  that as I hoped they would have no participation with the\n  principals, whose crimes had now been made so notorious in\n  their own countries, being both, upon public trial, condemned,\n  and he of _Tyrone_, as I heard, _of thirteen several\n  murders_; so I likewise assured myself that, in their own\n  wisdoms, they would not hold it fit his majesty here should\n  give harbor or ear to any of their ministers, and especially to\n  that of Mack Ogg, who could not be supposed but to have had a\n  hand in their traitorous purposes; _having been the man and\n  the means, in person,_ to withdraw them by sea out of their\n  own countries, in such undutiful and suspicious manner. That\n  myself was, in a matter of that nature, solicitous only in\n  regard of my own earnest desire that nothing might escape this\n  state whereby their intentions might be held different from\n  their professions. That for these fugitives, being now out of\n  their retreats, _weak in purse_, and _people condemned\n  and contemned_ by those of their own nation, and such as\n  could not but daily expect the heavy hand of God's justice for\n  their so many unnatural and detestable crimes, both of late and\n  heretofore committed, for _my own particular I made no more\n  account of them than of so many fleas_; neither did the\n  king, my master, otherwise esteem them than as men reprobated\n  both of God and the world, for their _fa??norous actions_\n  toward others, and inexcusable ingratitude to himself.\"\n\n    [Transcriber's Note: The word \"fa??norous\" is illegible.]\n\n{17}\n\nThe author gives a minute and graphic narrative of the journey of\nthe \"earls\" through Italy, and their entrance into the Eternal\nCity, where they were affectionately received by Pope Paul V.,\nwho assigned them a palace for their dwelling:\n\n  \"The time at which the Irish princes entered Rome was one of\n  more than usual festivity; for, on the Thursday preceding\n  Trinity Sunday, the pope solemnly canonized Sa Francesca\n  Romana, in the basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican. Rome was\n  then crowded by distinguished strangers from all parts of the\n  known world, each vieing with the other to secure fitting\n  places to witness the grand ceremonial. But of them all, none\n  were so honored as O'Neill, O'Donel, their ladies and\n  followers; for the pope gave orders that tribunes, especially\n  reserved for them, should be erected right under the dome.\n  This, indeed, was a signal mark of his Holiness's respect for\n  his guests, greater than which he could not exhibit. Among the\n  spectators were many English; and we can readily conceive how\n  much they were piqued at seeing O'Neill [Footnote 18] and the\n  earl thus honored by the supreme head of the church.\"\n\n    [Footnote 18: Throughout his narrative, O'Keenan styles\n    O'Neill according to his Gaelic title, and calls O'Donel\n    _the earl_. O'Keenan was not sufficiently anglicized in\n    accent or otherwise to respect the law which forbade the\n    assumption of the old Irish designation peculiar to the\n    Prince of Tyrone.]\n\nAnd now began the long series of negotiations with the King of\nSpain and the other Catholic powers, which were to enable the\n\"earls\" to make a descent upon Ireland, reconquer their heritage,\nand liberate their unfortunate people from the bondage and\noppression they were now enduring at the hands of King James's\n\"undertaking\" planters. O'Neill had written a formal diplomatic\nletter to King James, recounting the various plots and treasons\nwhich had been practised against him by His Majesty's servants in\nIreland, demanding back his ancient inheritance, and announcing\nthat, in default of compliance, he would hold himself at liberty\nto go back to Ireland, with a sufficient force to free his\ncountry. This _ultimatum_ took no effect. The pope and the\nKing of Spain, though they treated him with high respect, and\nawarded him a handsome pension, were slow to give the material\naid that was needed; and in the year 1608, his comrade Rory\n(Rudraigh): O'Donnell, called Earl of Tyrconnell, died. Says\nFather Meehan:\n\n  \"During his illness he was piously tended by Rosa, daughter of\n  O'Dogherty, his brother's wife, the Princess O'Neill, and\n  Florence Conry, who had performed the same kind offices for\n  Hugh Roe O'Donel in Simancas. On the 27th July, 1608, he\n  received the last sacraments, and on the morning following\n  surrendered his soul to God. 'Sorrowful it was,' say the\n  Donegal, annalists, 'to contemplate his early eclipse, for he\n  was a generous and hospitable lord, to whom the patrimony of\n  his ancestors seemed nothing for his feasting and spending.'\"\n\nSoon after died O'Neill's son Hugh, whom the English called Baron\nof Dungannon. O'Donnell's brother Caffar (Cathbar) died about the\nsame time, and the old chieftain was now left nearly alone to\ncarry on his almost hopeless negotiations.\n{18}\nThe Irish exiles in Spain, when they heard of the death of the\ntwo O'Donnells and young O'Neill, wore mourning publicly, to the\nutter disgust of Lord Cornwallis, the English ambassador. He\nremonstrated with the King of Spain against suffering so indecent\nan exhibition, but received no satisfaction in that quarter; and\nhe wrote thereon, says Father Meehan:\n\n  \"'The agent of the Irish fugitives in this city has presumed to\n  walk its streets, followed by two pages, and four others of his\n  countrymen, in black weeds--a sign that they are no unwelcome\n  guests here.' This was bad enough; but the news he supplied in\n  another letter was still worse, for he says: 'The Spanish court\n  had become the staple of the fugitive ware, since it allows\n  Tyrone a pension of six hundred crowns a month; Tyrconnel's\n  brother's widow, one of two hundred crowns a month; and his\n  brother's wife, one of the same sum.'\"\n\nIf the British government could only have got hold of those\nmourners in their \"black weeds,\" within its own jurisdiction,\nthey would undoubtedly have been prosecuted and punished, like\nthe men who lately attended a funeral in Dublin. Nothing can be\nmore provoking to a government, sometimes, than public mourning\nfor its victims. Indeed, the Russian authorities in Warsaw have\nbeen several times so exasperated by the sight of the citizens\nall clothed in black, mourning for a crowd of innocent people,\ncut down and ridden over by the cavalry in the streets, as to\nfeel compelled to issue instructions to the police to drag every\nvestige of black apparel from every man, and every woman, and\nchild in the public thoroughfares, and to close up every shop or\nstore which should dare to keep any black fabric for sale. But in\ncases where this kind of provocation is perpetrated in some\nforeign country, and under the protection of its laws, then your\ninsulted government must only bear the affront as it best can.\n\nThe author next proceeds, with the aid of letters in the State\nPaper Office, to narrate the various projects and speculations of\nO'Neill and his friends, with a view to the invasion of their\nnative country; with all which projects and speculations the\nBritish government was made fully acquainted by means of its\nspies and diplomatic agents. England and Spain were just then at\npeace, and one main hope of the exiles was that a breach might\ntake place between them. Our author says:\n\n  \"Withal, it would appear that England had not then a very firm\n  reliance on the good faith of Spain. Indeed, Turnbull's\n  despatches show this to have been the case; and as for O'Neill,\n  there is every reason to suppose that he calculated on some\n  such lucky rupture, and that Philip would then have an\n  opportunity of retrieving the disaster of Kinsale, by sending a\n  flotilla to the coast of Ulster, where the native population\n  would rally to the standard of their attainted chieftain, and\n  drive the new settlers back to England or Scotland--anywhere\n  from off the face of his ancient patrimony. Yielding to these\n  apprehensions, James instructed his minister at the court of\n  the archdukes to redouble his vigilance, and make frequent\n  reports of the movements of the Irish troops in their\n  Highnesses' pay, and, above all, to certify to him the names of\n  the Irish officers on whom the court of Spain bestowed special\n  marks of its consideration. In fact, from the middle of 1614\n  till the close of the following year, Turnbull's correspondence\n  is wholly devoted to these points, so much so, that the English\n  cabinet had not only intelligence of Tyrone's designs, but\n  ample information concerning all those who were suspected of\n  countenancing them. Nothing could surpass the minister's\n  susceptibility on this subject; for if we were to believe\n  himself, no Catholic functionary visited the court of Brussels\n  without impressing on their Highnesses the expediency, as well\n  as duty, of aiding the banished earl and his coreligionists in\n  Ireland.\"\n\n{19}\n\nAt last, in January, 1615, O'Neill resolved to undertake the\nenterprise himself, some Catholic noblemen in Italy and Belgium\nengaging to furnish him with funds. He was to quit Rome by a\ncertain day; but, like all his other projects, this was speedily\ncommunicated to Trumbull, who lost no time in making it known to\nthe English cabinet. He did not leave Rome as he intended; but\ntwo months later:\n\n  \"The Belgian agent sent another dispatch to the king, informing\n  him 'that O'Neill hath sent from Rome two of his instruments\n  into Ireland, called Crone and Conor, with order to stir up\n  factions and seditions in that kingdom, where, in Waterford\n  alone, there are no less than thirty-six Jesuits.'\"\n\nNext we find the same vigilant English minister apprising his\ngovernment that O'Neill was about \"to have some of his countrymen\nemployed at sea in ships of war, _as pirates_, with\ncommission to take all vessels,\" etc. In truth, it was for\nEngland a genuine \"Fenian\" alarm, this constantly menacing\nattitude of the veteran warrior of the Blackwater; a \"Fenian\"\nalarm, alas! of two hundred and fifty years ago. And how many\nthere have been since! There was also the same eager impatience\nfor action, the same maddening thought that the work must be done\nat once or Ireland was lost for ever. A certain physician, who\nattended O'Neill in this year, 1615, writes to a friend in\nLondon, giving him, as a sample of his patient's conversation and\nmanner, the following anecdote:\n\n  \"Though a man would think that he is an old man by sight--no,\n  he is lusty and strong, and well able to travel; for a month\n  ago, at evening, when his frere [Footnote 19] and his gentlemen\n  were all with him, they were talking of England and Ireland,\n  and he drew out his sword. 'His majesty,' said he, 'thinks that\n  I am not strong. I would he that hates me most in England were\n  with me to see whether I am strong or no.' Those that were by\n  said, 'We would we were with forty thousand pounds of money in\n  Ireland, to see what we should do.' Whereon Tyrone remarked,\n  'If I be not in Ireland within these two years, _I will never\n  desire more to look for it._'\"\n\n    [Footnote 19: F. Chamberlaine, O.S.F.]\n\nSo thought Sarsfield when he fled with the \"Wild-geese\" almost a\ncentury later--if they could not return with a reenforcement of\nFrench within one year, within two years, there was an end of\nIreland. So thought Wolfe Tone, after still another century, as\nhe was gnawing his own heart in Paris at the fatal delay, and\ncrying, \"Hell! hell! If _that_ expedition did not sail at\nthat moment, Ireland was subdued and lost for ever and ever.\" It\nis natural that the eager spirits of each generation of Irishmen\nshould be in haste to see the great work done in their own day.\nBut divine Providence is in no haste, and will not be hurried.\nBeyond all doubt, there is a destiny and a work in store for this\nIrish race, so wonderfully preserved through sore trials, and in\nspite of repeated persistent efforts to extirpate it utterly. It\nhas a strong hold upon life, and a potent individual character.\nIt will neither perish from the face of the earth nor forget a\nsingle tradition or aspiration, nor part with its ancient\nreligious faith. It not only does not _attorn_ to the\ndominant English sentiment and character, but seems, on the\ncontrary, to become more antagonistic, and to cherish that\nantagonism.\n\nAnd it is very notable that this desperate mutual repulsion\nbetween England and Ireland does not date from the \"Reformation,\"\nnor does it altogether depend upon religious differences. It is\ntrue that the acceptance of the new religion by England and its\nrejection by the Irish furnished the former with a new pretext\nand a convenient machinery for oppression and plunder. But two\ncenturies before this, Hugh O'Neill's time--and when the English\nwere as Catholic as the Irish--we find his ancestor, Donal\nO'Neill, in his famous letter to Pope John XXII., describing the\nrelations of the two races in language which is still appropriate\nat this day: \"All hope of peace between us is completely\ndestroyed; for such is their pride, such is their excessive lust\nof dominion, such our ardent desire to shake off this\ninsupportable yoke, and recover the inheritance which they have\nso unjustly usurped, that as there never was, so there never will\nbe, any sincere coalition between them and us; nor is it possible\nthere should in this life; for we entertain a certain natural\nenmity against each other, flowing from mutual malignity,\ndescending by inheritance from father to son, and spreading from\ngeneration to generation.\"\n\n{20}\n\nThe aged Prince of Ulster never saw his native land again. In the\nfollowing year, 1616, he became blind and, some weeks after,\nhaving received the last rites of the church, he died at the\nSalviati palace at Rome.\n\nHis history from first to last is a striking and remarkable one.\nIn the \"religious\" wars of the period, he was a conspicuous\nfigure; and Henry the Fourth of France called him the third\nsoldier of his age--he, Henry, being the first. But English\nhistorians of the past and present century have made it a rule to\nsay nothing of him and of his great battles. They seem to desire\nthat the name of the Yellow Ford should be blotted out of\nhistory. But once upon a time O'Neill occupied some attention in\nEngland. Spenser and Bacon wrote anxious treatises to suggest the\nbest method of crushing him. Shakespeare delighted his audience\nat the \"Globe\" theatre by triumphant anticipations of the return\nof Lord Essex after destroying the abhorred O'Neill--\n\n  \"Were now the general of our gracious empress (As, in good\n  time, he may) from Ireland coming, Bringing rebellion broached\n  on his sword. How many would the peaceful city quit. To welcome\n  him?\"\n\nCamden, in his _Queen Elizabeth_, has given to the Irish war\nat least its due rank in the events of the time; and Fynes\nMoryson tells us that \"the general voyce was of Tyrone amongst\nthe English after the defeat of Blackwater, as of Hannibal among\nthe Romans after the defeat of Cannae.\" Mr. Hume, though he tells\nus nothing of O'Neill's splendid victories over the English, yet\nincidentally mentions that \"in the year 1599 the queen spent six\nhundred thousand pounds in six months in the service of Ireland;\nand Sir Robert Cecil affirmed that in ten years Ireland cost her\nthree million four hundred thousand pounds,\" which would be about\nsixty millions of pounds sterling in money of the present day. So\nwell, however, has the memory of all this been suppressed, that\neven an educated Englishman at this time, if you mentioned to him\nthe great battle of the Yellow Ford would not at all understand\nto what event you were alluding; so that one is not at all\nastonished to find that Mr. Motley, in his voluminous book\nexpressly devoted to the religious wars of Europe in those days,\nand especially the reign of Elizabeth, not only ignores that\ntransaction altogether, but does not so much as know O'Neill's\nname. When he does once undertake to name him, he calls him not\nHugh O'Neill, but \"Shanes MacNeil.\" (_History of United\nNetherlands_, vol. iv. p. 94.)\n\n{21}\n\nThe Irish, however, still cherish his name and keep his memory\ngreen. The peasantry yet tell that strange legend of a troop of\nthe great chiefs lancers all lying in tranced sleep in a cave\nunder the royal hill of Aileagh, each holding his horse's bridle\nin his hand, and waiting for the spell to be removed that will\nset them free to strike a blow for their country; and when a man\nonce penetrated into the cave, and saw the sleepers in their\nancient mail, one of them lifted his head and asked. _Is the\ntime come?_ To the educated and reflective Irish, also, that\ncardinal epoch of Irish history, in which O'Neill was the chief\nfigure, has of late become a subject of more zealous study than\nit ever was before; and these will heartily thank the\naccomplished author of the present work for the clear light he\nhas thrown upon one strange and painful episode in his country's\nannals.\n\n\n--------\n\n         The Cross.\n\n\nIn all ages, and among all nations, important events have been\ncommemorated and transmitted to future generations by significant\nsymbols. These mute symbols have served to represent the great\nleading ideas and characteristics of nations, communities,\nsocieties, and schools of religion, philosophy, morals, and\npolitics. Entire histories have been treasured up for ages in\nthese simple and inanimate emblems. In thousands of instances\nthey have served to call to mind the stirring events of a\ngeneration, the glories of a great nation, epochs in human\nprogress, or the rise and fall of false religions, false\nphilosophies, and false systems of all descriptions. Each symbol\ncomprises a language and a history of its own, which can be\ncomprehended at a glance by the most ignorant of those whom it\naddresses. As the ideas which they represent pertain, for the\nmost part, to affairs of the highest magnitude, they have always\nbeen regarded with respect and veneration.\n\nWhen the legions of the Caesars were achieving the conquest of a\nworld, their emblem of nationality and glory, and their\ninspiration in battle, was the Roman flag emblazoned with the\nRoman eagles. In the midst of the fiercest contests, a simple\nglance at the national symbol would fire the heart of the soldier\nwith patrotic ardor, and often turn the tide of battle in his\nfavor. As he looked upon his flag, the Roman soldier beheld the\ngreatness and glory of his country, with himself as a constituent\nelement of all this greatness, and his heart and hand were nerved\nwith Herculean strength to meet the foe. In the eagles which\nfloated amid the din of battle, he read the history of the\nempire, with her conquests, her riches, her power, her grandeur,\nand her Caesar; and he cheerfully gave his life for the ideas\nthus evoked.\n\nThe Saracen, as he marched out to battle, beheld the crescent of\nhis prophet, and was willing to die for his cause. As the\ncrescent waves before him, his imagination pictures the prophet\nbeckoning him on to battle, to conquest, to proselytism, and to\nthe sensual joys of paradise, and his courage rises, his blood\nboils, and his cimeter leaps from its scabbard. No danger, no\nfatigue, no privation daunts or deters him so long as he beholds\nthe emblem of his religion and his race. He loves and venerates\nthe silent symbol for the associations it calls to mind.\n\n{22}\n\nNapoleon I., with his battalions, traversed the continent of\nEurope, dictating terms to kings and emperors; and finally\nmarshalled his victorious forces around the pyramids of Egypt.\nDuring this triumphal march, his most potent auxiliaries were the\neagles of France draped in their tri-colored plumage. At the\nbridge of Lodi, when the French hosts shrank back appalled from\nthe carnage caused by the terrific fire of the Austrian, Napoleon\nraised aloft the emblem of France before the eyes of his\npanic-stricken veterans. In an instant every heart was nerved,\nand amidst storms of balls and the shrieks of the wounded and\ndying, the bridge was carried and the day was won. The eagles of\nthe first Caesars seemed to have alighted upon the tri-colored\nflags of the modern Caesar. Whether in the midst of the deadly\nsnows of Russia, or of the burning sands of Egypt, or of the\ntowering summits of the Alps, the great talisman which led the\nway and gave inspiration to the soldier, was the national symbol.\nIt spoke to them of home, of kindred, friends, and of the glory\nof France; and they were willing to risk all for the ideas thus\ninspired.\n\nHow often has the tide of battle been turned in favor of England,\nboth on land and sea, by raising the symbol of England, and the\nwar-cry of St. George and the Dragon, in the thickest of the\nfight! How often, in the midst of battle and slaughter, has the\ndrooping spirit of the Celt been roused to fierce enthusiasm and\ndetermination by a sight of his loved national emblem, the\nshamrock!\n\nWhat true American can regard his own national symbol without\nemotion, love, and veneration! Whether he beholds it unfurled\nupon the battle-field, upon the ocean, or in a foreign land, he\nreads in every star and every stripe a history of his native\nland--of her struggles, her glories, and her future destiny.\nUnder its shadow the soldier is a braver man, the statesman a\nbetter patriot, the citizen a truer loyalist, and the American\ntraveller in foreign lands more proud of his nationality.\n\nWe might cite instances _ad infinitum_; but we have adduced\na sufficient number for illustration. What is the signification\nand the utility of these symbols? At the birth of nations, it has\nalways been the custom to devise some common symbol around which\nthe people could rally as a type of nationality. On all important\noccasions, both in peace and in war, this common emblem is always\nin the midst of the people, to remind them of the past, to\ninspire them in the present, and to render them hopeful in the\nfuture. It is associated with all their public events, their\nvictories, their defeats, their joys, their sorrows, their\nglories, their progress, their power and greatness. Is it, then,\nstrange that it should be regarded with love, respect, and\nveneration? Is it strange that a sight of their mute talisman in\nthe midst of battle should stir the soul of the soldier to its\nvery depths, or that the heart of the patriot should swell with\nemotion and stern resolve when the honor or welfare of his\ncountry is in danger, or that the citizen should have a higher\nappreciation of the dignity and destiny of man, or that the\nindividual should always associate it with his love of country,\nhis pride of the past, his aspirations of the present, his hopes\nof the future, in a word, with his nationality?\n{23}\nThe man who has no love of father-land in his soul, who does not\nlove and respect the emblem of his country's glory, is fit only\nfor stratagems, conspiracies, and bloody tumults and disorders.\nSuch a man can only be regarded as an enemy of his race; and will\nbe frowned upon by the wise, the good, and the humane.\n\nThe emblems we have thus far alluded to refer to the worldly\naffairs of men, to matters of state, of government, and national\nprosperity. We now propose to refer briefly to the highest of all\nsymbols--the symbol of symbols--the emblem of emblems--to one\nwhich relates to the temporal and eternal welfare of the entire\nhuman race, the holy cross. What is its signification and\nutility? What associations does it call to mind? It tells us of\nthe Incarnate God sent to earth to give mankind a new law, to set\nthem an example of a perfect life, to teach them those higher\nvirtues and graces which fit them for happiness here and\nhereafter, and then to suffer and to die an ignominious death to\natone for the sins of man. It calls up all the dread\ncircumstances connected with the last days of our blessed Saviour\nwhen on earth. It brings to mind his betrayal by Judas, his\narraignment before Pontius Pilate, his condemnation, his march to\nthe place of execution with the cross upon his blessed shoulders,\namidst the insults, the scoffs, the scourgings, the crowning with\nthorns, and other indignities of a Jewish and pagan rabble. It\npresents before us his ascent to the scaffold, his bloody\ntransfixion between two thieves, his dreadful agony, his bloody\nsweat, his wounds, his slow and agonizing death. For whom, and\nfor what, has the omnipotent Redeemer suffered these ignominies,\nthese agonies, this cruel death? For all mankind, as an atonement\nof their sins. With his almighty power he could have summoned\naround him legions of destroying angels, who could have crushed\nto powder his persecutors; or with his mighty breath he could\nhave consigned them to instant annihilation. But his love and\ntenderness for man was infinite; and he mercifully refrained from\nemploying the power which he possessed to their injury. How vast\nthis condescension, this love, this devotion to mortals under\nsuch provocations!\n\nSince the date of the crucifixion, the cross, with the image of\nour blessed Lord attached thereto, has been universally\nrecognized as the chief symbol of Christianity. In the days of\nthe apostles and their immediate successors it was their\never-present memento, friend, solace, badge, and emblem of faith.\nRecent discoveries in the catacombs of Rome have brought to light\nthe rude altars of the first Christians, always stamped with and\ndesignated by the sign of the cross. When these early Christians\nwere hunted down like wild beasts, and driven by the sanguinary\npagans into the most secret recesses of the earth to escape\nmartyrdom, the holy cross ever accompanied them, ever symbolized\ntheir faith, ever served as a beacon of light, and a\nrallying-point for the persecuted followers of Jesus of Nazareth.\n\nWhenever the missionaries of the church have abandoned country\nand friends, taken their lives in their hands, and penetrated\ninto the remotest wilds of the savage, in order to \"preach the\nGospel to every creature,\" the holy cross, with its divine\nassociations, has always led the way, beckoning them on in their\ngreat life-work of love, mercy, and Christianity.\n{24}\nOften have these devoted men met the martyr's fate; but they have\ndied in holy triumph, with smiles and prayers on their lips, with\ntheir eyes fixed on the sacred cross, and their souls on heaven.\nIf a nation's flag has been able to stir the soul of the soldier\nto deeds of noble daring amid the excitement of battle, the cross\nof Christ has been able, not less often, to fire the soul of the\nlone missionary with holy love and zeal in the midst of the\nsavage wilderness. If, with flag in hand, the soldier has rushed\nto the cannon's mouth, and laid down his life to win a battle, no\nless frequently has the missionary, holding aloft the sacred\ncross, rushed to the desert places of the earth, where barbarism,\npestilence, famine, cruelties, sufferings, and danger of\nmartyrdom encompass him on every side. The soldier fights his\nbattles under the eyes of his countrymen, cheered on by\napplauding comrades, by martial music, and by hopes of speedy\npreferment; but the Christian missionary fights alone, surrounded\nby wild foes, far from home and friends, with no hope of temporal\nreward, and where, if he is killed or dies a natural death, he\nmay be devoured by wild beasts, or remain uncoffined, unburied,\nand unrecognized.\n\nStatesmen, philosophers, warriors, and citizens of all ranks love\nand respect their national symbols because they call to mind the\nevents and circumstances connected with their nationalities.\nThese sentiments are commended by the whole world. The true\nChristian also loves and respects the symbol which calls up\nbefore him the facts and incidents connected with the passion and\ncrucifixion of the Saviour. Let no one delude himself with the\nabsurd idea that it is the _material_ of the flag, or of the\ncross, which calls forth these powerful emotions, and these high\nresolutions. Let no one suppose that _idolatry_ can spring\nfrom the contemplation and reverence of objects which place\nbefore the mind's eye in the form of symbols the important events\nof a nation, or the sufferings and death of a God. Let no one\nquestion the motives or the propriety of his fellow man who bows\ndown in tears, in love, in gratitude and devotion before the\nrecognized emblems and mementos of great nations, and of godlike\nachievements.\n\nThe cross of Christ! How vast and solemn the associations\nconnected with it! How significant its mute appeals to the hearts\nof mortals! How eloquent its reference to a Redeemer's love for\nsinful man! How glorious its history, and how prolific of\nheavenly aspirations!\n\nThe cross of Christ! How beautiful, how sublime, how\nsoul-inspiring the ideas which encompass thee as with a halo of\nlight and glory! In ages past and gone, in all the lands of\nearth, as it has silently ministered to the souls and thoughts of\nmen, and carried them back to Calvary, what an infinity of\nblessings it has conferred! As we gaze at the Lamb of God, nailed\nto the cross, how sad and tender the memories which pass before\nthe mind! Every wound of the precious body, every expression of\nthe godlike features, calls up some act of divine love and mercy!\nSilently, sadly, solemnly, the holy cross has borne its sacred\nburden to all nations, through long ages of culture and light, of\ndarkness and ignorance, of civilization and barbarism--a pioneer\nand potent agent in all good works--a talisman and solace for the\npoor and oppressed, as well as for the rich and powerful, a\nbeacon of heavenly light, and a rallying-point for all\nChristendom!\n\n{25}\n\nIn the dark ages, when Christianity and barbarism struggled for\nthe mastery of Europe, the latter achieved a physical triumph;\nbut spiritually the cross of Christ prevailed, and the barbarian\nconquerors became Christian converts. When nations, communities,\nor individuals have been bowed down with calamities and sorrows,\nrays of hope and comfort have always shone from the holy cross.\nHowever poor, unfortunate, wicked, degraded, and despised an\nindividual may be, the cross of Christ still beams upon him with\ncompassion and mercy.\n\nLanguages may be oral or printed, or pictorial or symbolical. By\nthe two first, ideas are conveyed _seriatim_ and slowly; by\nthe last _en masse_, and instantaneously. Through the first\nthe mind gradually grasps historical events; through the last\nthey are presented like a living tableaux, complete in all their\ndetails. In the latter category stands the holy cross. It speaks\na language to the Christian which appeals instantly to every\nfaculty of his mind and soul. It strikes those chords of memory\nwhich take him back to Calvary, to the jeering rabble of Pilate,\nto the mocking minions of Caiphas, to the spectacle of a\nscourged, tortured, and crucified Redeemer.\n\nWho can look upon this blessed emblem unmoved? Who can regard\nthis mute memento of the Son of God in behalf of fallen man\nwithout sentiments of love, respect, and veneration? May God in\nhis mercy grant that every one may properly appreciate this great\nemblem of Christianity--the symbol of symbols. The likeness of a\ncrucified Redeemer sanctifies and hallows it. Not only at the\nname, but at the semblance of Jesus, let every knee bend in\nadoration.\n\n--------\n\n{26}\n\n      The Story of a Conscript.\n\n      Translated From The French.\n\n\n      XIX.\n\nIn the midst of such thoughts, day broke. Nothing was stirring\nyet, and Z\u00e9b\u00e9d\u00e9 said:\n\n\"What a chance for us, if the enemy should fear to attack us!\"\n\nThe officers spoke of an armistice; but suddenly about nine\no'clock, our couriers came galloping in, crying that the enemy\nwas moving his whole line down upon us, and directly after we\nheard cannon on our right, along the Elster. We were already\nunder arms, and set out across the fields toward the Partha to\nreturn to Schoenfeld. The battle had begun.\n\nOn the hills overlooking the river, two or three divisions, with\nbatteries in the intervals, and cannon at the flanks, awaited the\nenemy's approach; beyond, over the points of their bayonets, we\ncould see the Prussians, the Swedes, and the Russians, advancing\non all sides in deep, never-ending masses. Shortly after, we took\nour place in line, between two hills, and then we saw five or six\nthousand Prussians crossing the river, and all together shouting,\n\"_Vaterland! Vaterland!_\" This caused a tremendous tumult,\nlike that of clouds of rooks flying north.\n\nAt the same instant the musketry opened from both sides of the\nriver. The valley through which the Partha flows was filled with\nsmoke; the Prussians were already upon us--we could see their\nfurious eyes and wild looks; they seemed like savage beasts\nrushing down on us. Then but one shout of \"_Vive\nl'Empereur!_\" smote the sky and we dashed forward. The shock\nwas terrible; thousands of bayonets crossed; we drove them back,\nwere ourselves driven back; muskets were clubbed; the opposing\nranks were confounded and mingled in one mass; the fallen were\ntrampled upon, while the thunder of artillery, the whistling of\nbullets, and the thick white smoke enclosing all, made the valley\nseem the pit of hell, peopled by contending demons.\n\nDespair urged us, and the wish to revenge our deaths before\nyielding up our lives. The pride of boasting that they once\ndefeated Napoleon incited the Prussians; for they are the\nproudest of men, and their victories at Gross-Beeren and Katzbach\nhad made them fools. But the river swept away them and their\npride! Three times they crossed and rushed at us. We were indeed\nforced back by the shock of their numbers, and how they shouted\nthen! They seemed to wish to devour us. Their officers, waving\ntheir swords in the air, cried, \"_Vorw\u00e4rtz! Vorw\u00e4rtz!_\" and\nall advanced like a wall with the greatest courage--that we\ncannot deny. Our cannon opened huge gaps in their lines, still\nthey pressed on; but at the top of the hill we charged again, and\ndrove them to the river. We would have massacred them to a man,\nwere it not for one of their batteries before Mockern, which\nenfiladed us and forced us to give up the pursuit.\n\n{27}\n\nThis lasted until two o'clock; half our officers were killed or\nwounded; the Colonel, Lorain, was among the first, and the\nCommandant, G\u00e9meau, the latter; all along the river side were\nheaps of dead, or wounded men crawling away from the struggle.\nSome, furious, would rise to their knees to fire a last shot or\ndeliver a final bayonet-thrust. The river was almost choked with\ndead, but no one thought of the bodies as they swept by in the\ncurrent. The lines contending in the fight reached from\nSchoenfeld to Grossdorf.\n\nAt length the Swedes and Prussians ceased their attacks, and\nstarted farther up the river to turn our position, and masses of\nRussians came to occupy the places they had left.\n\nThe Russians formed in two columns, and descended to the valley,\nwith shouldered arms, in admirable order. Twice they assailed us\nwith the greatest bravery, but without uttering wild beasts'\ncries, like the Prussians. Their calvary attempted to carry the\nold bridge above Schoenfeld, and the cannonade increased. On all\nsides, as far as sight could reach, we saw only the enemy massing\ntheir forces, and when we had repulsed one of their columns,\nanother of fresh men took its place. The fight had ever to be\nfought over again.\n\nBetween two and three o'clock, we learned that the Swedes and the\nPrussian cavalry had crossed the river above Grossdorf, and were\nabout to take us in the rear, a mode which pleased them much\nbetter than fighting face to face. Marshal Ney immediately\nchanged front, throwing his right wing to the rear. Our division\nstill remained supported on Schoenfeld, but all the others\nretired from the Partha, to stretch along the plain, and the\nentire army formed but one line around Leipsic.\n\nThe Russians, behind the road to Mockern, prepared for a third\nattack toward three o'clock; our officers were making new\ndispositions to receive them; when a sort of shudder ran from one\nend of our lines to the other, and in a few moments all knew that\nthe sixteen thousand Saxons and the Wurtemberg calvary, in our\nvery centre, had passed over to the enemy, and that on their way\nthey had the infamy to turn the forty guns they carried with\nthem, on their old brothers-in-arms of Durutte's division.\n\nThis treason, instead of discouraging us, so added to our fury,\nthat if we had been allowed, we would have crossed the river to\nmassacre them. They say that they were defending their country.\nIt is false! They had only to have left us on the Duben road; why\ndid they not go then! They might have done like the Bavarians and\nquitted us before the battle; they might have remained\nneutral--might have refused to serve; but they deserted us only\nbecause fortune was against us. If they knew we were going to\nwin, they would have continued our very good friends, so that\nthey might have their share of the spoil or glory--as after Jena\nand Friedland. This is what every one thought, and it is why\nthose Saxons are, and will ever remain, traitors; not only did\nthey abandon their friends in distress, but they murdered them,\nto make a welcome with the enemy. God is just, and so great was\ntheir new allies' scorn of them, that they divided half Saxony\nbetween themselves after the battle. The French might well laugh\nat Prussian, Austrian, and Russian gratitude.\n\nFrom the time of this desertion until evening, it was a war of\nvengeance that we carried on; the allies might crush us by\nnumbers, but they should pay dearly for their victory!\n\n{28}\n\nAt nightfall, while two thousand pieces of artillery were\nthundering together, we were attacked for the seventh time in\nSchoenfeld. The Russians on one side and the Prussians on the\nother poured in upon us. We defended every house. In every lane\nthe walls crumbled beneath the bullets, and roofs fell in on\nevery side. There were now no shouts as at the beginning of the\nbattle; all were cool and pale with rage. The officers had\ncollected scattered muskets and cartridge-boxes, and now loaded\nand fired like the men. We defended the gardens, too, and the\ncemetery, where we had bivouacked, until there were more dead\nabove than beneath the soil. Every inch of earth cost a life.\n\nIt was night when Marshal Ney brought up a reenforcement--whence\nI knew not. It was what remained of Ricard's division and\nSonham's second. The _d\u00e9bris_ of our regiments united, and\nhurled the Russians to the other side of the old bridge, which no\nlonger had a rail, that having been swept away by the shot. Six\ntwelve-pounders were posted on the bridge, and maintained a fire\nfor one hour longer. The remainder of the battalion, and of some\nothers in our rear, supported the guns; and I remember how their\nflashes lit up the forms of men and horses, heaped beneath the\ndark arches. The sight lasted only a moment, but it was a\nhorrible moment indeed.\n\nAt half-past seven, masses of cavalry advanced on our left, and\nwe saw them whirling about two large squares, which slowly\nretired. Then we received orders to retreat. Not more than two or\nthree thousand men remained at Schoenfeld with the six pieces of\nartillery. We reached Kohlgarten without being pursued, and were\nto bivouac around Rendnitz. Z\u00e9b\u00e9d\u00e9 was yet living, and unwounded;\nand, as we marched on, listening to the cannonade, which\ncontinued, despite the darkness, along the Elster, he said\nsuddenly:\n\n\"How is it that we are here, Joseph, when so many others that\nstood by our side are dead? It seems as if we bore charmed lives,\nand could not die.\"\n\nI made no reply.\n\n\"Think you there was ever before such a battle?\" he asked. \"No,\nit cannot be. It is impossible.\"\n\nIt was indeed a battle of giants. From six in the morning until\nseven in the evening we had held our own against three hundred\nand sixty thousand men, without, at night, having lost an inch;\nand, nevertheless, we were but a hundred and thirty thousand. God\nkeep me from speaking ill of the Germans. They were fighting for\nthe independence of their country. But they might do better than\ncelebrate the anniversary of the battle of Leipsic every year.\nThere is not much to boast of in fighting an enemy three to one.\n\nApproaching Rendnitz, we marched over heaps of dead. At every\nstep we encountered dismounted cannon, broken caissons, and trees\ncut down by shot. There a division of the Young Guard and the\n_grenadiers-\u00e0-cheval_, led by Napoleon himself, had repulsed\nthe Swedes who were advancing into the breach made by the\ntreachery of the Saxons. Two or three burning houses lit up the\nscene. The _grenadiers-\u00e0-cheval_ were yet at Rendnitz, but\ncrowds of disbanded troops were passing up and down the street.\nNo rations had been distributed, and all were seeking something\nto eat and drink.\n\nAs we defiled by a large house, we saw behind the wall of a court\ntwo _cantini\u00e8res_, who were giving the soldiers drink from\ntheir wagons.\n{29}\nThere were there chasseurs, cuirassiers, lancers, hussars,\ninfantry of the line and of the guard, all mingled together, with\ntorn uniforms, broken shakos, and plumeless helmets, and all\nseemingly famished.\n\nTwo or three dragoons stood on the wall, near a pot of burning\npitch, their arms crossed on their long white cloaks, covered\nfrom head to foot with blood.\n\nZ\u00e9b\u00e9d\u00e9, without speaking, pushed me with his elbow, and we\nentered the court, while the others pursued their way. It took us\nfull a quarter of an hour to reach one of the wagons. I held up a\ncrown of six livres, and the _cantini\u00e8res_, kneeling behind\nher cask, handed me a great glass of brandy and a piece of white\nbread, at the same time taking my money. I drank, and passed the\nglass to Z\u00e9b\u00e9d\u00e9, who emptied it. We had as much difficulty in\ngetting out of the crowd as in entering. Hard, famished faces and\ncavernous eyes were on all sides of us. No one moved willingly.\nEach thought only of himself, and cared not for his neighbor.\nThey had escaped a thousand deaths to-day only to dare a thousand\nmore to-morrow. Well might they mutter, \"Every one for himself,\nand God \u00a3or all.\"\n\nAs we went through the village street, Z\u00e9b\u00e9d\u00e9 said, \"You have\nbread?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nI broke it in two, and gave him half. We began to eat, at the\nsame time hastening on, and had taken our places in the ranks\nbefore any one noticed our absence. The firing yet continued at a\ndistance. At midnight we arrived at the long promenades which\nborder the Pleisse, and halted under the old leafless lindens,\nand stacked arms. A long line of fires flickered in the fog as\nfar as Randstadt; and, when the flames burnt high, they threw a\nglare on groups of Polish lancers, lines of horses, cannon, and\nwagons, while, at intervals beyond, sentinels stood like statues\nin the mist. A heavy, hollow sound arose from the city, and\nmingled with the rolling of our trains over the bridge at\nLindenau. It was the beginning of the retreat.\n\n\n         XX.\n\nWhat occurred until daybreak I know not. Baggage, wounded, and\nprisoners doubtless continued to crowd across the bridge. But\nthen a terrific shock woke us all. We started up, thinking the\nenemy were on us, when two officers of hussars came galloping in\nwith the news that a powder-wagon had exploded by accident in the\ngrand avenue of Randstadt, at the river-side. The dark, red smoke\nrolled to the sky, and slowly disappeared, while the old houses\ncontinued to shake as if an earthquake were rolling by.\n\nQuiet was soon restored. Some lay down again to sleep; but it was\ngrowing lighter every minute; and, glancing toward the river, I\nsaw our troops extending until lost in distance along the five\nbridges of the Elster and Pleisse, which follow one after the\nother, and make, so to speak, but one. Thousands of men must\ndefile over this bridge, and, of necessity, take time in doing\nso. And the idea struck every one that it would have been much\nbetter to have thrown several bridges across the two rivers; for\nat any instant the enemy might attack us, and then retreat would\nbecome difficult indeed. But the emperor had forgotten to give\nthe order, and no one dared do anything without orders. Not a\nmarshal of France would have dared to take it upon himself to say\nthat two bridges were better than one. To such a point had the\nterrible discipline of Napoleon reduced those old captains!\n{30}\nThey obeyed like machines, and disturbed themselves about\nnothing. Such was their fear of displeasing their master. As I\ngazed at the thousands of artillerymen and baggage-guards\nswarming over the bridge, and saw the tall bear-skin shakos of\nthe Old Guard, immovable on the hill of Lindenau, on the other\nside of the river--as I thought they were fairly on the way to\nFrance, how I longed to be in their place!\n\nBut I felt bitterly, indeed, when, about seven o'clock, three\nwagons came to distribute provisions and ammunition among us, and\nit became evident that we were to be the rear-guard. In spite of\nmy hunger, I felt like throwing my bread into the river. A few\nmoments after, two squadrons of Polish lancers appeared coming up\nthe bank, and behind them five or six generals, Poniatowski among\nthe number. He was a man of about fifty, tall, slight, and with a\nmelancholy expression. He passed without looking at us. General\nFournier, who now commanded our brigade, spurred from among his\nstaff, and cried:\n\n\"By file left!\"\n\nI never so felt my heart sink. I would have sold my life for two\nfarthings; but nevertheless, we had to move on, and turn our\nbacks to the bridge.\n\nWe soon arrived at a place called Hinterthor--an old gate on the\nroad to Caunewitz. To the right and left stretched ancient\nramparts, and behind rows of houses. We were posted in covered\nroads, near this gate, which the sappers had strongly barricaded.\nA few worm-eaten palisades served us for intrenchments, and, on\nall the roads before us, the enemy were advancing. This time they\nwore white coats and flat caps, with a raised piece in front, on\nwhich we could see the two-headed eagle of the _kreutzers_.\nOld Pinto, who recognized them at once, cried:\n\n\"Those fellows are the _Kaiserliks_! We have beaten them\nfifty times since 1793; but if the father of Marie Louise had a\nheart, they would be with us now instead of against us.\"\n\nFor some moments a cannonade had been going on at the other side\nof the city, where Bl\u00fccher was attacking the faubourg of Halle.\nSoon after, the firing stretched along to the right; it was\nBernadotte attacking the faubourg of Kohlgartenthor, and at the\nsame time the first shells of the Austrians fell among us. They\nformed their columns of attack on the Caunewitz road, and poured\ndown on us from all sides. Nevertheless, we held our own until\nabout ten o'clock, and then were forced back to the old ramparts,\nthrough the breaches of which the Kaiserliks pursued us under the\ncross-fire of the fourteenth and twenty-ninth of the line. The\npoor Austrians were not inspired with the fury of the Prussians,\nbut nevertheless, showed a true courage; for, in half an hour,\nthey had won the ramparts, and although, from all the neighboring\nwindows, we kept up a deadly fire, we could not force them back.\nSix months before, it would have horrified me to think of men\nbeing thus slaughtered, but now I was as insensible as any old\nsoldier, and the death of one man or of a hundred would not cost\nme a thought.\n\nUntil this time all had gone well, but how were we to get out of\nthe houses? The enemy held every avenue, and it seemed that we\nwould be caught like foxes in their holes, and I thought it not\nunlikely that the Austrians, in revenge for the loss we had\ninflicted upon them, might put us to the point of the bayonet.\n{31}\nMeditating thus, I ran back to a room, where a dozen of us yet\nremained, and there I saw Sergeant Pinto leaning against the\nwall, his arms hanging by his sides, and his face white as paper.\nHe had just received a bullet in the breast; but the old man's\nwarrior soul was still strong within him, as he cried:\n\n\"Defend yourselves, conscripts! Defend yourselves! Show the\nKaiserliks that a French soldier is yet worth four of them! Ah!\nthe villains!\"\n\nWe heard the sound of blows on the door below thundering like\ncannon-shots. We still kept up our fire, but hopelessly, when we\nheard the clatter of hoofs without. The firing ceased, and we saw\nthrough the smoke four squadrons of lancers dashing like a troop\nof lions through the midst of the Austrians. All yielded before\nthem. The Kaiserliks fled, but the long, blue lancers, with their\nred pennons, were swifter than they, and many a white coat was\npierced from behind. The lancers were Poles--the most terrible\nwarriors I have ever seen, and, to speak truth, our friends and\nour brothers. _They_ never turned from us in our hour of\nneed; they gave us the last drop of their blood. And what have we\ndone for their unhappy country? When I think of our ingratitude,\nmy heart bleeds.\n\nThe Poles rescued us. Seeing them so proud and brave, we rushed\nout, attacking the Austrians with the bayonet, and driving them\ninto the trenches. We were for the time victorious, but it was\ntime to beat a retreat, for the enemy were already filling\nLeipsic; the gates of Halle and Grimma were forced, and that of\nPeters-Thau delivered up by our friends the Badeners and our\nother friends the Saxons. Soldiers, citizens, and students kept\nup a fire from the windows on our retiring troops.\n\nWe had only time to re-form and take the road along the Pleisse;\nthe lancers awaited us there; we defiled behind them, and, as the\nAustrians again pressed around us, they charged once more to\ndrive them back. What brave fellows and magnificent horsemen were\nthose Poles!\n\nThe division, reduced from fifteen to eight thousand men, retired\nstep by step before fifty thousand foes, and not without often\nturning and replying to the Austrian fire.\n\nWe neared the bridge--with what joy, I need not say. But it was\nno easy task to reach it, for infantry and horse crowded the\nwhole width of the avenue, and arrived from all the neighboring\nroads, until the crowd formed an impenetrable mass, which\nadvanced slowly, with groans and smothered cries, which might be\nheard at a distance of half a mile, despite the rattling of\nmusketry. Woe to those upon the other side of the bridge! they\nwere forced into the water and no one stretched a hand to save\nthem. In the middle, men and even horses were carried along with\nthe crowd; they had no need of making any exertion of their own.\nBut how were we to get there? The enemy were advancing nearer and\nnearer every moment. It is true we had stationed a few cannon so\nas to sweep the principal approaches, and some troops yet\nremained in line to repulse their attacks; but they had guns to\nsweep the bridge, and those who remained behind must receive\ntheir whole fire. This accounted for the press on the bridge.\n\nAt two or three hundred paces from the crowd, the idea of rushing\nforward and throwing myself into the midst entered my mind; but\nCaptain Vidal, Lieutenant Bretonville, and other old officers\nsaid:\n\n\"Shoot down the first man that leaves the ranks!\"\n\n{32}\n\nIt was horrible to be so near safety, and yet unable to escape.\n\nThis was between eleven and twelve o'clock. The fusilade grew\nnearer on the right and left, and a few bullets began to whistle\nover our heads. From the side of Halle we saw the Prussians rush\nout pell-mell with our own soldiers. Terrible cries now arose\nfrom the bridge. Cavalry, to make way for themselves, sabred the\ninfantry, who replied with the bayonet. It was a general _sauve\nqui peut_. At every step of the crowd, some one fell from the\nbridge, and, trying to regain his place, dragged five or six with\nhim into the water.\n\nIn the midst of this horrible confusion, this pandemonium of\nshouts, cries, groans, musket-shots, and sabre-strokes, a crash\nlike a peal of thunder was heard, and the first arch of the\nbridge rose upward into the air with all upon it. Hundreds of\nwretches were torn to pieces, and hundreds of others crushed\nbeneath the falling ruins.\n\nA sapper had blown up the arch!\n\nAt this sight, the cry of treason rang from mouth to mouth. \"We\nare lost--betrayed!\" was now the cry on all sides. The tumult was\nfearful. Some, in the rage of despair, turned upon the enemy like\nwild beasts at bay, thinking only of vengeance; others broke\ntheir arms, cursing heaven and earth for their misfortunes.\nMounted officers and generals dashed into the river to cross it\nby swimming, and many soldiers followed them without taking time\nto throw off their knapsacks. The thought that the last hope of\nsafety was gone, and nothing now remained but to be massacred,\nmade men mad. I had seen the Partha choked with dead bodies the\nday before, but this scene was a thousand times more horrible;\ndrowning wretches dragging down those who happened to be near\nthem; shrieks and yells of rage, or for help; a broad river\nconcealed by a mass of heads and struggling arms.\n\nCaptain Vidal, who, by his coolness and steady eye, had hitherto\nkept us to our duty, even Captain Vidal now appeared discouraged.\nHe thrust his sabre into the scabbard, and cried, with a strange\nlaugh:\n\n\"The game is up! Let us be gone!\"\n\nI touched his arm; he looked sadly and kindly at me.\n\n\"What do you wish, my child?\" he asked.\n\n\"Captain,\" said I, \"I was four months in the hospital at Leipsic;\nI have bathed in the Elster, and I know a ford.\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"Ten minutes' march above the bridge.\"\n\nHe drew his sabre at once from its sheath, and shouted:\n\n\"Follow me, _mes enfants!_ and you, Bertha, lead.\"\n\nThe entire battalion, which did not now number more than two\nhundred men, followed; a hundred others, who saw us start\nconfidently forward, joined us. I recognized the road which\nZunnier and I had traversed so often in July, when the ground was\ncovered with flowers. The enemy fired on us, but we did not\nreply. I entered the water first; Captain Vidal next, then the\nothers, two abreast. It reached our shoulders, for the river was\nswollen by the autumn rains; but we crossed, notwithstanding,\nwithout the loss of a man. We pressed onward across the fields,\nand soon reached the little wooden bridge at Schleissig, and\nthence turned to Lindenau.\n\nWe marched silently, turning from time to time to gaze on the\nother side of the Elster, where the battle still raged in the\nstreets of Leipsic.\n{33}\nThe furious shouts, and the deep boom of cannon still reached our\nears; and it was only when, about two o'clock, we overtook the\nlong column which stretched, till lost in distance, on the road\nto Erfurt, that the sounds of conflict were lost in the roll of\nwagons and artillery trains.\n\n\n    XXI.\n\nHitherto I have described the grandeur of war--battles glorious\nto France, notwithstanding our mistakes and misfortunes. When we\nwere fighting all Europe alone, always one against two, and often\none to three; when we finally succumbed, not through the courage\nof our foes, but borne down by treason and the weight of numbers,\nwe had no reason to blush for our defeat, and the victors have\nlittle reason to exult in it. It is not numbers that makes the\nglory of a people or an army--it is virtue and bravery.\n\nBut now I must relate the horrors of retreat. It is said that\nconfidence gives strength, and this is especially true of the\nFrench. While they advanced in full hope of victory, they were\nunited; the will of their chiefs was their only law; they knew\nthat they could succeed only by strict observance of discipline.\nBut when driven back, no one had confidence save in himself, and\ncommands were forgotten. Then these men--once so brave and so\nproud, who marched so gayly to the fight--scattered to right and\nleft; sometimes fleeing alone, sometimes in groups. Then those\nwho, a little while before trembled at their approach, grew bold;\nthey came on, first timidly, but, meeting no resistance, became\ninsolent. Then they would swoop down and carry off three or four\nlaggards at a time, as I have seen crows swoop upon a fallen\nhorse, which they did not dare approach while he could yet remain\non his feet.\n\nI have seen miserable Cossacks--very beggars, with nothing but\nold rags hanging around them; an old cap of tattered skin over\ntheir ears; unshorn beards, covered with vermin; mounted on old\nworn-out horses, without saddles, and with only a piece of rope\nby way of stirrups, an old rusty pistol all their fire-arms, and\na nail at the end of a pole for a lance; I have seen these\nwretches, who resembled sallow and decrepit Jews more than\nsoldiers, stop ten, fifteen, twenty of our men, and lead them off\nlike sheep.\n\nAnd the tall, lank peasants, who, a few months before, trembled\nif we only looked at them--I have seen them arrogantly repulse\nold soldiers--cuirassiers, artillerymen, dragoons who had fought\nthrough the Spanish war, men who could have crushed them with a\nblow of their fist; I have seen these peasants insist that they\nhad no bread to sell, while the odor of the oven arose on all\nsides of us; that they had no wine, no beer, when we heard\nglasses clinking to right and left. And no one dared punish them;\nno one dared take what he wanted from the wretches who laughed to\nsee us in such straits, for each one was retreating on his own\naccount; we had no leaders, no discipline, and they could easily\nout-number us.\n\nAnd to hunger, misery, weariness, and fever, the horrors of an\napproaching winter were added. The rain never ceased falling from\nthe gray sky, and the winds pierced us to the bones. How could\npoor beardless conscripts, mere shadows, fleshless and worn out,\nendure all this? They perished by thousands; their bodies covered\nthe roads. The terrible _typhus_ pursued us.\n{34}\nSome said it was a plague, engendered by the dead not being\nburied deep enough; others, that it was the consequence of\nsufferings that required more than human strength to bear. I know\nnot how this may be, but the villages of Alsace and Lorraine, to\nwhich we brought it, will long remember their sufferings; of a\nhundred attacked by it, not more than ten or twelve, at the most,\nrecovered.\n\nAt length, on the evening of the nineteenth, we bivouacked at\nLutzen, where our regiments re-formed as best they might. The\nnext day we skirmished with the Westphalians, and at Erfurt we\nreceived new shoes and uniforms. Five or six disbanded companies\njoined our battalion--nearly all conscripts. Our new coats and\nshoes were miles too large for us; but they were warm. The\nCossacks reconnoitred us from a distance. Our hussars would drive\nthem off; but they returned the moment pursuit was relaxed. Many\nof our men went pillaging in the night, and were absent at\nroll-call, and the sentries received orders to shoot all who\nattempted to leave their bivouacs.\n\nI had had the fever ever since we left Leipsic; it increased day\nby day, and I became so weak that I could scarcely rise in the\nmornings to follow the march. Z\u00e9b\u00e9d\u00e9 looked sadly at me, and\nsometimes said:\n\n\"Courage, Joseph! We will soon be at home!\"\n\nThese words reanimated me; I felt my face flush.\n\n\"Yes, yes!\" I said; \"we will soon be home; I must see home once\nmore!\"\n\nThe tears forced themselves to my eyes. Z\u00e9b\u00e9d\u00e9 carried my\nknapsack when I was tired, and continued:\n\n\"Lean on my arm. We are getting nearer every day, now, Joseph. A\nfew dozen leagues are nothing.\"\n\nMy heart beat more bravely, but my strength was gone. I could no\nlonger carry my musket; it was heavy as lead. I could not eat; my\nknees trembled beneath me; still I did not despair, but kept\nmurmuring to myself: \"This is nothing. When you see the spire of\nPhalsbourg, your fever will leave you. You will have good air,\nand Catharine will nurse you. All will yet be well!\"\n\nOthers, no worse than I, fell by the roadside, but still I toiled\non; when, near Folde, we learned that fifty thousand Bavarians\nwere posted in the forests through which we were to pass, for the\npurpose of cutting off our retreat. This was my finishing stroke,\nfor I knew I could no longer load, fire, or defend myself with\nthe bayonet. I felt that all my sufferings to get so far toward\nhome were useless. Nevertheless, I made an effort when we were\nordered to march, and tried to rise.\n\n\"Come, come, Joseph!\" said Z\u00e9b\u00e9d\u00e9; \"courage!\"\n\nBut I could not move, and lay sobbing like a child.\n\n\"Come! stand up!\" he said.\n\n\"I cannot. O God! I cannot!\"\n\nI clutched his arm. Tears streamed down his face. He tried to\nlift me, but he was too weak. I held fast to him, crying:\n\n\"Z\u00e9b\u00e9d\u00e9, do not abandon me!\"\n\nCaptain Vidal approached, and gazed sadly on me:\n\n\"Cheer up, my lad,\" said he; \"the ambulances will be along in\nhalf an hour.\"\n\nBut I knew what that meant, and I drew Z\u00e9b\u00e9d\u00e9 closer to me. He\nembraced me, and I whispered in his ear:\n\n\"Kiss Catharine for me--for my last farewell. Tell her that I\ndied thinking of God's holy mother and of her.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes!\" he sobbed. \"My poor Joseph!\"\n\n{35}\n\nI could cling to him no longer. He placed me on the ground, and\nran away without turning his head. The column departed, and I\ngazed at it as one who sees his last hope fading from his eyes.\nThe last of the battalion disappeared over the ridge of a hill. I\nclosed my eyes. An hour passed, or perhaps a longer time, when\nthe boom of cannon startled me, and I saw a division of the guard\npass at a quick step with artillery and wagons. Seeing some sick\nin the wagons, I cried wistfully:\n\n\"Take me! Take me!\"\n\nBut no one listened; still they kept on, while the thunder of\nartillery grew louder and louder. More than ten thousand men,\ncalvary and infantry, passed me, but I had no longer strength to\ncall out to them.\n\nAt last the long line ended; I saw knapsacks and shakos disappear\nbehind the hill, and I lay down to sleep for ever, when once more\nI was aroused by the rolling of five or six pieces of artillery\nalong the road. The cannoneers sat sabre in hand, and behind came\nthe caissons. I hoped no more from these than from the others,\nwhen suddenly I perceived a tall, lean, red-bearded veteran\nmounted beside one of the pieces, and bearing the cross upon his\nbreast. It was my old friend Zunnier, my old comrade of Leipsic.\nHe was passing without seeing me, when I cried, with all the\nstrength that remained to me:\n\n\"Christian! Christian!\"\n\nHe heard me in spite of the noise of the guns; stopped, and\nturned round.\n\n\"Christian!\" I cried, \"take pity on me!\"\n\nHe saw me lying at the foot of a tree, and came to me with a pale\nface and staring eyes:\n\n\"What! Is it you, my poor Joseph?\" cried he, springing from his\nhorse.\n\nHe lifted me in his arms as if I were an infant, and shouted to\nthe men who were driving the last wagon:\n\n\"Halt!\"\n\nThen embracing me, he placed me in it, my head upon a knapsack. I\nsaw too that he wrapped great cavalry cloak around my feet, as he\ncried:\n\n\"Forward! Forward! It is growing warm yonder!\"\n\nI remember no more, but I have a faint impression of hearing\nagain the sound of heavy guns and rattle of musketry, mingled\nwith shouts and commands. Branches of tall pines seemed to pass\nbetween me and the sky through the night; but all this might have\nbeen a dream. But that day, behind Solmunster, in the woods of\nHanau, we had a battle with the Bavarians, and routed them.\n\n\n    XXII.\n\nOn the fifteenth of January, 1814, two months and a half after\nthe battle of Hanau, I awoke in a good bed, and at the end of a\nlittle, well-warmed room; and gazing at the rafters over my head,\nthen at the little windows, where the frost had spread its silver\nsheen, I exclaimed, \"It is winter!\" At the same time I heard the\ncrash of artillery and the crackling of a fire, and turning over\non my bed in a few moments, I saw seated at its side a pale young\nwoman, with her arms folded, and I recognized--Catharine! I\nrecognized, too, the room where I had spent so many Sundays\nbefore going to the wars. But the thunder of the cannon made me\nthink I was dreaming. I gazed for a long while at Catharine, who\nseemed more beautiful than ever, and the question rose, \"Where is\nAunt Gr\u00e9del? am I at home once more? God grant that this be not a\ndream!\"\n\nAt last I took courage and called softly:\n\n{36}\n\n\"Catharine!\" And she, turning her head, cried:\n\n\"Joseph! Do you know me?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I replied, holding out my hand.\n\nShe approached, trembling and sobbing, when again and again the\ncannon thundered.\n\n\"What are those shots I hear?\" I cried.\n\n\"The guns of Phalsbourg,\" she answered. \"The city is besieged.\"\n\n\"Phalsbourg besieged! The enemy in France!\"\n\nI could speak no more. Thus had so much suffering, so many tears,\nso many thousands of lives gone for nothing--ay, worse than\nnothing, for the foe was at our homes. For an hour I could think\nof nothing else; and even now, old and gray-haired as I am, the\nthought fills me with bitterness; Yes, we old men have seen the\nGerman, the Russian, the Swede, the Spaniard, the Englishman,\nmasters of France, garrisoning our cities, taking whatever suited\nthem from our fortresses, insulting our soldiers, changing our\nflag, and dividing among themselves, not only our conquests since\n1804, but even those of the republic. These were the fruits of\nten years of glory!\n\nBut let us not speak of these things. They will tell us that\nafter Lutzen and Bautzen, the enemy offered to leave us Belgium,\npart of Holland, all the left bank of the Rhine as far as B\u00e2le,\nwith Savoy and the kingdom of Italy; and that the emperor refused\nto accept these conditions, brilliant as they were, because he\nplaced the satisfaction of his own pride before the happiness of\nFrance!\n\nBut to return to my story. For two weeks after the battle of\nHanau, thousands of wagons, filled with wounded, crowded the road\nfrom Strasbourg to Nancy, and passed through Phalsbourg. Not one\nin the sad _cort\u00e9ge_ escaped the eyes of Aunt Gr\u00e9del and\nCatharine, and thousands of fathers and mothers sought among them\nfor their children. The third day Catharine found me among a heap\nof other wretches, with sunken cheeks and glaring eyes--dying of\nhunger.\n\nShe knew me at once, but Aunt Gr\u00e9del gazed long before she cried,\n\"Yes! it is he! It is Joseph!\"\n\nThey took me home. Why should I describe my long illness, my\nshrieks for water, my almost miraculous escape from what seemed\ncertain death? Let it suffice the kind reader to know that, six\nmonths after, Catharine and I were married; that Monsieur Goulden\ngave me half his business, and that we lived together as happy as\nbirds.\n\nThe wars were ended, but the Bourbons had been taught nothing by\ntheir misfortunes, and the emperor only awaited the moment of\nvengeance. But here let us rest. If people of sense tell me that\nI have done well in relating my campaign of 1813--that my story\nmay show youth the vanity of military glory, and prove that no\nman can gain happiness save by peace, liberty, and labor--then I\nwill take up my pen once more, and give you the story of\nWaterloo!\n\n-------\n\n{37}\n\n    The Episcopalian Crisis.\n\n\nIn medical science, a _crisis_ is the change in a disease\nwhich indicates its event, the recovery or death of the patient,\nand is, therefore, the critical moment. Webster also defines\ncrisis to be \"the decisive state of things, or the point of time\nwhen an affair is arrived at its height, and must soon terminate,\nor suffer a material change.\" No attentive observer of the\nreligious movements which are going on around us can fail to see\nthat the Episcopalians are, at this moment, in an interesting\ncondition. On the one hand, the ritualists are pushing ceremonial\nand doctrine much further than even the elasticity of\nProtestantism will permit, while, on the other, the\nlow-churchmen, alarmed at the demonstrations of their opponents,\nare renewing the battle-cries of the Reformation, lest the labors\nof Luther and Henry VIII, should be frustrated in their\ncommunion. There will soon be the clashing of arms and the\ninterchange of active hostilities. As Catholics, we cannot but\ntake a deep interest in the result, and we hope that all the\ncombatants will, before going into battle, understand the cause\nfor which they are fighting, and then faithfully fight to victory\nor death. An honest man should always stand by his colors, or at\nleast openly renounce them. The object of this article is, to\ngive a diagnosis of the present state of Episcopalianism, and, as\nfar as our abilities and kind intentions go, to prescribe a\nremedy for the patient.\n\nIn the first place, we find that there is a feverish excitement\nabout the trial of the Rev. Mr. Tyng, who, in violation of a\ncanon, has had the hardihood to preach in a church of another\ndenomination than his own. The canon under which he is arraigned\nseems to present a case against the reverend gentleman, and from\nthe complexion of the court appointed to try him he has little\nchance of escaping conviction. But we imagine that even his\ncondemnation will be nominal, and appear more as the assertion of\na power than the exercise of it. The low-churchmen are quite\nexcited by the discussion of the points involved in the trial. A\nwriter in _The Episcopalian_ considers the affair as the\nmost important in the annals of American ecclesiastical history.\nWhatever the verdict of the court may be, it is of little account\ncompared to the angry feelings and bitter divisions among\nbrethren which will flow from it, and become more or less\npermanent. Certainly, there is more bitterness among the\ndifferent sections of Episcopalians, than there is between them\nand other Protestants. Low-churchmen love their Protestant\nbrethren, with the one exception of high-churchmen, whom they\nregard with a natural antipathy. High-churchmen love none but\nthemselves, not the sects whom they eschew, nor the Catholic\nChurch, which eschews them. The trial of Rev. Mr. Tyng is not the\ncause of the angry feelings which are now manifested, but merely\nthe occasion for bringing them out. They exist before any\noccasion, and are found in the very heart of the Episcopal\nChurch. If the Rev. Dr. Dix had preached in a Methodist place of\nworship, it is quite possible that no one would have made\nobjection; but Mr. Tyng, being on the other side of the house,\ncannot have the same liberty.\n{38}\nThe truth is, that all rules have a wide interpretation, and are\nto be explained by custom, and here the defendant in the exciting\ntrial has the advantage. Even if he should be condemned, he will\nbe likely to have nearly all the popular sympathy, and so will\nbecome the greater man, as a kind of martyr for his principles.\n\nThe occasion, however, has brought out a bold manifesto from the\nhigh-churchmen, which is to be understood as their platform,\naround which they seek to rally their friends. Sixty-four\nclergymen have joined together to form what they call \"The\nAmerican Church Union,\" to which they invite all Episcopalians\nwho sympathize with them. They declare that the evils of the time\nare fearful, \"the young are growing up without education, the\ncommunity is familiarized with scenes of lewdness, the marriage\ncontract is made contemptible, the ordinances of the Gospel of\nChrist are disused, and the public worship of God is neglected.\"\nWhile thus the torrent of iniquity rages around them, they find\nthat an evil has arisen within the Episcopal fold, which\nthreatens the subversion of their whole system. It is nothing\nless than the denial of the necessity of ordination of ministers\nby bishops. \"The right is claimed of preaching anywhere, at\npleasure; ministers of non-Episcopal communities are invited to\npreach in our churches; and the intention is announced of\nbreaking down every barrier between our church and the religious\nbodies around her.\" To counteract this destructive movement, they\nassociate themselves together, in a union offensive and\ndefensive. They promise to uphold the laws, the canons, and to\nfollow the \"godly admonitions of the bishops,\" while they seek\n\"to maintain unimpaired principles which they have received from\ntheir fathers, Seabury, White, Griswold, Hobart, Doane, and\nWainwright.\"\n\nWhile we confess that our sympathies are with the signers of this\npastoral, we frankly avow that it is somewhat vague and, to our\nminds, inconsistent. No doctrine whatever is clearly stated,\nexcept that of the necessity of episcopal ordination. The creeds\nare referred to, and the (undisputed?) general councils; but no\nexplanation of their teaching is given. And then, he will be a\n_wise_ man who can follow, at the same time, in the steps of\nthe fathers whom they name. Seabury, Hobart, and Doane were\nhigh-churchmen in various degrees of altitude; but White and\nGriswold were quite on the other side of the fence; while Dr.\nWainwright was generally thought to have been on both sides at\nthe same time. To us, therefore, he seems the best and most\ngentlemanly model for the rising generation of churchmen who\nwould be \"all things to all men.\" Then, again, he who would\nfollow the godly admonitions of the bishops must be able to go to\nthe four points of the compass at the same time. Fancy an\nadventurer who would obey the admonitions of Bishops McIlvaine\nand Potter, or, at the same time, follow the counsels of Doctors\nCoxe and Clark. The convulsions of Mazeppa would be nothing to\nthe agonies of his mind. No physician could prescribe a remedy\nfor such a patient. \"No man can serve two masters; either he will\nhate the one and love the other, or cleave to the one and despise\nthe other.\" Why, therefore, in this enlightened day, write\ncontradictions and talk nonsense?\n{39}\nSome time ago, twenty-eight bishops made a solemn declaration\nagainst ritualism; \"and,\" says the _Protestant Churchman_,\n\"one of the gentlemen who has signed this address of the American\nUnion not only soundly lectured, but held up to scorn and\nderision\" these prelates, and especially the Boanerges of Western\nNew York, who, smelling Romanism from afar, vaults like a beaked\nbird upon his prey. \"O shame!\" says the writer we have quoted,\n\"where is thy blush?\"\n\nWhile thus the armies of the high-churchmen have begun to array\nthemselves for battle, the bugle sounds loudly from the opposing\ncamp, and the evangelicals are gathering together in earnest. A\nchurch union is being formed among them, and a writer in the\n_Episcopalian_ thus speaks the designs of his party: \"Let\nthis evangelical church union be extended to every diocese and\nparish in the land where its principles are approved. The\nsacramental system is not the Gospel system, but its direct\nantipodes, in which the sacraments are degraded from their true\nposition of sacred _emblems_, and made to serve as\npack-horses to carry lazy sinners to heaven. I hear hundreds of\nministers and thousands of laymen exclaim, 'Oh! that we had the\npower to rescue the church from the hands of those who are\ncorrupting it!' These will be rejoiced to learn that nothing is\nmore simple and feasible. How? I reply by saying, what even\nhigh-churchmen will hardly dare to deny, that the church of the\nReformation was eminently an evangelical church, and that the\nevangelical portion of the present Episcopal Church constitutes\nabsolutely all of the real successors of the English Reformed\nChurch in this country. Ritualists and sacramentarians have no\nmore right in this communion than avowed Romanists.\" The\nlow-churchmen have the decided majority, and thus give letters\ndimissory to their offending brethren. \"God speed the Church\nUnion!\" says a contributor to the _Protestant Churchman_;\n\"but let Mr. Hopkins and his friends beware lest they themselves\nshould be the very first upon whom this discipline shall fall.\nDr. _Guillotine_ experienced the beautiful operation of that\ningenious instrument of death invented by himself. This is a\nprecedent from which these gentlemen might learn a lesson.\"\n\nThe low-churchmen make a point that, while they prefer the\nepiscopal form as more scriptural and more conformed to the\nprimitive system, they do not unchurch other Christian\ndenominations, and that, in this respect, they follow the\nteachings of the founders of the reformed English communion. They\nalso contend that the right of the church to amend or change its\nlaws and services is inalienable, and that the time has arrived\nwhen some important changes should be made. Bishop Griswold,\nwhose \"godly admonitions\" the Church Union desires to follow,\nthus expressed himself: \"In the baptismal office are,\nunfortunately, some few words which are well known to be more\ninjurious to the peace and growth of our church than any one\nthing that can be named.\" \"Allow me,\" says the Bishop of Chester,\n\"to omit or alter fifteen words, and I will reconcile fifteen\nthousand dissenters to the church.\" It appears, also, that an\nopinion was expressed by a late presiding bishop of the\nProtestant Episcopal Church that the great body of Episcopalians\ndesire some change in the phraseology of their services, and that\nthe peace and prosperity of the church require it.\n\nHere, then, the impartial observer can see how the ground lies.\nThe high-churchmen insist upon Episcopal ordination, and are\ndetermined to resist all changes, while they are, many of them,\ndisposed to give a Catholic interpretation to the _articles_\nand liturgy.\n{40}\nThe low-churchmen oppose them on all these points, and insist\nthat a Protestant communion ought not to call itself Catholic, or\nuse words of doubtful meaning; and that the literal sense of the\narticles which form their real confession of faith should be\nimposed upon all Episcopalians. We have ventured to call this a\ncrisis because, if there be vitality in either party, there must\ncome a conflict from which one side must retire defeated, leaving\nthe field and the spoils of war to the victors. But as this is\nnot the first crisis which has occurred in the history of\nAnglicanism, we opine that the battle will be fought with blank\ncartridges, and that, after considerable smoke, it will be found\nthat nobody is hurt. Then from the unbloody field the combatants\nwill retire to war with words, and to be greater enemies than\never. Individual soldiers will lay down their arms to sally in\nthe direction of Geneva or Rome; but the great Episcopal body\nwill quietly await another crisis. Yet this condition of a church\nwhich claims (according to some of its members--the Pan-Anglican\nSynod, for example) to be a _part_ of the Catholic Church,\nis not healthy. In contradictories there cannot be accord, and\none is right and the other is certainly wrong. A careful\ndiagnosis of the malady of our patient leads us to the following\nconclusions: No one is bound to impossibilities, and therefore,\nbefore their own church, the low-churchmen are right on all\npoints of the controversy, while, before the Christian world,\ntheir opponents are singularly isolated and unfortunate. The\nEpiscopal Church contains two opposing elements which must ever\nwar against each other, and, while there are inconsistencies in\nboth liturgy and articles, the low-churchmen stand upon the only\nreasonable ground, and say with truth to their adversaries, that\nthey who would be sacramentarians ought to go where their system\nproperly belongs, and where all other things are in harmony with\nit. Such, we are sure, will be the judgment of the impartial\nobserver.\n\n1. The Episcopalians have a right to reform their services\nwhenever they choose, and are at perfect liberty to agitate the\nquestion. By the constitution of their own church, they have the\npower to alter, change, or modify both their liturgy and their\ncreeds. Did not the Church of England do this on several\noccasions? Has not the American Episcopal Church done it also?\nDid she not materially alter the prayer-book, leaving out, for\nexample, both the form of absolution, and also the Athanasian\nCreed? That which has been done can surely be done again,\nespecially in a body which disclaims infallibility, and is,\ntherefore, sure of nothing, and is ever on all points open to\nprogress. Here it seems to us that the high-churchmen have no\nground on which to stand. They cannot assert that anything their\nchurch teaches is the voice of God, because she expressly tells\nthem that she has no authority. They cannot hold any reasonable\ntheory of ecclesiastical pretensions, because, by doing so, they\nwould unchurch themselves. A church ought to know its own powers,\nif it have any. They may have their own opinions, and press them\nas such; but they have no right to lord it over the consciences\nof their brethren who disagree with them, as if they (the actual\nminority) were the church rather than their more numerous\nopponents. Their fathers whose \"godly admonitions\" they seek to\nfollow, surely never meant to cast their \"incomparable liturgy\"\nin an iron mould.\n{41}\nBesides, in sober common sense, all the extravagancies of the\nlow-churchmen are nothing compared to the doings of the extreme\nritualists, who have so metamorphosed the service that no\nuninitiated Episcopalian could ever recognize it. Think of\nchanging every rubric, and engrafting upon the common prayer the\nactual ceremonies and even the words of the Roman missal. We\nunderstand that few of the signers of the union manifesto are\nopposed to these advances of ritualism, and that many of them are\nready to hear confessions or celebrate Mass when a good occasion\nis offered. With what face, then, can they find fault with their\nbrethren who exercise their liberty in another direction? And\ninasmuch as there is a manifest inconsistency between various\nparts of the prayer-book, it would be well for them and for truth\nto have their code revised, that the world may know precisely\nwhat they do mean.\n\n2. On the vexed question of Episcopal ordination, we are\nconvinced that the high-churchmen are wrong, before their own\ncommunion and before the world. The reformers under whose\ninspirations the English Church was formed, never intended to\nunchurch the religious bodies of the continent with whom they\nwere in sympathy. The words of the ordinal refer only to the rule\nto be adopted in the Anglican body, and do not decide at all the\nquestion of the validity of non-Episcopal orders. The\ntwenty-third of the thirty-nine articles is so expounded by\nBurnet. He says that by common consent a company of Christians\nmay appoint one of their own members to minister to them in holy\nthings; for we are sure \"that not only those who penned the\narticles, but the body of this church for above half an age\nafter, did, notwithstanding irregularities, acknowledge the\nforeign churches, so constituted, to be true churches as to all\nthe _essentials_ of a church. The article leaves the matter\nopen for such accidents as had happened, and such as might still\nhappen. Although their own church had been less forced to go out\nof the beaten path than any other, yet they knew that all things\namong themselves had not gone according to those rules that ought\nto be sacred in regular times. Necessity has no law, and is a law\nof itself.\"\n\nThe opinions of Cranmer, and of Barlow, the reported consecrator\nof Archbishop Parker, were distinctly Erastian. At a conference\nheld at Windsor, 1547, Cranmer answers to the question, \"Can a\nbishop make a priest?\" as follows: \"A bishop may make a priest,\nand so may princes and governors also, by the authority of God\ncommitted to them.\" Barlow replies, \"Bishops have no authority to\nmake priests without they be authorized by the Christian princes,\nand that laymen have other whiles made priests.\"\n\nTo the question, \"Whether in the New Testament be required any\nconsecration of a bishop or priest, or only appointing to the\noffice be sufficient?\" Cranmer answers, \"He that is appointed to\nbe a bishop or priest needeth no consecration by the Scriptures,\nfor election or appointing thereto is sufficient.\" Barlow also\nexpresses the same sentiment. (See Stillingfleet's\n_Irenicum_, and Collier, vol. ii. appendix.)\n\nThe \"judicious\" Hooker undoubtedly maintains the true\nEpiscopalian belief, that ordination by bishops is preferable,\nbut not of absolute necessity to a church. A very able article in\nthis Magazine, published September, 1866, (Vol. III. No. 18,)\nshows the truth of our view.\n{42}\nPassages are deduced from a work called _Vox Ecclesiae_,\nwhich contain the high-church position, and admit that in case of\n_necessity_ (which is left to the individual to determine)\n\"orthodox presbyters may ordain.\" As Archbishop Parker said,\n\"Extreme necessity in itself implieth dispensation from all\nlaws.\" The author of this article, to which we beg leave to refer\nour readers, shows plainly that such a doctrine \"overthrows the\nvery idea of apostolical succession, elevates human necessity\nabove divine law, and legitimates every form of error and\nschism.\"\n\nBefore their own communion, therefore, the low-churchmen have\nevery advantage, as they are consistent with the principles of\nthe Reformation which brought their church into being. When\nProtestants desert their own platform, on what ground can they\nlogically stand?\n\nSecondly, before the Christian world the high-churchmen occupy a\nvery unfortunate position. They make assertions which unchurch\nthemselves, while they separate from their brethren, and aspire\nto an ecclesiastical status which they have not, which the whole\nworld denies to them, and which they can never defend. If the\napostolical succession is necessary to the existence of a church,\nthen by the verdict of all who hold such a doctrine, they are no\nchurch; for with all their pretensions, they have it not. It has\nbeen shown over and over again, by arguments incontestable, that\nthe ordination of Archbishop Parker, if indeed it ever took\nplace, was wholly and entirely invalid. There is not satisfactory\nevidence that any ceremony of consecration was observed; there is\nno proof whatever that Barlow, the officiating prelate, was ever\nordained; and lastly, the form used (according to the theory of\nthe high-churchmen) was utterly inadequate to convey valid\norders. What need, then, to argue further with those who will not\nsee? If any Catholic bishop at this day should venture to\nconsecrate with the form which they tell us was used in Parker's\ncase, he would be subject to severe censure, and his act would be\nconsidered totally null and valueless. One would naturally\nsuppose that the judgment of the Catholic Church on this question\nwould be held in respect. She has preserved the ancient rite, and\nholds the absolute necessity of episcopal ordination; and while\nshe considers it a sacrilege to reiterate the sacrament of\norders, she reordains, without question and without condition,\nevery English minister who, coming into her fold, aspires to the\nsacred priesthood. The same course has been adopted by what the\nPan-Angelican Synod calls the Eastern Orthodox Church, which no\nmore regards the Episcopalians as a church than she does the\nMethodists or Presbyterians. Is any more evidence required by any\nhonest mind? If the opinion of the eastern churches is of any\nweight, it has been more than once given. Dr. J. J. Overbeck, a\nRussian priest, in a recent work on \"Catholic Orthodoxy,\" treats\nat some length of the English orders, which he pronounces to be\nnull. These are among his words:\n\n  \"1. The _Anglo-Catholic_ fathers, on the point of\n  apostolical succession and its needfulness, held latitudinarian\n  views, subversive of the whole fabric of the church.\n\n  2. The boasted unity or concord of Anglicans even in essentials\n  is a specious _illusion_.\n\n  3. Anglo-Catholicism is _genuine Protestantism_ decked and\n  disfigured by Catholic spoils.\"\n\n  \"As Parker's consecration was invalid, the apostolic line was\n  broken off, irremediably broken off.\"\n\n{43}\n\n  \"If Rome considered all ordinations by Parker and his\n  successors, namely, the whole present English episcopate and\n  clergy, to be invalid, null, and void, and consistently\n  reordained all those converts who wished and were fit for\n  orders; the Eastern Church can but imitate her proceedings, as\n  both, in this point, follow the very same principles. ... The\n  fact of the reordination is the final and conclusive verdict on\n  the invalidity of Anglican ordinations. By this fact all\n  further controversy is broken off and indisputably settled.\"\n\nWe fancy, then, the amusement which the pastoral of the late\nAnglican Synod will produce in the Eastern churches, for whose\nbenefit it has been translated into the Greek language. We would\nrecommend to the great Patriarchs to send a commission of doctors\nto the West, that they may see that _oneness of mind_ of\nwhich the bishops so fervently speak. Then when they see it, we\nwould like to have them point it out to us, that we may see it\nalso, and rejoice with them.\n\nIt may perhaps appear to some of our readers that our sympathies\nare with the low-churchmen and ultra-Protestants of the Episcopal\ncommunion. This is, however, far from being the case. We admire\nconsistency and cannot accept logical contradictions. The\nProtestant ground is something that our reason can comprehend,\nthough we believe it does away with all revelation and leads\ndirectly to infidelity. But God has furnished us with no mental\npowers by which to fathom a system which is neither one thing nor\nthe other, which wears a Catholic exterior over a Protestant\nheart. Such will be the verdict of the world. How long\nAnglicanism can last we know not. It has been a kind of half-way\nhouse to the church, and it may occupy this position for a long\ntime. It seems to us that every honest high-churchman should\nbecome a Catholic at once, when he will find what he wants, not\nsimply on paper but in life, not in imagination but in reality.\nThe movement called ritualism is an indication that the grace of\nGod is stirring up the dry bones; for Anglicanism in itself is\nthe most lifeless and unspiritual religion we know of. God grant\nthat the movement may bring forth its proper fruits. We only fear\nthat when it comes to \"leaving all for Christ,\" to giving up\nhouses and lands, wives and children, position and preferment,\nmany will go back, (as we have seen with sorrow,) and be like the\nyoung man in the gospel, who was, at one time, \"not far from the\nkingdom of heaven.\" Ritualism is only a yearning after the real\npresence of the Incarnate God, for which the redeemed soul longs\neven with anguish. \"Tears were my meat, day and night, while they\nsaid to me. _Where_ is thy God?\" The true heart will find\nits Lord only in that one body which is his fulness. Pray, then,\nfellow-Catholics, pray for the sincere and true, that they may\nhave grace to forsake the land of shadows, and come where are the\nbright beams of the morning; that ere the night of death overtake\nthem, they may, like the pure-minded Simeon, see the salvation of\nGod, and joyfully chant their \"_Nunc dimittis_,\" \"Lord, now\nlettest thou thy servant depart in peace; for mine eyes have seen\nthy salvation.\"\n\n--------\n\n{44}\n\n          Bishop Doyle. [Footnote 20]\n\n  [Footnote 20: _The Life, Times, and Correspondence of the Rt.\n  Rev. Dr. Doyle, Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin_. By W. J.\n  Fitzpatrick, J. P. 3 vols. 8vo. Boston: P. Donohoe.]\n\n\"What can you teach?\" \"Any thing from A, B, C, to the third book\nof Canon Law.\" \"Pray, young man, can you teach and practise\nhumility?\" \"I trust I have, at least, the humility to feel that\nthe more I read the more I see how ignorant I have been, and how\nlittle can, at best, be known.\" Such were the pithy replies to\nthe equally condensed questions put by the venerable Dean\nStaunton, of Carlow College, to a young Augustinian friar who had\nbeen proposed as candidate for a professorship in that rising\ninstitution. The friar was Father James Doyle, then in his\ntwenty-seventh year. Erect in stature, austere in features, the\ncandid earnestness of his mind beaming through his expressive\ncountenance, which bore the evident traces of studious habits,\nand the freedom of his unpretentious manners--all these\nqualities, combined in his looks and declared by his language,\nimmediately enlisted the sympathetic esteem of the dean. Nor was\nhis youth an obstacle to his acceptance. His appointment to the\nposition followed, and the six years spent by him in the college\nserved as a fit preparation for the public career of this eminent\nman, the narrative of whose life forms an essential part of the\nhistory of his country for at least fifteen years.\n\nFrom the valuable work to which reference is made in the note to\nthis article, we find much to admire in the noble character who\nforms the subject of Mr. Fitzpatrick's literary effort. There\nmust have been placed at his disposal a rich and abundant store\nof material from which the biography was compiled. The work\nitself, in a literary point of view, is creditable to the\ndiligence of the author; but at present we shall content\nourselves with an attempt to gather from its comprehensive pages,\nand place before our readers, some of the most remarkable events\nthat distinguished the life and were influenced by the action of\nthe eminent prelate.\n\nOf respectable and honorably rebellious ancestors, he was born in\nNew Ross, County of Wexford, in 1786. In an appendix to the work\nbefore us there is a chronological article showing the descent of\nthe Doyle family from some ancient, royal sept--a portion of\nIrish history by no means uncommon--to which we would refer those\nwho should doubt his original nobility of blood. For us it will\nsuffice to know that some of his immediate relatives had fallen\nfor their country and its faith, and that even as far back as\n1691, there were few more distinguished than the bold Rapparee\nchieftain, \"Brigadier Doyle,\" who was sent from Limerick, by\nSarsfield, to collect men and horses for the Jacobite army.\n\n{45}\n\nAnne Warren, the mother of the future bishop, was a Catholic, but\nof Quaker extraction, and the father had died before the child's\nbirth, so that young Doyle was brought into the world under\ncircumstances, though not of indigence, still not of superfluity\nin worldly goods. But nature richly endowed him; and what\ntreasures can be sought more desirable than the intrinsic power\nof soul which no external change can diminish, and which retains\nits richness, independent of the uncertainties of variable\nfortune! Nor was his childhood other than obscure, if we may\napply the term to that state which, though humble, was\nillustrated by the tender care and enlightened piety of a\nChristian mother. His boyhood was not remarkable for those\nextraordinary manifestations of genius said to be discovered in\nthe younger days of great men. No phenomena indicative of unusual\nfortune or success in life attended his boyish acts, although\nthere is a tale of some careless fortune-teller having\nprognosticated the high position and distinguished labors which\nafterward rendered his name so memorable. At the age of eleven he\nran the risk of being shot for his curiosity in observing, at a\ndistance, a battle fought between the patriots of the rebellion\nand the English forces. His school-days commenced at Rathnavogue,\nwhere a Mr. Grace was conducting a seminary of learning to whose\nseats both Catholics and Protestants had equal access. Hitherto\nhis mother had been his instructor, and there are no impressions\nso important or so lasting as those imparted to the infant mind\nby the solicitous teaching of a parent. Under her guidance, the\nyouthful aspirations which inclined his developing reason to the\necclesiastical state of life, were fostered and encouraged, as\nshe early perceived that the tendency of his mental faculties\ndirected in the path of a holy vocation. In the year 1800, she\nplaced him under the care of an Augustinian friar named Crane,\nwho soon discovered the talents of the boy through his eagerness\nfor knowledge, and his intensely studious habits. She died in\n1802, leaving him an orphan, but with the prospect of his soon\nbecoming a member of the Augustinian order, which he entered\nthree years afterward. Notwithstanding that he entertained a\nstrong repugnance to the eleemosynary practices of religious\ncommunities of begging from door to door--and this aversion he\never retained--he still selected a conventual life in preference\nto the more public and active labors of a missionary priest. His\nrespect for the dignity of the priestly office was a\ncharacteristic trait in his life as bishop, and his ideas on the\nsubject seem to have originated from that natural good taste with\nwhich he had been gifted from his infancy.\n\nThe ordeal of the novitiate passed through with fidelity, he made\nhis vows as member of the order in 1806, in the small thatched\nchapel at Grantstown. The marked abilities displayed at this\nperiod induced his superiors to select him to be sent with some\nothers to the college of their order at Coimbra, in Portugal, a\nwell-conducted institution, and connected with the celebrated\nuniversity of that place. As he was afforded all the ample\nopportunities held out to those attending the university\nlectures--a privilege accorded only to a few--his mind was\nimmensely enriched, and what is of still greater importance, his\nideas were enabled to attain a sturdiness of growth and\nliberality of expansion which ever afterward distinguished his\nwritings and speeches. In his subsequent examination before a\ncommittee of both houses of parliament, he testified to the\nnumerous advantages which were then, as now, derived from a\ncontinental education for the priesthood. In his days, indeed, it\nwas no longer, as it had been in 1780, felony in a foreign\npriest, and high-treason in a native, to teach or practise the\ndoctrines of the Catholic religion in Ireland. Still, the penal\nlaws, although relaxed, had left their evil traces long after\ntheir name had ceased to excite terror, even if it occasioned a\nthrill of hatred in the breasts of those who had so long been\nsubjected to the clanking of their fetters.\n{46}\nIt seems somewhat of an anomaly for Protestantism, which was\ninaugurated under the plea of freeing and enlightening the human\nmind, to sanction the enactment and enforce the execution of laws\ndirectly calculated to crush religious freedom, and make it\ncriminal to educate the children of the conquered Catholics. It\nis, however, but one of the innumerable inconsistencies with\nwhich the histories of nations and of creeds regale us at\nintervals.\n\nWhilst young Doyle was deeply engaged in drinking in from the\npurest and deepest springs theologic lore, and treasuring up in\nhis capacious mind the classic and philosophic eloquence of\nancient times, the sound of war disturbed his retirement. A\nFrench invasion overturned the independence of the country, and\nso rapid was the advance of Junot that the vessel which bore away\nin safety to Brazil the royal family was hastened in its\ndeparture by some shots from the conquering army. The peninsular\nwar ensued, in which the Portuguese, aided by the English under\nWellington, drove out the irreligious soldiers of the empire. The\nenthusiasm which inflamed the minds of the natives was taken up\nby the young students, and among them Doyle shouldered his\nmusket, believing that the best way to prove one's fidelity to\ntruth and justice is to _act_ when action alone is\neffective.\n\nMr. Fitzpatrick does not explain the short stay made by the\nstudent in the college of Coimbra, as we find him in Ireland, in\n1808, preparing for the reception of holy orders. He had\nconcluded a good course of study, and his natural abilities must\nhave rendered him fully competent to be admitted to the order of\npriesthood, which he received in 1809, in the humble, thatched\nchapel of his youthful days. But as there were then, to a greater\nextent than at present, existing prejudices against religious\norders in Ireland, he was not only refused faculties, but even\nthe preparatory examination, by Dr. Ryan, Coadjutor Bishop of\nFerns. The young priest quietly remained in his convent until\ncalled, upon the recommendation of some friends who admired his\ntalents, to the position of professor in Carlow College. Here he\nrendered most important services. Within its walls he spent six\nyears most studiously occupied, both for his own advancement and\nfor the benefit of his pupils. The advantage of procuring\npositions in seminaries or colleges for young priests of talent\nand taste for prolonged study, is easily perceived when we\nconsider the necessity--more especially at the present day--of\nfitting some for the higher duties of their order--the defence\nand exposition of Catholic doctrines in a literary manner. Had\nthe talents of Dr. Doyle received no cultivation more than that\nafforded by a superficial knowledge of theology in a rudimentary\ncourse of three years, his life would have passed in obscurity,\nand his eminent public services could never have been\nsuccessfully accomplished. The light of genius is, indeed, a gift\nof nature, but the intensity of its brilliancy depends upon art\nand culture. Besides this, his taste for literature excited the\nenthusiasm, whilst it encouraged the efforts of the students. His\nlectures on eloquence, which had, up to that time, been\nconsiderably neglected among the Irish clergy, served as an\nincentive to their ardor in pursuit of that noble science, at the\nsame time that it furnished his own mind with the inexhaustible\nresources which he afterward wielded with such mighty effect.\n{47}\nWe know of similar results having been attained by the late\neminent Cardinal Wiseman whilst rector of the English College at\nRome. The necessity of a learned clergy was scarcely ever felt as\nmuch as at the present day, when men of abilities and cultivation\nmay be daily encountered, eager and earnest for the truth, but\nnot ready to admit it upon insufficient or superficial grounds.\nThis view, entertained by Dr. Doyle whilst in Carlow College, led\nhim to inculcate the same principles to those around him.\n\nBut the scene of his labors changes, and we now approach the\nperiod of his life in which his publications procure for him that\ngeneral recognition of power and virtue, hitherto accorded him in\na humbler sphere of duty. By an unprecedented unanimity he was\nelected, in 1819, to succeed Dr. Corcoran in the diocese of\nKildare and Leighlin. The selection was more remarkable, as in\nthose days there were feelings of strong dislike entertained\nagainst members of religious communities, and the subject caused\nno slight trouble at Rome. The wise regulations of the church for\nthe election of bishops were observed in Ireland then, as they\nare now. Assembled together, the clergy received the Holy\nEucharist, prayed for light to direct their action, retired in\nsilence, strengthened and enlightened, to give their voice for\nthe most fitting subject; and the result showed in this case,\nthat, as they had the generosity to pass over the bounds of\nprejudice, the Holy Ghost guided them in their deliberations. It\nwas not a little surprising that the choice had fallen upon an\nAugustinian friar; but that the dignity should be conferred upon\none so young--he was only thirty-two years of age--and with\nsuch universal satisfaction, went far to prove the high esteem in\nwhich he must have been held. The custom of electing elderly\npersons to the episcopal office is generally admitted to have\ntraditional usage in its favor, although we do not read of our\nLord having regarded age as a qualification in his apostles, and\nSt. John is believed to have been a mere youth. Innocent III.,\none of the most illustrious popes that ever reigned, was only\nthirty-seven years of age when he ascended the chair of St.\nPeter. And although the youthful appearance of the new bishop was\nmade the occasion of adverse criticism in some quarters, he\nentered upon his office no less deeply impressed with the truth\nof what St. Augustine said of the episcopate, \"_Nomen sit\noneris, non honoris_,\" than if he were bowed down by age.\n\nMr. Fitzpatrick's work exposes to us many evils that had been\nallowed to grow up in the diocese under the inactive government\nof some of Bishop Doyle's predecessors. Incompetent persons are\nfound in every state of life, and many of the miseries by which\nsociety is afflicted arise from faithlessness or incapacity in\nincumbents of high positions. Energy and diligence were not\ncharacteristic of those who had gone before him, and abuses that\nhad been tolerated by negligence, grew into evils which were\nmagnified by their proximity to the sanctuary. But Bishop Doyle\nwas one of those faithful ministers who felt the responsibilities\nenjoined upon his office, \"_quasi pro animabus reddituri\nrationem_.\" Some customs common among the clergy were not much\nin accordance with ecclesiastical propriety, and it is not easy\nto eradicate what has been allowed to attain a long growth.\n{48}\nIt is true that the penal times had but just ceased, and the\ndecadence in ecclesiastical discipline brought about by the\ndreary night of persecution, was of such magnitude as not to be\nquickly remedied. Still, the new bishop had brought with him into\nthe office a thorough knowledge of the laws of the church, and a\nsense of the obligation of carrying these laws into execution\nwhenever possible. These were the two principal reasons to which\nmust be ascribed the successful issue of all his measures at\nreform. He called the attention of his clergy to the decrees of\nthe twenty-fourth session of the Council of Trent, with regard to\nthe reformation of the church, and dwelt upon the penalties to\nwhich he himself should be liable were he to neglect the\nenforcement of those wise regulations.\n\nFor the decency of public worship, the ornaments and linens of\nthe altar, and everything connected with the sacred ceremonies of\nreligion, he had the most scrupulous regard. He instituted\nregular visitations in his diocese, as he felt that he could not\nbe exempted from a sinful negligence in omitting to comply with\nthe decrees of Trent in this respect. In these visitations he\ndiscovered the sad state to which ecclesiastical discipline had\nfallen before his days. In one instance the vestments were found\nto be in such an unbecoming state that he tore them asunder.\nReturning next year to the same parish, he found the identical\nold vestments sewn together and kept in a turf-basket. To prevent\na repetition, he consigned them to the flames, and as the parish\npriest was by no means a poor man, the wretched taste displayed\nby him was wholly unpardonable.\n\nHunting was not an unusual occupation with the clergy of those\ndays. Practices by no means tending to increase the respect of\nthe people for their pastors, had been allowed to accompany the\nmarriage and funeral services of country districts, and all these\nclaimed the diligent reformatory care of the active bishop. The\noffice of reformer--as the very sound has to some an odious\nsignification--is not the most envious one in the world, and it\nacquires a peculiarly distasteful character from those whose\nself-interested conduct may fall under its action. Hence the\nyoung bishop was sometimes accused of rashness in his undertaking\nto correct abuses of so long a standing, and the plea was set up\nthat good and wise men had tolerated them in the past. Nor was he\nfree from the receipt of letters of complaint, principally,\nthough not always, from old pastors who found great difficulty in\nabandoning habits which their sense of right would not permit\nthem to justify. They remonstrated with him for carrying out laws\nfor the execution of which he was responsible. But he kindly\nreasoned with them on the necessity which pressed him to be\nfaithful to his trust; and as he never urged his own feelings or\nhis own bias as the motive of his action, but always appealed to\nthe law of the church, he gradually effected the most beneficent\nresults. He never used harshness, even where it might appear, if\nnot necessary, at least justifiable, and never was he accused of\ndisregarding the reasonable explanations of the humblest of his\nclergy. Law, not self; justice, not caprice, were the motives\nthat incited him; and, guided by such principles, he confided the\nsuccess of his efforts to God, and thus labored under the\ninspiration of the church.\n\nThe sacrament of confirmation had been but rarely administered\nbefore his time, and he frequently was affected to tears when,\ninstead of children to receive it, there were crowds of\ngray-haired men and women.\n{49}\nThe education of the young had been much neglected by many parish\npriests, whose taste for agricultural pursuits led them to devote\nmore time to the cultivation of farms than to the instruction of\ntheir people. One rural gentleman insisted that he could well\nattend to his flocks of sheep without neglecting his spiritual\nflock; but the bishop required that his time should be\nexclusively devoted to his ministry. Many justified their\nengagement with worldly occupations, or their inattention to\ntheir duties, by pointing to the curate, and, loudly affirming\nhis energetic zeal, declared him fully competent to direct the\nparish, whilst the old man should repose from his labors and\nenjoy in ease the fruits of his past services in the vineyard of\nthe Lord. The persistent labors of the bishop at length produced\nthat good result ever to be expected from a faithful discharge of\nduty. Visitations were regularly conducted throughout his\ndiocese, and the long-neglected canons of the church were\nreestablished, to the great satisfaction of all good priests, as\nwell as with salutary consequences to the people.\n\nNot less important in their results were the spiritual retreats\nwhich he inaugurated amongst his clergy. The efficient means of\npreserving and strengthening the spiritual life of the priesthood\nhad been long impossible in the times of persecution; but when\nthis obstacle was removed, his predecessors took no steps to\nremedy the ill effects of their omission. One thousand priests\nand almost every prelate in Ireland assembled at Carlow, in 1820,\nto avail themselves of the advantages of silence and prayer under\nthe direction of the young bishop, who conducted the religious\nexercises. He had been always known as an austere man to himself,\nand most conscientiously attentive to even the minor duties of\nhis ecclesiastical state, and the brilliant manner in which he\nguided his attentive hearers through this retreat deeply\nimpressed them. \"These sermons,\" (he preached three times a day,)\nwrites Rev. Mr. Delany, \"were of an extraordinarily impressive\ncharacter. We never heard anything to equal them before or since.\nThe duties of the ecclesiastical state were never so eloquently\nor efficiently expounded. His frequent application and exposition\nof the most intricate texts of Scripture amazed and delighted us;\nWe thought he was inspired. I saw the venerable Archbishop Troy\nweep like a child, and raise his hands in thanksgiving. At the\nconclusion of the retreat he wept again, and kissed his coadjutor\nwith more than a brother's affection.\"\n\nDr. O'Connell narrates that \"for the ten days during which the\nretreat lasted. Dr. Doyle knew no rest. His soul was on fire in\nthe sacred cause. He was determined to reform widely. His falcon\neye sparkled with zeal. The powers of his intellect were applied\nto the good work with telling effect. At the close of one of his\nmost impassioned exhortations, he knelt down on a\n_prie-dieu_ immediately before me. The vigorous workings of\nhis mind, and the intense earnestness of purpose within, affected\neven the outward man. Big drops of perspiration stood upon his\nneck, and his rochet was almost saturated.\" The fruits of these\nlabors were proportionate to their intensity, for the soil was\ngood, and needed but that cultivation, for want of which it had\nlong lain fallow. To reform the morals of the people, he knew\nthat the source of their moral teaching--the priesthood--must be\nenlightened and elevated.\n{50}\nIt seems that there can be nothing better calculated to effect a\ncordial co\u00f6peration of ecclesiastical duties and responsibilities\nthan that a bishop should thus be willing and capable of teaching\nhis clergy in learning as well as in devotion; and of impressing,\nby propriety of language and dignity of position, those sublime\ntruths that should be frequently proposed to their consideration.\nAnother great work undertaken by him was the revival of diocesan\nconferences, which had long fallen into desuetude. He ordained\nthat they should be held regularly, and his own learning was a\nsafe guarantee of their practical utility. The many intricate\nquestions of moral theology, as well as local issues with which\nthe clergy of a well-conducted diocese should be conversant, were\nusefully discussed in those assemblies with freedom and decorum.\nThe general non-observance of statutes and laws, arising\nprincipally from the difficulties of the penal times, called for\nmore strenuous efforts than would have been otherwise needed. The\nseverity of penal laws against the practices of religion, or the\nadministration of the sacraments, diminished the number of\npriests, who were obliged to hide themselves in the mountains,\nand minister by stealth and under fear of death in solitary\nplaces to the spiritual necessities of their flocks. This\naccounts for the statute which was passed in a synod of Kildare\nin 1614, allowing lay persons to administer the Blessed Eucharist\nto each other in cases of necessity. But those times had passed,\nand Dr. Doyle believed that what was then justifiably permitted\ncould be so no longer without sin on his part. Conscientious\nfulfilment of duty alone directed him in these many salutary\nreforms introduced by him for the welfare of his people; and we\ndwell upon them with greater pleasure, as they evince the true\ncharacter of a bishop. These, and many other beneficent changes\nintroduced by Bishop Doyle, were but in accordance with the\nimproved condition in which the Catholics of his day found\nthemselves. After long and painful but finally triumphant\nstruggles to regain some of their lost freedom, they still felt\nfor a length of time the effects of that odious tyranny, by whose\nmeans the proud, religious ascendency of a hostile sect had long\naimed at the complete subjection of the body and soul of the\nCatholic population. It is pleasing to find that the first\nrelaxation of rigorous, repressive laws against the Catholic\nIrish was owing to the influence exercised by the American\nrevolution upon English affairs. In 1778, Catholics were allowed\nto hold property as well as their Protestant fellow-citizens;\nand, although this was but a slight concession forced from the\njustice of their rulers, the Irish people derived from it an\nencouragement to persevere in asserting their further claims, so\noften deceitfully promised and unjustly withheld. These claims of\nhis countrymen now assumed greater weight in the minds of\nlegislators, as they became more importunately urged upon their\nnotice by the powerful efforts of O'Connell. Bishop Doyle did not\nhesitate to enter the arena, and throw the weight of his mighty\nintellect and the no less important influence of his official\nposition, into the contest. A remarkably vigorous exposition of\nthe state of the question, and of the necessity of yielding to\nthe demands of justice, published in a letter signed J. K. L.,\ninspired new hope into his friends, and drew upon him the hostile\nattention of numerous opponents.\n\nPolemics have, in our day, assumed a character quite different\nfrom that which distinguished them in former times.\n{51}\nMuch of the rancorous spirit, falsely called religious, which\ndisturbed society, and caused even domestic life sometimes to\nbear an unchristian aspect, has passed away, and acerbity of\nfeeling which irritates, whilst it never convinces, is now less\nfrequently encountered than the milder tone of persuasive\nargumentation. It may be that men were then more thoroughly in\nearnest about religion than they are at present; but it would not\nbe easy to maintain that earnestness must be expressed in\nlanguage calculated to offend, and shown in acts intended to do\nviolence to brotherly love. It is more probable that, with the\nprogress of the age, men are learning more of the true spirit of\nreligion, and are leaving off much of that virulence which poor\nhuman passion is likely to bring with it, even into the sanctuary\nof divine faith. One thing is certain, that a change for the\nbetter has come over the spirit which elicits religious\ndiscussion at present; and the questions that excite our interest\nand enlist our most serious consideration are agitated in a\nmilder manner than in the days of Bishop Doyle, when it was rare\nthat a religious dispute closed without abuse or vituperation,\nand spiritual views were not unfrequently enforced by blows.\n\nA discussion arose between the Bishop of Kildare and Magee, the\nProtestant Archbishop of Dublin, and as both were able combatants\nupon a field which afforded ample space for assault and defence,\nthe contest waged was long and fierce, drawing forth the wit and\nsarcasm, the learning and eloquence undoubtedly possessed by both\ndisputants. Instead of cooling by time, it warmed as it advanced,\nand increased in interest as it drew into its current many minor\nwarriors eager to join in the religious fray. A spirit of\ndomination which naturally arose from the relations between\nCatholics and Protestants, determined Magee to assume a loftier\ntone, with more pretentious, and, on that account, less tenable\ngrounds. These circumstances rendered the humiliation of his\ndefeat more irksome to his high position. The Marquis of\nWellesley must have been an impartial judge, and at the\nconclusion of the politico-religious combat, he declared that\nMagee \"had evidently got the worst of it.\" Several other\nopponents who successively assaulted \"J. K. L.,\" were easily\ndisposed of by his mighty pen.\n\nInfluenced by his genius and eloquent writings, the movement led\nby the great \"Agitator\" progressed toward its desired result. A\nchange was imperceptibly coming over the spirit of the times. To\nretain a nation in bondage to a political or religious ascendency\nnot founded on the good-will of the subject, must, in the long\nrun, become impossible. As long as a people preserve unsubdued\ntheir spirit of religious or national freedom, there is no power\non earth capable of frustrating their ultimate triumph. A great\nwriter observes that the war in which violence attempts to\noppress truth must be a strange and an arduous one. No matter how\ndoubtful may be the result for a time, no matter how obscure the\nhorizon of events, truth must in the end conquer, for it is\nimperishable--it is eternal as God himself. Thus was it in the\nstruggle for emancipation in Ireland. The truth became at length\ngenerally admitted, that no civil legislation, no state\nauthority, has a right to interfere with the sanctity of human\nconscience; and that the power which attempts to violate the\nnatural gift of religious freedom transcends its limits, and is\nguilty of a grievous crime against the established order of\nProvidence.\n\n{52}\n\nBefore Dr. Doyle's entrance upon the public duties of his\nepiscopal office, the efforts made for their emancipation by the\nCatholics had produced but little effect. Petitions crowded to\nthe parliament, but they were hastily and sometimes scornfully\nrejected. Religious equality had been promised as a reward for\nthe parliamentary union of both countries in 1800; but the\ninsidious policy of Pitt proved the promise fallacious, and when\nthe nation found itself cheated out of its legislative power,\nwithout even this slight recompense of religious freedom, deep\nwas the indignation felt. In the movements preceding Dr. Doyle's\nefforts for the recovery of their rights, the Catholics were\nunaided by the \"higher order\" of their countrymen, \"who\nsensitively shrank from participating in any appeal for redress.\"\n(Vol. I. p. 156.) The people were thus abandoned by those whom\nthey regarded as their natural leaders, and, with some\nexceptions, \"the Catholic clergy not only held aloof, but\ndeprecated any attempt to disturb the general apathy.\" (Ibid.)\nBut Dr. Doyle brought new energy to the combat, and, although the\nvictory which crowned the labors of the great \"Liberator\" in 1829\nwas principally due to his own herculean powers and indomitable\nspirit, still the assistance rendered by the Bishop of Kildare\nwas highly appreciated by O'Connell himself. Here it may be\nremarked that the Duke of Wellington is sometimes lauded for\nyielding to the claims of the Catholics. It is just to accord\npraise wherever merited; but, as the hostility of Wellington to\nthe demands of his countrymen had been for years the greatest\nobstacle to their being satisfied, and as he yielded at last\nevidently through fear of revolution in case of refusal, it would\nappear that a reluctant concession, rendered when it could not be\nsafely withheld, is but a slight groundwork upon which to erect a\nmonument to his generosity.\n\nIt would be a long though not an ungrateful task, to trace the\ntoilsome progress of the bishop through his many labors for the\ntemporal and eternal welfare of his people. Throughout every page\nof the work before us we may perceive the deep solicitude with\nwhich he continually watched over their moral and social\nimprovement. Wide-spread disaffection at long misgovernment had\nevinced itself in various species of secret societies--Ribbonmen,\nWhite-boys, Peep-o'-day men, etc.--formed either for purposes\nhostile to the actual state of society, or, more frequently,\nperhaps, for self-defence against the powerful and extensive\norganization of Orange-men. The Ribbonmen promised \"to be true\nto, and assist each other in all things lawful;\" but if even\njustifiable in their origin and object, they not unfrequently\nwere guilty of acts which soon aroused the opposition of the\nclergy. Bishop Doyle found his diocese extensively overrun by\nnumerous parties of these societies; but, as the people loved\nhim, his disapprobation was very effectual in checking their\nprogress. As most of the discontent arose from the collection of\ntithes from Catholics for the support of Protestant ministers, he\nreprobated the laws that were thus the cause of evils which it\nwas their office to remove. He himself counselled his people to\nobserve a negative opposition to the collection of these tithes,\nby refusing to pay them, but never to resist with violence a\nforcible execution of the law. To force obedience to this law was\nfrequently a dangerous experiment. The legal claims of the parson\nwere sometimes satisfied at the expense of the lives of his\nunwilling supporters.\n{53}\nHowever incompatible with his character it might appear, yet it\nwas no uncommon occurrence to witness the meek parson at the head\nof a military force, leading an assault on some undefended cabin\nor directing their manoeuvres in order to possess himself of a\ncow, an only pig, or even a wretched bed and bedding of a\ndestitute family. Goaded to fury, the people would sometimes\nresist the soldiers, and the sacrifice of human life was often\nthe only fruit of a tithe-collecting expedition. It may be\ninteresting to read the following verbatim copy of a bill\nannouncing the sale by auction of the valuable spoil secured in a\nsuccessful foray by an evangelical gentleman in the neighborhood\nof Ballymore:\n\n  \"To be _soaled_ by Public Cout in the town of Ballymore on\n  the 15 Inst one _Cowe_ the property of James Scully one\n  new bed and one _gowne_ the property of John quinn seven\n  hanks of _yearn_ the property of the widow Scott one\n  _petty coate_ and one apron the property of the widow\n  Gallagher seized under and by virtue of leasing warrant for\n  tythe due the Rved. John Ugher. Dated this 12th day of May\n  1824.\"\n\nIn his celebrated examination before a committee of parliament in\n1825, Dr. Doyle rendered ample testimony to the practical evils\nof this system. Notwithstanding the merciless exposure to which\nhe subjected the entire tithe business, there was nothing done to\nalleviate the misery or remedy the sufferings with which it is so\npregnant, and Ireland still labors under this, one of her most\nharassing calamities--the cause of her discontent and the source\nof her degradation. Not a little remarkable is the historical\nfact, that before the time of the reformation the Irish nation\nnever consented to the system of tithes established in all other\ncountries by the law of the church. Before the invasion there was\nno such thing known. After that lamentable period the English\nconquerors attempted to establish it as in England, but \"Giraldus\nCambrensis,\" says Doctor Doyle, \"imputes it to the Irish as a\ncrime that they would not pay tithe, notwithstanding the laws\nwhich enjoined such payment; and, now at the end of six hundred\nyears, they are found to persevere, with increased obstinacy, in\ntheir struggles to cast off this most obnoxious impost.\"\n\nA long letter addressed to his liberal friend. Sir H. Parnell, in\n1831, is occupied in expounding his views on poor laws and church\nproperty. His advocacy of laws to relieve the poor drew forth his\neloquent pleading in their behalf, whilst his extensive knowledge\nof canon law made him familiar with the ancient legislations of\nthe church with respect to tithes. A short but characteristic\npassage from this letter we cannot omit:\n\n{54}\n\n  \"I am a churchman; but I am unacquainted with avarice, and I\n  feel no worldly ambition. I am, perhaps, attached to my\n  profession; but I love Christianity more than its worldly\n  appendages. I am a Catholic from the fullest conviction; but\n  few will accuse me of bigotry. I am an Irishman hating\n  injustice, and abhorring, with my whole soul, the oppression of\n  my country; but I desire to heal her sores, not to aggravate\n  her sufferings. In decrying, as I do, the tithe-system, and the\n  whole church establishment in Ireland, I am actuated by no\n  dislike to the respectable body of men who, in the midst of\n  fear and hatred, gather its spoils; on the contrary, I esteem\n  those men, notwithstanding their past and perhaps still\n  existing hostility to the religious and civil rights of their\n  fellow-subjects and countrymen; I even lament the painful\n  position in which they are placed. What I aspire to is the\n  freedom of the people; what I most ardently desire is their\n  union--which can never be effected till injustice, or the\n  oppression of the many by the few, is taken away. And as to\n  religion, what I wish is to see her freed from the slavery of\n  the state and the bondage of mammon--to see her restored to\n  that liberty with which Christ hath made her free--her\n  ministers laboring and receiving their hire from those for whom\n  they labor--that thus religion may be restored to her empire,\n  which is not of this world, and men once more worship God in\n  spirit and in truth.\"\n\nIn this one paragraph we have a compendious exposition of his\nviews and aims with regard to the civil and religious freedom of\nhis country.\n\nWhen the disfranchisement of the forty-shilling free-holders--a\ndisastrous piece of legislation--was effected in 1831, Dr. Doyle\nundisguisedly expressed his liberal views of individual right and\nliberty. One position maintained by him is somewhat remarkable,\nand we record it, as it accords with the opinion of our\nfellow-citizens.\n\n  \"It is the natural right of man,\" he writes--\"a right\n  interwoven with the essence of our constitution, and producing\n  as its necessary effect the House of Commons--that a man who\n  has life, liberty, and property, should have some share or\n  influence in the disposal of them by law. Take the elective\n  franchise from the Irish peasant, and you not only strip him of\n  the present reality or appearance of this right, but you\n  disable him and his posterity ever to acquire it. He is now\n  poor and oppressed--you then make him vile and contemptible; he\n  is now the image of a freeman--he will then be the very essence\n  of a slave. ... Like the Helot of Athens, he may go to the\n  forum and gaze at the election, and then return to hew his wood\n  and fetch his water to the freeman--an inhabitant, but not a\n  citizen, of the country which gave him birth.\"\n\nWhilst thus battling with the injustice of the times, and\nwielding with effect his powerful pen and eloquent\nvoice--expounding his views of human right, reproving insidious\npoliticians, reprobating the ungenerous legislation of the\ngovernment, and refuting the calumnies by which his religion was\nassailed--he never lost sight of the humbler duties of his\npastoral office. From the turmoil and uncertain issues of public\ndiscussion, he would revert with a sense of relief to the special\ncare of his own immediate flock. Great was the solicitude which\nhe so frequently expressed and always felt for the salvation of\nhis people. \"Ah!\" he would exclaim, \"how awful to be made\nresponsible for even one soul! 'What then,' as St. Chrysostom\nsays, 'to be held answerable, not for one, but for the whole\npopulation of an entire diocese!' '_Quid de illis sacerdotibus\ndicendum, a quibus sunt omnium animae requirendae?_'\" It will\ntell, more than volumes, to know his character as bishop, the\nexalted views he took of the value of a Christian soul. \"And if\nsuch,\" he proceeds to say, \"be the value of one immortal soul\nredeemed by the precious blood of an incarnate God, what must be\nthe value of thousands? And oh! what the responsibility of him\nwho has to answer not for one, but for multitudes--perhaps,\nultimately, for millions! How can he reasonably hope to enter\nheaven, unless with his dying breath he can repeat with truth,\n'Father, of those whom thou hast confided to my care, not one has\nperished through my fault.'\" In this spirit his efforts for the\neducation and moral improvement of his people were carried on to\na successful issue.\n{55}\nHis wise restitution of the laws of the church to their proper\ncontrol over everything connected with his diocese, completely\nremoved the confusion which had long reigned. The statutes\ndecreed for the government of his clergy were rigorously\nenforced. He placed upon a more intelligible basis the hitherto\nunsettled relations of religious orders to regular diocesan\nauthority, and although a religious himself, he was never accused\nof partiality toward such communities. In fact, he found it\nnecessary as it was difficult to induce them to undertake reforms\nwhich he deemed very much needed in some points of discipline, in\norder to render their services more efficient. He writes, (vol.\nii. p. 187,) \"I have, from time to time, suggested to men of\nvarious religious orders the necessity of some further\nimprovement, but in vain. They seem to me the bodies of men who\nare profiting least by the lights of the age. I regret this\nexceedingly,\" etc. In 1822, he wrote that \"to suppress or\nsecularize half or most of the religious convents of men in\nPortugal would be a good work.\" Thus his zeal for the cause of\ntruth and the benefit of the church led him, not only in this,\nbut in other instances, to express opinions which not many would\nventure to publish. It is curious to notice his estimate of a\nwriter to whom but few would accord the same justice. In a letter\nwritten to Mariana in 1830, he says, \"You would like to know\nsomething of Fleury. Well, he is the ablest historian the church\nhas produced; but he told truth sometimes without disguise, and\ncensured the views and conduct of many persons, who in return\ngave him a bad name.\" As he loved, instead of fearing freedom of\nthought, so, too, he boldly expressed his opinions; and with all\nthe power at his command endeavored to carry out his views. He\nwas no mere theorist, although he theorized extensively upon two\nimportant subjects. One was upon the practicability of effecting\na union between the Anglican and Catholic churches, and the other\nhad reference to the formation of a patriarchate for Ireland. For\nhis action upon both of these questions, arising as they did from\nthe circumstances of his time, he has been made the object of\nadverse, as well as favorable criticism. Of his theological\nknowledge, and of the light which his own native genius threw\nupon every topic he touched, there can be but one opinion, nor\nwill there be found any rash enough to doubt the honesty of his\nintentions. This is sufficient to exonerate him from all\nunbecoming charges in the minds of enlightened men, and it is\nonly the vicious and ignorant that stoop to the imputation of\nevil motives. His view with regard to the union of the churches\nappears to have been a doctrinal submission to the Catholic\nChurch, and a compromise in matters of discipline. The advantages\nto be derived from having a patriarch in Ireland, were presented\nby Dr. Doyle with his usual argumentative ability; and although\naccused of having desired the office for himself, the charge is\nan undoubted fabrication. Both of these projects fell through for\nwant of cooperation; but they show the extent to which his love\nof truth, and love of peace, and love of increasing the power of\nChristianity led him. Before concluding this notice of only a\nsmall portion of his labors and of the events which attended his\ncareer, we will transcribe the opinion formed of him by the Count\nde Montalembert, who, in a tour through Ireland in 1832, visited\nDr. Doyle and Dr. Murray.\n{56}\n\"They have inspired me,\" he writes, \"with the greatest\nveneration, not only for their piety and other apostolic virtues,\nbut for their eloquence and elegance of manners. Dr. Doyle is\nwell known to the Catholic world as one of the most solid pillars\nof the true faith, and the three kingdoms will long remember his\nappearance at the bar of the House of Lords, where, by his\neloquent exposition of Catholic doctrines, he confounded the\npeers of England--the descendants of those men who signed the\ngreat charter, but whose faith they have denied.\"\n\nWasted by his continual labors and incessant care for the welfare\nof his people, he felt the gradual approach of the last great\ncombat to which all must ultimately yield. He might well exclaim\nwith Saint Paul, \"I have fought the good fight. I have finished\nmy course. I have kept the faith, and now there is laid up for me\na crown of glory, which the Lord shall render to me, the just\nJudge.\" \"When exhausted nature apprised him that the last sad\nstruggle was approaching, he called for the viaticum. But\nrecollecting that his Master had expired on the hard bed of the\ncross, and anxious to resemble him even in his end, he ordered\nhis mourning priests to lift him almost naked from his bed, and\nstretch him upon the cold and rigid floor, and there, in\nhumiliation and penance and prayer, James of Kildare and Leighlin\naccepted the last earthly embrace of his God.\" This was in 1834,\nin the forty-eighth year of his age, and in the fifteenth of his\nepiscopate.\n\nMr. Fitzpatrick has rendered a valuable service to his country\nand religion by writing the life of this eminent man. The next\nthing to being a great man is to propose to our people the\nexample of great and good men, whom they should honor, and whose\nmemory should inspire those who come after them. Ireland has many\nsuch men whose histories have not yet been written, and whose\nlives would serve to raise in the souls of her sons a generous\nemulation of their actions. An incident in the life of Dr. Doyle\nwill show that this was a principle with which he himself was\ndeeply impressed, and which he very emphatically expressed. A\nforeign monk, dressed rather picturesquely, once approached him\nwith a very meek aspect, and said that he was a member of a\ncommunity from the continent just come to Ireland bearing the\nrelics of a man said to have been \"beatified.\" At the same time\nhe offered to the bishop a considerable portion of the relics.\nThe bishop was somewhat ruffled in temper, and replied sternly:\n\"Sir, we need not the ashes of beatified foreigners while we see\nthe bones of our martyred forefathers whitening the soil around\nus.\"\n\n--------\n\n{57}\n\n           Iona to Erin!\n\n\n      What Saint Columba Said To The Bird\n      Blown Over From Ireland To Iona. [Footnote 21]\n\n    [Footnote 21: This is a very ancient legend of the great\n    founder of Iona, and very characteristic of his exalted\n    patriotism and loving tenderness for all creatures, in which\n    he was an antitype of the seraphic St. Francis.]\n\n               I.\n\n  Cling to my breast, my Irish bird,\n    Poor storm-tost stranger, sore afraid!\n  How sadly is thy beauty blurred--\n  The wing whose hue was as the curd,\n    Rough as the seagull's pinion made!\n\n              II.\n\n  Lay close thy head, my Irish bird.\n    Upon this bosom, human still!\n  Nor fear the heart that still has stirred\n  To every tale of pity heard\n    From every shape of earthly ill.\n\n              III.\n\n  For you and I are exiles both;\n    Rest you, wanderer, rest you here!\n  Soon fair winds shall waft you forth\n  Back to our own beloved north--\n    Would God, I could go with you, dear!\n\n              IV.\n\n  Were I as you, then would they say,\n    Hermits and all in choir who join,\n 'Behold two doves upon their way;\n  The pilgrims of the air are they,\n    Birds from the Liffey or the Boyne!'\n\n              V.\n\n  But you will see what I am banned\n    No more, for my youth's sins, to see--\n  My Derry's oaks in council stand.\n  By Roseapenna's silver strand--\n    Or by Raphoe your flight may be.\n\n{58}\n\n              VI.\n\n  The shrines of Meath are fair and far,\n    White-winged one! not too far for thee--\n  Emania, shining like a star,\n  (Bright brooch on Erin's breast you are!) [Footnote 22]\n    That I am never more to see.\n\n    [Footnote 22: It is said that Macha, the queen, traced out\n    the site of the royal rath of Emania, near Armagh, with the\n    pin of her golden brooch. _See Mrs. Ferguson's \"Ireland\n    before the Conquest,\"_ for this and other interesting\n    Celtic legends.]\n\n               VII.\n\n  You'll see the homes of holy men\n    Far west upon the shoreless main--\n  In sheltered vale, on cloudy Ben,\n  Where saints still pray, and scribes still pen\n    The sacred page, despising gain!\n\n              VIII.\n\n  Above the crofts of virgin saints.\n    There pause, my dove, and rest thy wing.\n  But tell them not our sad complaints!\n  For if they dreamt our spirit faints\n    There would be fruitless sorrowing.\n\n              IX.\n\n  Perch as you pass amid their trees,\n    At noon or eve, my travelled dove.\n  And blend with voices of their bees\n  In croft, or school, or on their knees--\n    They'll bind you with their hymns of love!\n\n              X.\n\n  Be thou to them, O dove! where'er\n    The men or women saints are found.\n  My hyssop flying through the air;\n  My seven-fold benedictions bear--\n    To them, and all on Irish ground.\n\n              XI.\n\n  Thou wilt return, my Irish bird--\n    I, Colum, do foretell it thee.\n  Would thou couldst speak as thou hast heard\n  To all I love--O happy bird!\n    At home in Eri soon to be!\n\n--------\n\n{59}\n\n      Magas; or, Long Ago.\n\n    A Tale Of The Early Times.\n\n\n      Chapter VII.\n\nAre there any souls who can read the gospels as they would a\ncommon history of an heroic being? Whose frames do not thrill at\nthe sublime words the anointed Saviour uttered? Whose hearts do\nnot glow with an unearthly warmth at the touching incidents which\nmark the divine footsteps? Who see in the miracles only a\ntemporary relief from natural ailments? Who feel in the\ntremendous agony of the passion only the ordinary tide of human\nemotion in contemplating suffering? Such as these will not\nsympathize with Lotis, as she rose from the cleansing waters with\none sole aspiration in her heart; one firm, unchangeable purpose\nin her will; one object of interest for her intellect; one single\nlove to fill every affection she was conscious of. Long ago she\nhad sought the truth, the light, the life, the way. She possessed\nthem now; it remained for her to form herself upon the model, to\nthink his thoughts, to act his deeds, to live in his sight, and\nbe crucified in him; and all because she felt that here on earth\nit was the only life worth having, the only love worth loving.\nThe perversion of the world had become to her the necessary\nresult of its having forsaken God; and because it has forsaken\nGod, and cannot recognize truth, it will ever persecute good; and\nthey that live godly in Jesus Christ must necessarily suffer\npersecution--the persecution to which a blessing is promised. Day\nand night did Lotis meditate on the words of God; nor was it long\nere she desired to bring them into action. After the example of\nthe Christians of Jerusalem, she had placed her resources at the\nfeet of the Bishop of Athens, and now she placed her services\nunder his direction. But there was one thought that haunted her,\nand often she uttered one word in his presence; that word was\nChione.\n\n\"And what do you think can be done for Chione, my child?\" asked\nthe good bishop one day.\n\n\"I do not know, father, (so let me call you, I beg;) I do not\nknow; but I understand her struggle now, which I did not when I\nsat with her on the ruins; I see what she meant when she could\nnot give up Magas, or the applause of the world. She dreaded\nslavery because she was not free in soul. Would I could win the\ninterior freedom for her by wearing the exterior chain. Father,\nlet me beg Chione's freedom, bodily freedom; hers is not a spirit\nto be coerced into discipline. Surveillance only exasperates\nher.\"\n\n\"I believe it, my child, when it is not of her own choosing.\nRemember, however, she obeys Magas.\"\n\n\"Because he flatters her, fosters her pride, and maintains her in\nher station; besides, she loves him, and a woman easily obeys\nwhere she loves.\"\n\n\"She has bound herself to follow Christ.\"\n\n\"But she does not feel free to do it. Perhaps, were exterior\nfreedom granted to her, she might follow what she knows to be\ntruth. I shall never forget her appearance in the ruins of Tiryns\nwhen first I accosted her. Chione has not lost her faith.\"\n\n{60}\n\n\"Faith without works is dead,\" [Footnote 23] said the bishop;\n\"for works are the expression of our love, of that divine charity\nwithout which we are nothing. [Footnote 24] Though we speak with\nthe tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, we become\nas sounding brass or tinkling cymbals.\"\n\n    [Footnote 23: James ii. 20.]\n\n    [Footnote 24: I Cor. xiii. I, 2.]\n\n\"Chione knows this,\" said Lotis; \"she feels it intensely; it is\nthis feeling which occasions the struggle which she says is\ndestroying her.\"\n\n\"Well, she shall have her freedom, my daughter, though I doubt\nits effecting a good result. It is scarcely in the redemptive\norder. Our Lord cured those only whose souls were turned to him.\n[Footnote 25]\n\n    [Footnote 25: \"And he did not many mighty works there,\n    because of their unbelief.\" Matt. xiii. 58.]\n\nMen try to penetrate the secrets of matter, and call their\nguesses science. The action of mind they observe not, or they\nwould see that it obeys laws as unfalteringly as the insensate\nstone. A soul perfectly united to God is endowed with power that\nseems supernatural to those who know not that 'soul' is of divine\norigin, and even in its primal attributes towers above matter.\nThe action of such a soul on one open to its influences is\nmiraculous, as all action of grace is; but it was once Adam's\nprivilege by conferred gift at creation; it is now the\nChristian's right, purchased for him by Christ. The apostles, as\nyou know, heal those whom their shadow falls upon, not of their\nown power, but by virtue of the Holy Spirit that dwells in them;\nbut the power of God thus manifests itself only when the\nrecipient has at least some degree of recipient power, obtained\nby grace also. Christ is silent before his unbelieving judges,\nworks no miracle for Herod; yet he cannot exist without grace\nflowing from him; but grace falling on souls who will not receive\nit, but hardens them the more. [Footnote 26] This is why an\napostate is ever harder to reconvert than one who has never\nreceived the faith; this is why we are forbidden to cast our\npearls before swine; this is why I tremble for Chione. Remorse\nwas busy at her heart when you left her. If she listens to the\nvoice of God thus speaking within her, she may yet be a saint; if\nshe rejects the proffered voice, I _fear_, I fear the effect\nof grace rejected in such a mind as hers; it will demonstrate\nitself with no ordinary power.\"\n\n    [Footnote 26: \"And God hardened the heart of Pharao.\"\n    Exodus x. 27.]\n\n\"At the words she heard at Ephesus she fainted away,\" said Lotis.\n\n\"Better,\" answered the bishop, \"better had she thrown herself at\nthe feet of the apostle, and said simply, 'I repent me of my\nsin.' Of what service to her was her remorse? It stopped her\neloquence, paralyzed her tongue. She could no longer mystify her\nhearers by vain terms of an unintelligible philosophy of which\nshe held the key in her hand, though she would not use it. From\nwhat you have told me, it was remorse, and not repentance, she\nfelt.\"\n\n\"Oh! that she might be saved, though it were as by fire,\"\nfervently ejaculated Lotis.\n\nThe bishop looked at her face beaming with heavenly charity, and\nthe spirit of prophecy awoke within him.\n\n\"Lotis,\" said he, \"all Christians are more or less sureties for\none another, and must bear each other's burdens, even as our\nMaster became surety for each one of us, and bore our sins upon\nthe cross. It is a fearful burden Chione has to endure, more\nespecially for one of her disposition. 'Twill be, indeed, a\nsaving as if by fire, when salvation comes to her.\n{61}\nSay, would you be willing to help her bear her burden? If the\nflames are kindled, and she shrinks from them, will you pass\nthrough them in her place?\"\n\n\"To save her? Yes! Indeed I would! Father, I love Chione.\"\n\n\"Then offer yourself to God for her, my daughter, and strengthen\nyourself by prayer for the suffering you must look forward to.\nChione will be granted to expiatory love.\"\n\n ......\n\n      Chapter VIII.\n\n\"Now, my Chione, we will go to Athens.\"\n\n\"No, not to Athens, Magas; anywhere rather than to Athens; I beg\nof you not to take me to Athens.\"\n\n\"Why, what caprice is this? Where in all the world will you find\nyourself likely to be appreciated so well as at Athens? What\naudience more intelligent, more refined, more susceptible of\nsublime emotions? I love Athens; you know I do, and you may judge\nof the depth of my love for you, that, to ensure your freedom, I\nhave kept from it so long; but now, no one has a claim upon you\nsave myself; so we will go to Athens.\"\n\n\"I thought you had set your heart on going to Rome.\"\n\n\"That was only when I deemed Athens was out of the question. But\nmy--my Chione, you are free; we may go anywhere. My estates are\nsuffering from want of my presence; besides, I will settle some\nof the revenues on you. You must come to Athens with me.\"\n\nIt was very unwillingly that Chione acceded; but what could she\ndo? Was she less a slave now than before? Sometimes she thought\nshe was more so; for had she gone to the Lady Damaris, resumed\nthe practice of her religion, which clung to her inner being,\nalthough outwardly she gave no sign of faith, she knew she would\nhave been not only freed, but placed in a position to render her\nindependent of Magas. And why did she not do this now--why? Her\nfame had preceded her to the city, and she resolved to prove\nworthy of the reputation she had acquired. Poetry, art, mythic\ntypes, and Christian dogmas, blended in euphonic union in the\ndiscourses she delivered, while her impassioned verse thrilled\nevery heart; everywhere she was greeted as the modern Sappho,\neverywhere honored as the tenth muse; and at last the\nacclamations of her fellow-citizens called her to the very temple\nof the muses in which we were first introduced to her, there to\nreceive the crown of music, eloquence, and poesy. How could she\nrefuse? How could she renounce the world? ...  The throng was\nimmense; not only the _\u00e9lite_ of Athens were there, but\nstrangers came in crowds to hear the celebrated Leontium. The\nsmall temple had been somewhat injudiciously chosen, since not\none half of the crowding throng could enter. The festival had\nbeen proposed as a private tribute of friendship from the most\nexalted citizens of Athens to their adorable muse; but Leontium\n(as her public name ran) was no longer a private person; it was\nfound impossible to distance the crowds; and hastily a platform\nwas erected outside the building in the sacred grove, that the\npublic might be accommodated and have a chance of hearing their\nfavorite sing the glories of Athens.\n\nWe will not attempt to describe the preparatory exercises; the\nbeautiful intertwinings and graceful wreathings of the various\nmyths represented on that day, when all the energies of the city\nseemed exhausted to impart glory to the classical allegories that\nwere about to disappear from among mankind for ever.\n{62}\nThere was an elegance, a chastity about the performance never\nwitnessed before, and an influence was felt impending that\nbelonged not to the types before them. To the superior taste of\nMagas and Chione some of this atmosphere of exaltation was\ndoubtless due; yet the audience felt as if something more than\nthis was around them; as if the divinities themselves were\npresent, and insisting on receiving the homage that for so many\nages had been presented as their right.\n\nBut now it was nearly over. The walls of Thebes had risen to the\nlyre of Amphion, while the slow but untiring Hours had followed\nto its soft music the glorious chariot of Apollo; and so artfully\nwas all contrived that the spectators could not discover by what\nmagic the stones were moved, or the figures representing the\nhours supported as they moved on the mists away.\n\nHermes, instructing Cadmus in the art of letters; Minerva,\nintroducing the distaff into the household; and Ceres, teaching\nman to sow the corn; all these had followed with appropriate\npoetry and music, with many others of a similar description. And\nthen, as if to heighten the effect by contrast, came a hush, a\ncalm, a silence; the stage was covered with clouds; the incense\nrendered every object indistinct; low, melancholy tones uttered\nat intervals, kept expectation on the stretch; then suddenly a\nblast of trumpets seemed to clear away the mists; and the clouds\nreceding, disclosed Aurora opening the gates of the morning to\nthe music of the spheres, who then passed slowly out of sight as\na far more lovely vision broke upon the spectators--Venus\nUrania, borne by the graces into the company of the muses,\ndescending from the skies to greet the votaries who, garlanded\nand wreathed, were waiting to receive her in a burst of celestial\nsong. The illusion was complete; the daughter of Coelus and of\nLight was on her first appearance greeted with a tumult of\napplause; and as in wavy, measured movements, encircled by the\ngraces, she floated down to earth, scattering her bright\ninspirations in sparks of fire upon the muses who were kindling\ninto enthusiasm at her approach, the whole assembly caught the\nmelody as it rose from the inspired sisterhood:\n\n  Beautiful daughter of Coelus and Light,\n  Coming in glory to gladden our sight.\n  Vision of loveliness! star of the day!\n  Grateful and glad is the homage we pay.\n  All girt by the graces, thou comest to earth;\n  With joy and with music we welcome thy birth.\n  Oh! stay, thou sweet goddess, to brighten our life,\n  To banish our sorrows, to still every strife.\n  O Venus Urania! we call upon thee,\n  Inspirer of gladness, of ecstasy!\n\nThe singers were the multitude; the sound of the voices of the\nmuses, or those who personified them, was lost in the thrilling\ngreeting which that multitude gave to their favorite--Chione.\n\nDressed in a dazzling robe spangled with gold, crowned with rays\nso artificially disposed that they seemed to emit light as she\nwas descending, Chione came forward as the Venus Urania of the\nTemple.\n\nThe throng hushed as she raised her arm to speak; among the\nthousands there, scarce a sound was heard; the very breathing was\nsuppressed, for fear one tone of that eloquent voice should be\nunheard. \"My friends,\" she began.\n\nSuddenly a low, piercing wail broke upon the throng, like the\nmoan of a distressed spirit, so unearthly was the sound. Again it\nrang through the echoes, under ground, over head. Chione started,\nand the throng was awed.\n{63}\nThen, in the fearful silence, these words were heard. Distinctly\nthey came forth, though uttered in a wild, unearthly cadence, as\nif they were spoken by one of another world:\n\n  Once for silver, now for gold,\n  Is the Lord of glory sold!\n    Woe, deep woe!\n  Judas went to his own place;\n  Nor shall time the sin efface.\n  He must every joy forego!\n    For ever, woe! [Footnote 27]\n\n    [Footnote 27: It is on record that, at the first preaching of\n    the Gospel, numerous signs, sounds, and words were uttered in\n    the pagan temples, at the times of worship, to the confusion\n    of the multitudes therein assembled. I leave the fact as I\n    found it, to the construction of my readers, each one for\n    himself!]\n\nEvery heart was chilled; Chione paled and trembled. Magas sprang\nto her relief. \"It is but a trick of your own devising; you are\npaid back in your own coin. Compose yourself, it is nothing.\" The\ncrowd was too dense to allow a search to be made. There was a\nlong pause, but at length Chione was called upon to proceed. Her\ntheme was, \"The Glory of Athens--of Athens, the Civilizer of the\nNations.\"\n\nThe tremor which was still slightly apparent in the frame of the\nVenus Urania when led forward by Magas, (now habited as Apollo,\nthat he might consistently bear a part in the scene, and watch\nover any demonstration that should again affect the goddess he\nworshipped with so intense a devotion,) gave an increased\ninterest to her appearance; the look of appeal she seemed to cast\nover that mighty throng, as if to claim protection from some\ninvisible enemy of her peace, imparted an additional tenderness\nto the sympathies of the audience. Chione regained her courage,\nas she inhaled the moral atmosphere that surrounded her; she\nforced back the unwelcome shades of thought that had been called\nfrom their tombs, where she intended them to lie buried for ever.\nShe gazed around. The scene at the back of the stage had been\nchanged. The citadel of Athens had been introduced, and hovering\nabove it was Minerva, the tutelary divinity of the place. Chione\nwas evidently surprised; perhaps again she suspected an\ninterruption; but Magas whispered, \"By my command,\" and she at\nlength made a gesture, as if to begin. There was, however, a\nmarked change in her inspiration; she was no longer the\ncommanding genius of the temple. It was evident to all that she\nwas under some irrepressible, some irresistible influence. Magas\nlooked anxious; his whole soul was bound up in Chione's success.\nShe was his pride, his glory, his Aspasia, his Sappho. Never yet\nhad he known her to fail; and he watched her words as if his very\nlife depended upon them. She commenced:\n\n\"Athenians, you have asked me to speak to you of the glory of our\ncity. Behold it! Wisdom is watching over its citadel. The\nglorious Minerva, issuing from the head of the immortal father of\ngods and men, presides over the welfare of Athens--has ever\npresided over it! This is our crown, this our glory. The history\nof this our Athens, is unlike the history of any other city in\nthe world; for it forms a chain of glory, a long-continued tissue\nof renown. Her history is, a web of varied dyes, introducing\ncharacters of every degree of virtue, talent, heroism, or\nnobility.\n\n\"Time was, Athenians, that this beautiful land, now covered with\nfertile fields and richly ornamented villas; now the splendid\nresort of intelligence, philosophy, and science--time was, that\nAthens, the enlightened, the refined, the artistic; Athens, whose\nworks of beauty will supply all time with models; Athens, whose\npathways throughout the whole region round, even to the Piraeus,\nare adorned with statues of her illustrious sons--the poets,\npainters, warriors, and statesmen she has produced; Athens,\nwithin whose citadel arises the Parthenon, which would itself be\nthe wonder of the world, were not that wonder exhausted on\nbeholding the gigantic statue of our tutelary-goddess which it\ncontains; time was, that Athens was a drear and sandy waste, the\nresort of savages who knew not the use of fire--who were clothed\nin skins, and lived on roots and acorns. [Footnote 28]\n{64}\nBut Minerva looked with complacency on the spot she had selected\nfor the dwelling-place of her chosen people. She sent Theseus to\nAttica, to clear the land from the pirates that infested it; to\nenact laws, and teach the uncultured men to submit to righteous\nrule. It was first the law of force, though not unmixed; for men\nunused to government must be coerced until their powers of mind\nexpand; until they feel what lawful government can effect; until\nthey know that lawlessness is not true liberty. But not long was\nAthens ruled by one. Athenae, Queen, who loves this citadel, had\nother views. Her chosen city was to bear the glorious palm of an\nenlightened freedom.\n\n\"A deed unparalleled in the annals of nations occurred. Codrus,\nher king, inspired by that sublime divinity who hath care of\nAthens, devoted himself to destruction, that the favored city of\nMinerva might be saved. Codrus died! more sublime in his death\nthan the loftiest monarch ever was in life. Who does not bow\nbefore the shade of Codrus? Who does not feel that, by his\npatriotism, his disinterestedness, his heroism, he laid the\nfoundation of his country's greatness?\n\n  His death--our life!\n\n\"Bear with me; I must pause a moment here.\"\n\nMusic filled up that pause; but music so solemn, so grand, that\nthe audience felt as if the spirit of the mighty dead were\nhovering over them. Chione resumed:\n\n\"To so great a hero, it was impossible to find a worthy\nsuccessor! 'Man is not fit for irresponsible power. Too commonly\nhe uses it but to give the reign to his own passions, while he\nrepresses in his subjects the development of those lofty\nqualities of soul which distinguish man from the brutes that\nscour our plains. No other king ever wielded the sceptre in\nAthens; for Minerva intended that a people should be formed, and\nnot a single individual. She wished a body of men to rise to\ngreatness, not a crowned monarch to acquire renown by the\nextirpation of millions.\n\n\"Athenae loved her children, and she gave them a law-giver whose\nfirst act relieved the poor of their burdens; released them from\nthe oppression of the rich. Solon knew that the poor are the\nsinews of a nation; he knew too, that there is a point in which\nthe crushing power of debt destroys the qualities that form the\nman, the free-man so dear to wisdom; and Athens shook off this\noppression beneath his righteous sway. The laws of Solon shall be\nhonored as long as rectitude itself is honored, because they\nrecognize that principle of individual development which alone\ncan form a great people. Particular modes of bringing out this\nprinciple may change, may pass into other modes; but the\nprinciple itself is eternal, it is worthy of Solon, worthy of the\ndescendant of the immortal Codrus; it was a direct inspiration of\nthat wisdom which has so unweariedly watched over the formation\nof the Athenian people.\n\n{65}\n\n\"Such a principle was it to which we owe the sages and the heroes\nthat adorn our annals. What heart does not thrill on hearing the\nname of Miltiades, of Themistocles, of Cimon, or Aristides? Who\ndoes not glow with rapture at beholding the works of Phidias, of\nPraxiteles, Apelles? Who can study with Anaxagoras, converse with\nSocrates, or speculate with Plato and Aristotle, nor feel the\ndivine inspiration communicated to themselves? Who can read the\nannals of Xenophon and Thucydides, without feeling proud that he\nhimself is a citizen of Athens; and which of us has not wept\ntears of ecstatic emotion at beholding a tragedy of Euripides or\nof Sophocles? What country in the world could ever boast of such\na galaxy of celebrated names?\n\n\"Tell me not that these men were not all of Athenian origin. What\nif some few of them first saw the light in some other city than\nthat of Athens. Not the less to Athens do they owe their genius\nand their fame; none the less from her did they receive their\ninspiration, their culture, and development. The influence of\nAthens is not limited to her own domain. Her great men live for\never to kindle thoughts of greatness throughout the world. Many\nfar distant, both in time and space, will, to endless ages, love\nto muse with Pericles on the banks of the Ilissus, while he is\nplanning those exquisite creations which have linked his name\nwith all that is sublime and beautiful in human art. Many will\nrejoice with him as gently he sinks to rest, sustained by the\nsublime consciousness that, during the whole of his long career,\nhe had never caused an Athenian to shed a tear.\n\n\"His career was for humanity, and in this he resembled Athens;\nfor unlike the vulgar glory that crowns the conqueror's arms, the\nboast of Athens is that, although so many deeds of prowess attest\nthe heroic valor of her children, yet never, never did she enter\non an aggressive war for the mere sake of conquest, for the\nvain-glorious motive of adding by injustice another territory to\nher own. No, Athens has shed her benefits abroad; has made known\nto the nations all the virtues of the earth. She has proved\nherself capable of great acts, alike in war as in peace. Her\ngenius is godlike, it is diffusive. The very site Minerva chose\nfor her citadel betokens this destiny. Athens is compelled by\ncircumstance to seek by peaceful commerce the corn necessary for\nher subsistence. The goddess gave her the honey of Hymettus, the\nPentelic marble, and the silver mines of Laurion, that her\neloquence might be sweet, her courage firm, and her commerce\ngainful; but she denied her corn, that corn which is the\nnutriment of the body, that, by fetching it from foreign lands,\nshe might, in doing so, communicate to the world those sublime\nideas which form the nobler nutriment of the soul.\n\n\"Thus is it that wisdom is the glory of Athens; it explains the\nhistory of the past; it affords a key to our present position.\n\n\"The mighty genius of force now bestrides the nations; it keeps\ndown the surging emotions of half-savage men; itself, with its\nstoical insensibility to beauty, with its gladiatorial\nslaughters, betokening that it is hardly yet emerged from\nbarbarism. Is this constrained calm to effect no purpose in the\ndecrees of wisdom? Examine, and you will find that the glory of\nAthens is still increasing, even under a supposed subjection.\n[Footnote 29]\n\n    [Footnote 29:  The Romans, out of reverence to letters, left\n    to Athens a nominal freedom a long time after they had\n    virtually subjugated her. It was not till the reign of\n    Severus that her civilization was crushed. Chione is supposed\n    to speak one hundred and fifty years before that period.]\n\n{66}\n\n\"The nominal dependent refines and civilizes her conqueror. The\nwisdom of Athens, which, confined within its own narrow domain,\ncould but have enlightened the inhabitants of a few cities, is\nnow spreading over the entire earth; the words of its sages are\ninstructing our haughty rulers; the myths of our poets are\ncivilizing Rome. This, then, is the glory of Athens; and such\nglory must needs be eternal. Lands may change owners, and\nphysical force give a momentary, a seeming nobility to a\nbarbarian; but mind is immortal! the empire of ideas lasts for\never. Thus is Athens the civilizer of the nations.\n\n\"Sons of Athens! heirs of the philosophic ages! children of the\npoets! to you I need not explain how the beautiful devices which\nsurround us are types of a higher knowledge--how many a glorious\nidea lies hidden under the name Minerva. The veiled Isis of\nEgypt, upon whose statue was inscribed, 'I am all that has been,\nall that shall be, and none among mortals has ever yet lifted my\nveil,' was, as you know, but another form of our loved Deity.\nWisdom must preside at every institution designed to last. The\nprecepts of Anaxagoras, the reveries of the divine Plato, alike\ninstruct us in the eternity of ideas. Truth goes by different\nnames upon this earth; it is represented by the nations under\ndifferent myths, according to the conception men form of it. It\nrequires a high intellect to contemplate truth in the abstract;\nto most minds it is simplified, endowed with power by being\npersonified; hence our worship. Isis in Egypt, in Athens becomes\nMinerva; the veil, if not lifted, is at least rendered more\ntransparent; and it may be that the time of its lifting is at\nhand. Portents of wondrous power are working in men's hearts; the\nprinciple of development evolved in Athens is becoming spread\nover the earth. Let us take courage. Athens is still at the head\nof civilization; it remains with her children that she so\ncontinue.\n\n    \"Three words are awakened within my breast, [Footnote 30]\n     While dwelling on Athena's story;\n   Three words are a key unlocking the rest,\n     Illustrating Attica's glory.\n   These words proceed from no outward cause,\n   Within us they write their immortal laws.\n\n    \"Man was created all free, all free,\n     Chains seen at his birth were never;\n   Believe it, in spite of the enmity\n     And folly of men put together.\n   I fear not the slave who has broken his chain,\n   'Tis the Godlike resuming his own again.\n\n    \"And Virtue is more than an empty call.\n     It may guidance and practice be.\n   Though man may stumble, and totter, and fall,\n     He may strive for divinity.\n   And what unto reason doth seem unreal.\n   Full oft, to the child-like, doth Wisdom reveal.\n\n    \"For a God _doth_ exist; and a Holy Will\n     Is there still, though the human will palters;\n   Over time, over space, the high thought floateth still.\n     All glowing with life that ne'er falters;\n   While all things move round in unceasing change,\n   That spirit breathes peace through the heavenly range.\n\n     \"Oh! guard well these words within every breast,\n     For on them rests Attica's glory;\n   Proclaim and observe them, with increasing zest,\n     They're the keys of Athena's story.\n   No man can e'er forfeit his inward worth.\n   While wisdom within to these words giveth birth.\"\n\n    [Footnote 30: The German student will here recognize that\n    this song is an imitation, or rather a translation adapted to\n    the subject of Schiller's \"Drei Worte neun' ich Euch,\n    inhaltschwer.\" The infidelity of Chione, like that of modern\n    times, does not hesitate to avail itself of truths learned\n    from Christianity, when such truths can adorn their unsound\n    philosophy; in fact, the truth that is in it, saves their\n    theory; error cannot stand of itself.]\n\nChione ceased. She had not shone as she was wont to do; she felt\nconscious that in palliating paganism to please the audience, she\nwas paltering with her own conscience. When she proposed first to\nspeak her address, she had intended to give a synopsis of the\nphilosophy and poetry of Greece, and to avoid mythology; but the\nwords she had heard had embittered her spirit, rendered it\ndefiant; and half-angrily, half-sarcastically, had she uttered\nthe sentiments we have recorded. There was not, however, the\nmesmeric sympathy between her and the assembled crowd that was\nwont to produce electric bursts of enthusiasm, albeit they agreed\nwith the sentiments expressed. Her own enthusiasm had been\nquelled before commencing; she could not then communicate what\nshe did not possess. But it had been previously arranged that she\nwas to be crowned; she had been invited there for that purpose;\ntherefore the figure representing Minerva ceased to hover in the\nair, came forward, and, to very sweet music, placed the crown on\nChione's head.\n\n{67}\n\n  Beauty, crowned by Wisdom's hand,\n  Reigns triumphant in the land.\n    Her scented dower\n    Is music linked to poesy,\n    In tones of heavenly harmony,\n  Attuned to earth's necessity by Eloquence,\n      bright power!\n\nThe pause that succeeded was filled up with throwing of bouquets\nand shouts of congratulation. When a lull came, and Chione was\nabout to give a parting salute to the spectators, these words\ncame distinctly to her ear, though in so low a tone that they\nwere inaudible to any but herself and those close to her:\n\n  Earth's crown of glory is a crown of thorns;\n  Such the Saviour's head adorns,\n    Who died for thee.\n  Crowned with thorns, for thee he bled.\n  On the cross his life-blood shed.\n    All for thee!\n\nChione became very pale; she attempted to come forward, but fell\nback in the arms of her attendants; she had fainted.\n\n--------\n\n      Translated From The French.\n\n      The Unity Of The Human Race.\n\n\nThis is one of a series of popular discourses given at the\nImperial Asylum of Vincennes, France, by A. de Quatrefages,\nmember of the Institute, and Professor of Natural Science. After\nsome preliminary remarks to his audience, he proceeds to the\nquestion, What is man? \"It is not difficult to perceive that man\nis neither a mineral nor a vegetable, neither a plant nor a\nstone. But is he an animal? Not likely, when we reflect upon all\nhis attributes.\n\n\"None of you would like to be compared to those animals who feed\non grass, to the hog who wallows in the mire, nor to the dog, in\nwhom man has found the qualities of both friend and companion;\nnor further, to the horse, though he were as celebrated as the\nfamous Gladiator.\n\n\"Man is not an animal. He is distinguished above the brute\ncreation by numerous and important attributes. We have only to\nconsider his intellectual capacity, the power of articulation,\nwhich gives to every people a special language, the capacity to\nwrite, which reproduces language; the aid of the fine arts, to\nexplain and materialize the conceptions of his imagination. He is\nalso distinguished above animals by two fundamental characters\nwhich belong solely to him. Man is the only organized and living\nbeing who has the abstract sentiment of both good and evil, the\nonly being in whom there exists a moral sense, the only one who\nbelieves in a future state, and who recognizes the existence of\nbeings superior to himself, having influence upon him for good or\nevil. It is this two-fold conviction which grasps and holds the\ngreat truths which are called religion.\n\n{68}\n\n\"At a later period I will return to these two questions of\nmorality and religion, not as a theologian, but as a naturalist.\nAt present I limit myself to this fact, that man, however savage\nhe may be, shows signs of morality and religion that are not\nfound in any animal. Consequently, man is a being apart,\nseparated from animals by two great distinctions which are his\nown, and also by his incontestable superiority. There the\ndifference ceases. With regard to his body, man is nothing more\nor less than an animal. Apart from some differences of form and\ndisposition, he is no more than equal to the superior animals\nthat surround us. If we take for comparison those that assimilate\nto our general form, anatomy shows us that our organs are the\nsame as theirs; we find in them muscle for muscle, nerve for\nnerve, that is found in man himself. Physiology, in turn, has\ndemonstrated that, in the body of man, the organs, the muscles,\nthe nerves, have the same animal functions.\n\n\"This fact is indisputable, taken from a purely scientific and\npractical view. We cannot experiment upon man, but it is possible\nto do so upon animals. Human physiology employs the means to\nenlighten us upon our organic functions. Physicians have carried\nto the sick-bed the result of their investigations upon animal\nlife. Anthropology also, we shall see, has derived useful lessons\nfrom beings who are essentially our inferiors. Anthropology\nshould descend still lower than animals to enlighten us\nthoroughly. Vegetables are not animals any more than animals are\nmen; but man, animals, and vegetables are linked together in the\nsame living organization. By this only, they are distinguished\nfrom the minerals, which are neither the one nor the other, and\nby certain general facts known to all.\n\n\"All organized beings have a limited duration, all are created\nsmall and weak, all grow and become strong; during a part of\ntheir existence, all decrease in energy and vitality, sometimes\nalso in size, then die. During life, all organized beings have\nneed of nourishment. Before dying, all produce, either by a seed\nor by an egg, (I speak of species, not individuals,) which is\ntrue of the species that seem to come directly from a shoot, a\nlayer, or a graft; all proceed from a grain, or an egg. Thus, all\nthese great phenomena, common to all living organized beings,\nincluding man as well as plants, suppose a general law for their\ngovernment. Science confirms this conclusion every day, which is\nnot an invention of reasoning alone, but is regarded as an\n_experienced fact_. Further explanations are not necessary\nto show the magnificent result.\n\n\"How admirable, that man and the smallest insect, that the lord\nof the soil and the smallest plant, are attached one to the\nother, by the same links, and that the entire living creation\nforms together a perfect harmony!\n\n\"In this communion, and in certain phenomena of this accordance\nwith certain laws, equally common, there results one consequence\nupon which I would not too strongly insist. Whatever may be the\nquestions relating to man, that we have to examine whenever these\ntouch upon any one of the phenomena that are common to all living\norganized beings, we must not only investigate animal life, but\nalso vegetable life, if we would wish to find the truth.\n\n{69}\n\n\"When one of these questions is proposed, what can we truthfully\nurge in reply? We must examine man under the general laws that\ngovern other living organized beings. If the investigation tends\nto make man an exception to these general laws, we shall know it\nis false. If you resolve the problem so as to include man in the\ngeneral laws, you may be sure that you are scientific and\ncorrect. With these proofs, and these only, I proceed to the\nsecond question of anthropologists. Are there several species of\nmen, or does there exist but one, comprising several races?\n\n\"Some explanations are necessary. Examine the designs before you,\nand you will discover the principal varieties exhibited in the\nhuman type. You have there individuals from all parts of the\nworld; you see that they differ considerably in color, some in\ntheir hair, others in their size, or in their peculiar features.\nIt behooves us to ascertain if the differences that present\nthemselves in these human groups are those of _species_, or\nif they merely indicate the existence of _races_ belonging\nto the same species.\n\n\"In order to reply to this question, you must ascertain the true\nsignificance of the words _species_ and _race_. The\nresult of the discussion depends upon these two words. Unhappily,\nthey are often confounded and badly defined, and we become\nenveloped in mystery when we wish to consider them more closely.\nLet us then form a precise idea before entering into otherwise\nprofitless details.\n\n\"None of you certainly confound the horse with the ass; though\nthe horse may be no larger than the dogs of Newfoundland, or\nthough the ass should attain the size of an ordinary horse--for\nexample, the large asses of Poitou. You will immediately say they\nare different species. You will say the same if you place a dog\nand a wolf side by side.\n\n\"We call by the one name of dogs the different types, such as the\nspaniel, the greyhound, the lap-dog, the Newfoundland, the King\nCharles; and we are right. However, if we were to judge by the\neyes only, and even after more minute observations, there is\nbetween the dogs I have named greater differences of color,\nproportion, and size, than between the horse and the ass. The\nlatter have certainly more similarity between them than the types\nof dogs I have named.\n\n\"If I should place a black and a white water-spaniel side by\nside, you would call them both spaniels, though of a different\ncolor. When we examine vegetables, it is the same thing; a red\nand a white rose are equally roses; pears that are sold two for a\npenny, are the same species as those sold at twenty cents each.\n\n\"Without any doubt you have arrived at the exact conclusion of\nthe naturalists; like them, you have resolved the questions of\n_species_ and _race_, which at first sight seemed, for\nthe reasons I have given, more or less confused.\n\n\"These examples fully prove that popular observation and common\nsense are in many things fully as reliable as the investigations\nof science. Were such deductions generalized into scientific\nlanguage, I feel sure there would be found few if any mistakes.\n\n\"These investigations prove that animals and vegetables vary\nwithin certain limits. The dog remains but a dog, whatever may be\nhis general form, color, or his shape. The pear is but a pear,\nwhatever may be its flavor or the color of its skin. It is from\nthese facts that I am led to believe that variations can be\ntransmitted through generations. The union of two spaniels\nproduces spaniels, the union of two mastiffs produces mastiffs.\n{70}\nThus, in a general manner, the result is, that beings of the same\nspecies can cease to resemble each other absolutely; moreover,\ntake exteriorly different characters, without isolating or\nforming different species; as I have said, the _dog remains a\ndog_, whatever may be the modifications he presents. These are\nprecisely the groups formed by individuals which we have spoken\nof as the remote primitive types of species that have formed\ndistinct secondary groups, which naturalists call _races_.\n\n\"You will understand, then, what is meant in speaking of the\nraces of beeves, horses, etc. We have domesticated but one kind\nof beeves, which have generated the Breton race, the great beeves\nof Uri, of such savage aspect, and also the gentle Durhams. We\nhave but one kind of domestic horse, and this has given us the\npony, as well as the enormous horses that are seen in the streets\nof London, commonly used by the brewers; finally, the several\nraces of sheep, goats, etc., belong to one and the same species.\nI place this assemblage of proof vividly before you to avoid\nvagueness in your investigations, which would be attended with\nserious mistakes. I will now cite examples from the vegetable\nkingdom, which will be as familiar to you as the foregoing.\n\n\"Let us take the coffee-tree. Its history is quite interesting.\nThe coffee-tree was originally from Africa. It has from time\nimmemorial been cultivated in Abyssinia, on the borders of the\nRed Sea. It was not until toward the fifteenth century that the\nseed migrated from this sea and penetrated into Arabia, where it\nhas been cultivated since that epoch. It is from there in\nparticular that we get the famous Mocha. The use of coffee became\ncommon immediately. From the east it was introduced into Europe\nat a later period, and it was at Marseilles that it was used for\nthe first time in France.\n\n\"The first cup of coffee that was drank in Paris, was in the year\n1667. A few grains were brought over by a French sailor called\nThevenot. Two years after, Soliman Aga, ambassador of the Porte,\nunder Louis XIV., gave an entertainment to some friends of the\nking, where it was introduced, and the beverage pronounced\ndelightful. The use of coffee, however, did not become general in\nFrance until the eighteenth century. You see, then, that coffee\nhas not been very long in use. It was almost a century and a half\nbefore it became general among Europeans.\n\n\"During this time Europe became tributary to Arabia for this\nluxury. All the coffee that was used in Europe came from Arabia,\nand particularly from Mocha. Toward the beginning of the\neighteenth century the Dutch tried to import it to Batavia, one\nof their Indian colonies. They succeeded. From Batavia, some\nplants were sent to Holland, and planted in heated earth. This\nalso proved a success.\n\n\"One of these plants was carried to Paris in 1710, and was placed\nin one of the beds of the Jardin des Plantes. It flourished, and\nsupplied numberless plants. Toward 1720 or 1725, a French marine\nofficer named Captain Destiaux, thought that, as Holland had\ncultivated coffee in Batavia, it could also be acclimated in the\nFrench colonies in the Gulf of Mexico. At the moment of embarking\nfor Martinique he took three plants from the Jardin des Plantes,\nand carried them with him. The voyage was long and impeded by\nhead-winds. Water becoming scarce, it became necessary to put the\ncrew upon short rations.\n{71}\nCaptain Destiaux, like the others, had but a small allowance for\neach day, and this he shared with his coffee-plants.\nNotwithstanding all his care, two of them died in their transit.\nOne only arrived safe and sound at Martinique. Planted\nimmediately, it prospered wonderfully, and from it have descended\nall the coffee-trees in the Antilles, and in South-America.\n\n\"Thirty years after, our western colonies exported millions of\npounds each year. You see that the plant, starting from Africa,\nreached the east, the extremity of Asia, then America and the\nwest. It has consequently made almost the tour of the world. In\nthis long passage it has changed.\n\n\"Laying aside the plant that we are not familiar with, let us\ntake merely the grain. It is not necessary to be a planter to\ndistinguish its different qualities and their provinces. No one\nwill confound the Mocha with the Bourbon, the Rio Janeiro with\nthe Martinique. Each grain carries in its form, in its\nproportions and aroma, its extraction, so to speak.\n\n\"From whence came these changes? We cannot certainly explain the\nwhy or the wherefore, and follow rigorously the relation of cause\nand effect; but in taking these phenomena together, it is evident\nthat these modifications result from the differences of\ntemperature, climate, and cultivation.\n\n\"This example, taken from the vegetable kingdom, shows us that by\ntransporting the same vegetable to different places, and\nsubjecting it to different culture, _diverse races_ are\nobtained.\n\n\"Tea that was transported to South America several years since\npresents the same results.\n\n\"Now take an example from among the animals. You know that the\nturkey is a native of America. Its introduction into Europe is\nquite recent.\n\n\"In America the turkey is wild; and there, in the condition of\nits natural existence, it presents several characteristics which\ndistinguish it from the domestic bird. The wild turkey is\nbeautiful. Of a rich brown color, its plumage presents the\nreflections of blue, copper, and gold, making it truly a\nbeautiful ornament. It was on account of its plumage that it was\nfirst brought to France. No one dreamed of eating it, and the\nfirst one that was served upon a table in France, was in the year\n1570, and upon the occasion of the nuptials of King Charles IX.\n\n\"When found to be such a luxury, it was considered too good to be\nmerely looked at, and it passed from the court to the farm-yard,\nfrom farm to farm, from east to west, from north to south. At\nthis present time it is an article of commerce all over France.\n\n\"In going from farm to farm, and from country to country, this\nbird has sustained different conditions of existence,\nnourishment, and temperature, but never a continuation of its\nprimitive condition that was natural to it in America. The result\nis, that it has changed, and at this present time the turkey in\nFrance bears no resemblance to its savage source. In general, it\nis smaller, and its rich plumage has undergone a marked change.\nSome are yellow, others white, some mixed with black, gray, and\nyellow. Almost all the localities devoted to raising the fowl\nhave caused several new varieties, which have transformed them\ninto _races_.\n\n\"To have thus changed their habits so as to lose resemblance to\ntheir first parents, are our French fowls any the less\ndescendants of the wild turkeys of America? Are they less the\nbrothers, or cousins, if you like the term better? Have they\nceased to be of the _same species?_ Certainly not!\n\n{72}\n\n\"That which is characteristic of the turkey is also true of the\nrabbit. The wild rabbit lives around and about us, on our downs,\nand in our woods. It resembles our domestic rabbits but little.\nAmong the latter you will see the large and the small, the\nsmooth-haired and the silky; the black and the white, the yellow\nand the gray, and the mixed. In a word, this species comprises a\ngreat number of different races, all constituting one and the\nsame kind with the wild races we see around us. From these facts,\nwhich I could multiply, we can deduce an important consequence to\nwhich I call your attention. A pair of rabbits left unmolested in\na field, would, in a few years, people entire France with their\ndescendants. We have seen how the single coffee-plant, carried by\nCaptain Destiaux, has propagated all the plants now found in\nAmerica.\n\n\"The wild turkeys and their domestic descendants, the wild\nrabbits and theirs, reduced to captivity, could then be\nconsidered by naturalists as all proving equally their descent\nfrom one primitive pair.\n\n\"This is the secret of species. Having always before our eyes\nnumbers of single groups of animals or vegetables, for one reason\nor other we hardly consider them as descendants of one only\nprimitive pair; we call what we see a _species_; if there\nare differences observable among these groups, they are _the\nraces of this species_.\n\n\"Observe that, in my explanations, I have not given for a\ncertainty the existence of one primitive source for rabbits and\nturkeys. I do not affirm the fact, as neither observation nor\nexperience--the two guides we must follow in science--teaches\nanything in this regard. I simply say, all are as though\ndescended from one only primitive pair.\n\n\"In summing up the question of _species_ _and_ race, it\nis not difficult to understand nor to believe, when we know the\nsavage type, and have historical authority which permits us to\nattach to this type the groups, more or less different, according\nto their domestication. But when we are ignorant of the savage\ntype, and in want of historical authority, the question becomes\nextremely difficult at first, because the differences we find in\none and the other, and above all, in the different groups, could\nhardly be considered other than such as characterize different\nspecies.\n\n\"Happily, physiology comes then to our relief. We find in this\nscience one of those grand and beautiful general laws, which\nholds and maintains the established order, and which we admire\nthe more we study it. It is the law of _crossing_, which\ngoverns animals as well as vegetables, and is, consequently,\napplicable to man himself.\n\n\"We understand by the term _crossing_, all unions effected\nbetween animals belonging to different species or to two\ndifferent races. The result of the unions obeying these laws is,\nthat if the animals of _different species_ unite, in the\nmajority of cases the union is barren.\n\n\"Thus, for example, it has been tried a million of times all over\nthe world, to effect a union between rabbits and hares. It is\nsaid to have succeeded twice.\n\n\"Much doubt is cast upon this operation by the testimony of a man\nof undoubted talent, habituated to experiments, who believed\nthese unions to be possible. Though availing himself of all\npossible means of proof, he was not more fortunate than his\npredecessors, Buffon and the brothers Geoffrey St. Hilaire. Thus,\nthe rabbit and the hare, though presenting a great conformity in\nappearance, cannot reproduce. Such is the general result of\ncrossing two different _species_.\n\n{73}\n\n\"In a few cases, the union between two different species may be\nfruitful, but the offspring cannot reproduce. For example, the\nunion between a horse and an ass. The product of this union is\nthe mule. All the mules in the world are the descendants of the\nass and the mare. These animals are so numerous in Spain and\nSouth America that they are preferred to horses, on account of\ntheir great strength and powers of endurance. The genet, which is\nless desirable because it is not so robust, is the fruit of the\ninverse crossing of the horse and the female ass. The genet, no\nmore than the mule, can reproduce. If one or the other is\ndesired, of necessity recourse is had to the two _species_.\nIn extremely rare cases, fecundity remains among some of their\ndescendants, but it diminishes gradually from the second\ngeneration down to the third, fourth, and fifth. The same result\nis shown in the union of the canary bird. I could here accumulate\na crowd of analogous details. Above all, two great general facts\nappear that comprehend all, and are the expression of the law;\nthey are that, notwithstanding the accumulated observations of\nyears, made from experiments on certain species, not a single\nexample is known of an intermediate species being obtained by the\n_crossing_ of animals belonging to _two different\nspecies_.\n\n\"This general fact explains how order is maintained in the actual\nliving creation. Were it otherwise, the animal and vegetable\nworld would have been filled with intermediate groups, passing\nfrom one to the other insensibly, and in the confusion, it would\nbe impossible for naturalists to recognize them. The general\nconclusion to draw from these precedents is, that infecundity is\n_the law of union between animals of different species_.\n\n\"Unions are always more fruitful when between two animals of the\nsame race. Their descendants are as fruitful as the parents and\nthe grandparents, where pains are taken to preserve the race\npure, and to prevent strange blood from debasing it.\n\n\"When, on the contrary, a union is effected between two different\nraces belonging to the same species, producing a _mongrel\nrace_, the contrary takes place.\n\n\"There is no difficulty in obtaining a mongrel race--the result\nof a crossing of races; but the difficulty is when there is a\npure race, and it is desirable to have it maintained, that great\ncare is needed to prevent strange blood from changing it.\n\n\"Races crossed by mongrels--that is to say, by animals of the\nsame species, but belonging to different races, multiply around\nus. There are the dogs in the streets, the cats of the alleys,\nthe coach-horses; all beasts among whom the race is undecided in\nconsequence of crossing indiscriminately, their characteristics\nbecoming confounded.\n\n\"Far from endeavoring to obtain cross races, men who are occupied\nin raising stock, also bird-fanciers, know with what care they\nendeavor to preserve the purity of the races they keep. This is\nthe general fact, and the result is, _that infecundity is the\nlaw of unions between animals belonging to different races_.\n\n\"This is the fundamental distinction between _species_ and\n_race_. This distinction ought to be the more known and\nconsidered, as it is borrowed from experience.\n\n\"When there are two animals, or two vegetables, of whom we are\nuncertain as to whether they are two distinct _species_, we\nhave but to observe if their union is fruitful; and if this\nquality attaches to their descendants, we can then affirm that,\ndespite the differences that separate them, _they are the races\nof the same species_.\n{74}\nIf, on the contrary, their offspring diminishes in a remarkable\nmanner at the end of several generations, we can then, without\nhesitation, declare them to belong to _distinct species_. In\nciting these examples, I have not overlooked the subject of my\ndiscourse, or the question at its commencement.\n\n\"In referring to the designs before our eyes, they show us that\nbetween the human groups the differences are marked enough,\nthough to all appearance less considerable than they appeared at\nfirst. We do not know the types, or the primitive types, of the\nseveral groups.\n\n\"When we meet with one or several men presenting the\ncharacteristics of these types, and we cannot recognize them in\nspite of historical explanations, we are led to judge by our\neyes. Without taking man himself into account, we cannot decide\nif these several differences that present themselves in the human\nfamily are those of _race_ or of _species_; if man can\nbe considered as having had but one primitive source only, or if\nhe should have been derived from several primitive sources.\n\n\"I have said before, and repeat again, man is an organized and\nliving being. Under this head he obeys all the general laws to\nwhich are attached all organized and living beings; he obeys,\nconsequently, the law of crossing. He must then apply this law to\nascertain _if there is one or several species of men_. Take,\nfor example, the two types farthest removed--those which seem\nmore separated than the others by the greatest\ndifferences--namely, the white and the black.\n\n\"If these types really constitute _distinct species_, the\nunion between these species should follow the proof that we have\nseen characterize the unions between animals, and vegetables, of\ndifferent species. They should be unfruitful in the majority of\ncases, or nearly so. Fecundity should disappear at the end of a\nshort period, and they could not form intermediate families\nbetween the negroes and the whites. If these are only _the\nraces of one and the same species_, then unions, on the\ncontrary, should be quite fruitful, and fecundity should be found\namong their descendants, and they should form intermediate races.\n\n\"These facts are decisive, and admit of no doubt.\n\n\"For three centuries the whites, _par excellence_, the\nEuropeans, have achieved, so to say, the conquest of the world.\nThey have gone everywhere. Everywhere they have found local races\nwho have borne them no resemblance. Whenever they have crossed\nwith them, these unions have been fruitful; more so than with\nthose indigenous to themselves.\n\n\"Man, from the result of the institution of slavery--which\nhappily has never stained the soil of France--has transported the\nnegro everywhere; everywhere he has crossed with his slaves, and\neverywhere they have formed a population of mulattoes. Wherever\nthe negro has crossed with local groups or families, there has\narisen an intermediate race, who in character manifest their\ntwo-fold origin. The whites have finally crossed with the\nmongrels of all origins, and the result is, that in certain\nquarters of the globe--particularly in South America--there is an\ninextricable mixture of people, comparable, under the class, to\nthe dogs in our streets and the cats of our alleys.\n\n\"The rapidity with which these mongrel races cross and multiply\nis really remarkable. It is scarcely three centuries--hardly\ntwelve generations--since Europeans penetrated into different\nparts of the world.\n{75}\nIt is estimated that already the number of mongrels resulting\nfrom the crossing of whites with natives, is a seventieth of the\nwhole population of the globe. Experience is indisputable, if we\neven deny modern science, or at least, wish to make man an\nexception to all living and organized beings. We must admit that\nall men form but one species, composed of a certain number of\ndifferent races; consequently, all men can only be considered as\nhaving descended from one primitive pair.\n\n\"We arrive at this conclusion in despite of all kinds of\ndogmatical, theological, philosophical, and metaphysical\nconsiderations. Observation and experience alone, applied to the\nanimal and vegetable kingdoms, in a word, science, conducts us to\nthe conclusion, _there exists but one species of man._\n\n\"This result, I do not fear to say, is of great and serious\nimportance; for it creates in our minds an idea of the universal\nfraternity of science and reason, the only schools that many\npersons recognize at this present time.\n\n\"I hope that my demonstrations will have convinced you;\nmeanwhile, I am not ignorant, and you all know, that\nanthropologists differ. There are among my contemporaries a\nnumber of men, even of great merit, who believe in the plurality\nof the human species. You may possibly come into contact with\nthem. Listen attentively, then, to the reasons they will urge to\nmake you see with their eyes. You will find that their reasonings\nall tend to prove that there is too great a difference between\nthe negro and the white for them to be of the same species. In\nreply, state that between the black and the white spaniel, the\nlap-dog and the mastiff, there exist greater differences than\nexist between the European and the African. Yet these animals are\nall dogs. They may argue, perhaps, that man, whatever may have\nbeen his characteristics, could not have generated both blacks\nand whites. Then ask why the wild turkey, whose origin, and that\nof its ancestors, we are acquainted with, and the wild rabbit,\nwhich we find everywhere, could have generated all our domestic\nraces?\n\n\"We cannot, I repeat, explain perfectly the how and the\nwherefore; but what we know is, that the fact exists, and we\nshall find a general explanation in all states of existence--in\nall conditions of people.\n\n\"It is not, then, surprising that man presents, in the different\ngroups, the differences herein depicted; man who trod the earth\nlong before the turkey and the rabbit; man, who for centuries has\nexisted upon the surface of the globe, submitting to the most\ndiverse and opposite conditions of existence, multiplying again\nthe causes of those modifications by his manners and habits, by\nhis ways of living, by more or less care in his own preservation;\nman, finding himself in more marked and varied conditions than\nthose sustained by the animals we have quoted. If anything\nsurprises us, it is that the distinctions are not more\nconsiderable.\n\n\"In turn, ask the polygenists--as those _savans_ are called\nwho believe in the multiplicity of the human species--how it is\nthat when the white man locates in any country, from the\nantipodes, if you will, or from America or Polynesia--that if he\nunites with the natives, who differ the most completely from him,\nthese unions are fruitful, and that, above all, there remains\ntraces of this alliance in producing a mongrel race?\n\n{76}\n\n\"If you press the question more closely, you will find them\ndenying the truth of species; by so doing, placing themselves in\ncontradiction with all naturalists, botanists, or zoologists,\nwithout exception; consequently, with all the eminent minds who\nhave followed in the wake of Buffon, Tournefort, Jussieu, Cuvier,\nand Geoffrey St. Hilaire, who made the animal and vegetable\nkingdoms their study, without discussion, or dreaming of its\nconnection with man. In agitating these doctrines, polygenists\nplace themselves in opposition to the most firmly established\nscience. You will hear them declare that man, above all, is an\nexception; that he is guided by laws peculiar to himself; and\nthat arguments deduced from the study of animals and plants, are\nnot applicable to him. Then reply that, in the name of all the\nnatural sciences, they are certainly in error, and that it is an\nimpossibility that a living and organized being can escape the\nlaws of organization and of life, having a body fortified against\nthe laws that govern inorganic matter; that man, to be living and\norganized, obeys, under this title, all general laws, and those\nof intersection like all the others. The conclusion that we have\nattained is, then, legitimate, and the nature of the arguments\nemployed to combat them, is a proof the more in its favor.\n\n----------\n\n\n   Sayings Of The Fathers Of The Desert.\n\n\nA certain brother was praised in Abbot Antony's presence. He went\nto visit him, and tried to see whether he would bear\nmortification; and finding that he could not, he said to him:\n\"Thou art like a house which is fair to the eye on the outside,\nbut within hath been despoiled by robbers.\"\n\n\nSt. Synclitica said: \"As a treasure which is exposed is quickly\nspent, so, also, is every virtue which is made public soon\nreduced to nothing. For as wax melteth before the face of the\nfire, even so doth the soul waste away with praises, and lose the\nfirmness of virtue.\" Again, she said: \"As it is impossible that\nthe seed and shoot should exist at the same time, even so those\nwho enjoy the glory of this world are unable to bear heavenly\nfruit.\"\n\n\n\nA certain brother said to Abbot Pastor: \"What shall I do, for\nwhen I sit in quiet I lose my spirits?\" The old man replied,\n\"Neither despise nor condemn any one, nor cast obloquy upon him,\nand God will give thee rest.\"\n\n\n\nAbbot Antony said: \"There are persons who wear away their bodies\nby fasting; but because they have not discretion, they are far\ndistant from God.\"\n\n\n\nA certain old man said: \"If thou art ailing in body, do not lose\nthy spirit; for if the Lord God desireth thee to become sick, who\nart thou that thou shouldst be impatient under it? Doth he not\nprovide for thee in all things? Canst thou live without him? Be\npatient, therefore, and beseech him to give what is expedient for\nthee, that is, to do whatsoever may be his will, and to sit in\npatience, eating thy bread in charity.\"\n\n-----------\n\n{77}\n\n      Holy Week In Jerusalem.\n\n\nThe sacred offices of the Catholic Church, wherever celebrated,\nare admirably calculated to increase devotion, and render\nintelligible the different events of the ecclesiastical year. In\nevery land the ceremonies of the great week which ends the season\nof Lent have deep interest to all the faithful, since they\nportray the chief events of redemption. These annual\ncommemorations of the passion of Christ have, however, an added\nsolemnity and power in the two great cities of religion, Rome and\nJerusalem. In the first, the vicar of our Lord takes part in the\nholy rites; and, in the second, the whole service is more\nimpressive than elsewhere; for the great events here occurred,\nand the remembrance of them is made, year by year, in closest\nproximity to the spot where they took place. It is hazarding\nlittle to say, that nowhere on earth does the office for holy\nweek have the deep solemnity which marks it in Jerusalem, for the\nreason just given. While the rubrics of the Missal and Breviary\nare followed with great exactness, several things peculiar to the\nplace have an interest which may render a description of them\nworthy of attention.\n\nOn the morning of Palm Sunday, 1866, the writer of this sketch\nwent to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, to be present at the\nbenediction of the palms by his excellency the Patriarch of\nJerusalem. The palms, noble branches, seven feet in length, fresh\nand green, are brought every year from Gaza, a little city about\neighteen miles distant. Tied in bundles of suitable size, they\nwere placed within the most holy sepulchre, the patriarch being\noutside the sacred place until the time for sprinkling them with\nholy water and incensing, when he entered for that purpose. The\nbenediction completed, the distribution of the palms took place,\nand the long procession began. Chanting the antiphons, the clergy\nand laity went twice around the sepulchre, and once around the\nstone of unction, and then passed into the Latin chapel.\n\nThe solemn Mass, to be celebrated by the patriarch, was to begin\nimmediately. The holy sepulchre, being about six feet square, is,\nof course, much too small for that purpose, and therefore a\ntemporary altar of large size was promptly set up in front of the\nsacred tomb. While the attendants were preparing and decorating\nthis, in compliance with an intimation given early in the\nmorning, I went into the most holy sepulchre, and offered the\nDivine Sacrifice--it being the third time I had been privileged\nto say Mass in that holiest of places. To me it is one of the\nmost memorable things in life, that this happiness should, at\nsuch a time, have been mine--that a simple priest could say Mass\nin \"the new tomb of Joseph, which he had hewn out of the rock,\"\nwhile the patriarch was officiating outside the sacred place.\n\nOn Wednesday, the office of Tenebrae was said in the church. The\npatriarch was present and a large number of priests, friars,\nseminarians, and choir-boys, and many of the laity. The service\nwas very solemn, and the music good. The priests were seated in\nfront of the holy sepulchre, and the triangular candlestick was\nplaced at the right hand of the door leading to the tomb.\n{78}\nThe chanting of the Lamentations was most impressive; and when\nthe words, \"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, _convertere ad Dominum Deum\ntuum!_\" were uttered, it seemed that this plaintive entreaty\neven now could be addressed with fitness to the city that once\nwas full of people, but is solitary, and made tributary to her\nenemies. There was a wild pathos and deep earnestness in the\nchant when the summons to turn to the Lord God was made, as if\nthe singer knew that to-day there is need for the city to listen\nand obey. Jerusalem is in the power of the followers of the false\nprophet of Mecca; schismatic Christians outnumber the Catholics;\nthe Jews know not the Lord their God; and the ways of Sion mourn.\nWould that the expostulation could be heard by all, that they\nmight be perfectly united as a company of brethren, having the\nsame faith and the same worship!\n\nIn the afternoon, the column of the flagellation of Christ was\nexposed for an hour, or two, by removing the iron grating from\nthe front of it. As is well known, a portion of the column is in\nRome, in the church of Saint Praxede. The fragment here is only\nabout one foot high, and of the same diameter. It is kept in the\nLatin chapel, in a recess over an altar named after it, and\ncannot be seen during the year, as there is little light in the\nchapel, and that comes through a window high above and nearly\nover the altar. A popular devotion is to pray in front of the\ncolumn, and then touch it with a rod, about twenty inches long,\nhaving a brass ferule or cap on the end; this ferule is kissed on\nthe place which had touched the stone. It being impossible to\nreach the pillar by the hand through the grating, this method has\nbeen contrived to satisfy the devotion of those who are anxious\nto salute with reverence all the objects and places connected\nwith the passion of our Lord. On Thursday, at five o'clock, we\nwent down to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, as the office was\nto begin early. We waited nearly an hour, in a dismal morning,\nuntil it pleased the Turkish door-keeper to come and unlock the\nportals. While standing here, among other subjects for\nconsideration, was the evident fact that Christians desiring to\ncelebrate the divine office, in the holiest week of the year, and\nin the most sacred place on earth, were compelled to delay the\nfulfilment of their wishes until permission had been given by a\nMohammedan. When we were admitted, the services were long,\noccupying five and a half hours. The holy oils were consecrated.\nAt the end a procession was formed, and the blessed sacrament was\ncarried twice around the sepulchre, and once around the stone of\nunction, and then was placed in a repository which stood in the\ntomb where our Lord had lain centuries ago.\n\nAt one o'clock, the Mandatum, or ceremony of washing the feet of\nthe pilgrims, was performed by his excellency the patriarch in\nfront of the most holy sepulchre. He gave to each of the pilgrims\na wooden cross, about seven inches long, roughly made, and having\nspaces under bits of pearl for relics from the stations of the\nVia Dolorosa. Of the many objects of interest brought home from\nthe Holy Land, there is scarcely any one valued more than this,\nbecause of the time, place, and occasion when it was received.\n\nThe office of the Tenebrae began at three o'clock, as on the day\nbefore. Nothing can surpass in solemnity and deep impressiveness\nthe chantings of the Lamentations in this place.\n{79}\nThe profound desolation of the soul of the prophet as he uttered\nthe sad words is fully expressed and realized; and the\nremembrance of the calamities which have so frequently befallen\nJerusalem, and even now are her portion, gives bitterness to the\ninsulting demand, \"Is this the city of perfect beauty, the joy of\nall the earth?\"\n\nOn Good Friday the patriarch officiated again in the Church of\nthe Holy Sepulchre. The passion was sung on Calvary by three\nchanters, one reciting the narrative by Saint John, another the\nwords of our Lord, while the third sung the remainder. The voice\nof the priest who chanted the words of Jesus was gentle and sad,\nand so like what we may imagine to have been that of our Lord, as\nto become painful and oppressive. When the ejaculation,\n_consummatum est_, had been made, the first chanter went to\nthe place where the cross had been set up on which Jesus died,\nand kneeling there, in a low voice uttered the words, _et\ninclinato capite, tradidit spiritum_.\n\nThe prayers were chanted in front of the altar of the\ncrucifixion, which belongs to the Catholics, and is at the place\nproperly called of the crucifixion, as being that where our Lord\nwas nailed to the cross; it is to the right, and about twelve\nfeet from the spot where the cross was set up. The unveiling of\nthe cross, at the chant, \"_Ecce lignum crucis_,\" was done\nhere also; and, when the crucifix was laid on the pavement in\nfront of the altar, it covered the stone which marks the locality\nwhere our Lord was fastened to the tree. The veneration of the\ncross at such a time and place was deeply impressive. After the\npatriarch, the priests, monks, and laity, having put off their\nshoes, came in their order, and kissed the feet of the image of\nthe Redeemer.\n\nWishing to spend as much of Good Friday on Calvary as was\npossible, I returned to the church in the afternoon, and sat for\na long time on the floor, leaning against the large square\npillar, within ten feet of the spot where the great oblation was\nmade. While there, I meditated and prayed as well as was possible\nunder the circumstances. For many years the Catholics have had\nexclusive possession of the church during the last three days of\nholy week; and accordingly, when the faithful had been admitted,\nthe doors were locked, and the sacred offices performed in peace,\nfree from the annoyance of the crowd which generally fills the\nedifice. Today, however, on returning, I found the doors open,\nand every one allowed free access. Many who were not Catholics\nwere now present, and among them were five or six English\ntravellers who were out sight-seeing. Accompanied by their\ndragoman or interpreter, they came on Calvary, and looked around\nwith idle curiosity. One of them, had he been alone, would\nprobably have knelt down and prayed; but, being with his friends,\nhe only bent one knee, and bowed his head a moment at the place\nwhere the cross had been set up. The others of the party,\nevidently, did not believe this to be the spot of the\ncrucifixion. They were more attracted by the gold, silver, and\ndiamonds on the image of the Blessed Virgin, on the little altar\nof the Dolors, than by anything else, and for some time admired\nthe brilliancy of these as a candle was held near, and talked of\nthem as the most interesting objects. One glance at the place\nwhere the Lord died was enough for them; and when they went away,\nit was a relief to find the chapel again occupied by those who\ncame to worship. People who have no faith should not visit the\nHoly Land.\n{80}\nIf they do, they derive little benefit themselves, and give great\ndisedification to Christians of every name.\n\nIt was now toward the close of the day. Some persons, chiefly\nGreeks, were praying on Calvary, when a Turkish officer came up,\nand made signs for them to depart. Unwilling to do so, they\nremained for some time, when he summoned several soldiers who,\nwith muskets, came up to enforce obedience to his commands. They\nwalked slowly around the chapel, close to the wall; and then the\npeople, seeing that they must go, quietly arose and descended. I\nhave little doubt that the church was cleared in order to prepare\nfor the solemn procession in the evening. Although the soldiers\nbehaved with as much decorum as possible, it was a sad sight for\nChristians to find themselves driven from Calvary on Good Friday\nby Turks, and it was the bitterest thing experienced in\nJerusalem.\n\nThere is always a company of soldiers on duty when any service of\nunusual interest takes place in the church. They are there by\nrequest of the French Consul, who is the representative of the\nEuropean protector of the Holy Land, and are designed to preserve\norder and add to the display. Although the church covers a large\narea of ground, there are no spaces of great extent; and thus the\npresence of men to keep order is necessary. It is recorded with\npleasure that, during a residence of two months in the holy city,\nI saw no act of incivility, nor even a rude look, on the part of\nthe soldiers. The Greeks and Armenians, not to be excelled by\nCatholics, ask for the soldiers on occasion of their solemnities;\nand thus, the court of the church, and the edifice itself, are\nnot unfrequently occupied by the military.\n\nIn the evening, the patriarch and clergy, with a crowd of laity,\nassemble in the church for the great procession which is made but\non this day. The sacred building was filled to its utmost\ncapacity; but, owing to the perfect arrangements made, the long\nservice was gone through without the least irregularity or\nembarrassment. There were seven sermons on the passion, in as\nmany different languages, by priests from the nations whose\nvernacular they spoke. The office began in the Latin chapel, and\nthe first sermon, delivered with much fervor and pathos, was in\nItalian. When this had been concluded, the procession was formed.\nAs it moved from one station to the next, verses of the Miserere\nwere sung. One of the Franciscan brothers, carrying a large\ncrucifix, led the procession, an acolyte being on either side of\nhim. At the place of the division of the garments of Christ, the\nsermon was in Greek--at that of the mocking, in another Eastern\nlanguage. When we had climbed the stairs of Calvary, and were at\nthe place of crucifixion, the cross was laid on the ground, while\nthe sermon in German was preached. Then the crucifix was taken\nfrom this place, where our Lord was once nailed to the wood, and\ncarried to that where Christ died. The sermon at this place was\nin French, and was preached by the leader of the French caravan\nof pilgrims, a venerable ecclesiastic. When the discourse was\nfinished, several priests came to take the body down from the\ncross. The crown of thorns was first removed, very slowly, and\nwith great reverence. The nails were then tenderly drawn from the\nhands; and, as each was removed, the arm of the figure, having\njoints at the shoulders, was brought down to the side of the\nbody. The feet were, in like manner, disengaged from the nail; a\nsheet passed under the arms, and the body lowered to the altar,\nand laid on fine linen.\n{81}\nHolding the corners of this cloth, four priests slowly carried\nthe figure down the stairs to the stone of unction, where the\npatriarch strewed myrrh over it, and sprinkled rose-water. The\nsermon was now preached in Arabic by the Franciscan curate of the\nChurch of the Nativity, at Bethlehem, and was delivered in a most\nenergetic manner. Of the seven sermons preached, it was probably\nthe one understood by the largest number of those present.\nFinally, the body was carried to the most holy sepulchre, and\nlaid in the same place where once reposed the Lamb of God, who\ntaketh away the sins of the world. Here the sermon was in\nSpanish, in compliment to that nation of Catholic renown; and,\nwhen it had been finished, the procession went to the Latin\nchapel, whence it had started, and the service of the day was\nover.\n\nIt will be readily understood that the ceremony of taking down\nfrom the cross, and carrying the image of our Lord to the tomb,\nwas intended to be a representation of the manner in which the\ndeposition took place on the day of the earth's redemption. It\nwas a most powerful sermon, reaching the heart through the sight.\nBy it we were carried back eighteen hundred years. Standing on\nCalvary, we were looking on him whose arms were stretched out on\nthe cross, as if, in his infinite love, he would embrace all\nmankind. We saw him dying that we might live, and dead that we\nmight be ransomed from the grave. No word was spoken, as good\nFather Jucundino came with pincers to remove the crown of thorns,\nwhich he did in such a devout manner, as to make us feel that we\nwere witnessing the great transaction itself. The power and\nimpressiveness of the whole ceremony were such as to render the\nbystanders awestruck and faint. A scene like this it is\nimpossible to forget, and neither pencil nor words could produce\na similar result.\n\nOn Holy Saturday I prayed a long time in the sepulchre, where our\nLord had lain, as on this day. To be on Calvary on Good Friday,\nand in the Tomb on Easter eve, had been the desire of my heart.\nWith the realization of such a wish, any one should be content;\nfor he has a privilege granted to but few whose homes are distant\nfrom the Holy Land. In the afternoon, the daily procession was\nmade with solemnity, the patriarch and many priests and laymen\nbeing present. The pilgrims from Europe were also in the train.\n\nEaster-day was the last of my sojourn in the holy city. Many\npriests wished to say Mass in the holy sepulchre, some of whom\nhad not yet had that privilege. I said Mass on Calvary, for the\nlast time, that day. During the day the shrines were visited, and\nthe tomb was now indeed the place of the resurrection.\n\"_Surrexit, non est hic._\" Yes! the grave is empty, and\ndeath hath no more power over him who was once here but is risen\nand gone. We see the place where the Lord lay. His day of victory\nhas come, and the triumph over death and hell is complete. The\ntears of the Christian are dried, and the joy of the Paschal time\nbegins.\n\n--------\n\n{82}\n\n\n          Nellie Netterville;\n      Or, One Of The Transplanted.\n\n\n      Chapter I.\n\nThe stream which divides the county of Dublin from that of Meath\nruns part of its course through a pretty, rock-strewn,\nfurze-blossoming valley, crowned at its western end by the ruins\nof a castle, which, in the days of Cromwell, belonged to one of\nthe great families of the Pale--the English-Irish, as they were\nusually called, in order to distinguish them from the Celtic\nrace, in whose land they had cast their fortunes.\n\nA narrow, winding path leads from the castle to the stream below,\nand down this there came, one cold January morning, in the year\nof the great Irish \"transplantation,\" a young girl, wrapt in a\nhooded mantle of dark cloth, which, strong as it was, seemed\nbarely sufficient to defend her from the heavy night fogs still\nrolling through the valley, hanging rock and bush and\ncastle-turret in a fantastic drapery of clouds, and then falling\nback upon the earth in a mist as persistent, and quite as\ndrenching, as an actual down-pour of rain could possibly have\nproved. Following the course of the zigzag stream, as,\nhalf-hidden in furze and bramble, it made its way eastward to the\nsea, a short ten minutes' walk brought her to a low hut, (it\ncould hardly be called a house,) built against a jutting rock,\nwhich formed, in all probability, the back wall of the tenement.\nHere she paused, and after tapping lightly on the door, as a\nsignal to its inmates, she turned, and throwing back the hood\nwhich had hitherto concealed her features, gazed sadly up and\ndown the valley. In spite of the fog-mists and the cold, the spot\nwas indeed lovely enough in itself to deserve an admiring glance,\neven from one already familiar with its beauty; but in those dark\neyes, heavy, as it seemed, with unshed tears, there was far less\nof admiration than of the longing, wistful gaze of one who felt\nshe was looking her last upon a scene she loved, and was trying,\ntherefore, to imprint upon her memory even the minutest of its\nfeatures. For a moment she suffered her eyes to wander thus, from\nthe clear, bright stream flowing rapidly at her feet to the\ndouble line of fantastic, irregularly cut rocks which, crowned\nwith patches of gorse and fern, shut out the valley from the\nworld beyond as completely as if it had been meant to form a\nseparate, kingdom in itself; and then at last, slowly, and as if\nby a strong and painful effort of the will, she glanced toward\nthe spot where the castle stood, with its tall, square towers cut\nin sharp and strong relief against the gloomy background of the\nsky. A \"firm and fearless-looking keep\" it was, as the habitation\nof one who, come of an invading race, had to hold his own against\nall in-comers, had need to be; but while it rose boldly from a\nshoulder of out-jutting rock, like the guardian fortress of the\nglen, the little village which lay nestled at its foot, the mill\nwhich turned merrily to the music of its bright stream, the\nsmooth terraces and dark woods immediately around it, the rich\ngrazing lands, with their herds of cattle, which stretched far\naway as the eye could reach beyond, all seemed to indicate that\nits owner had been so long settled on the spot as to have learned\nat last to look upon it rather as his rightful inheritance than\nas a gift of conquest.\n{83}\nCastled keep and merry mill, trees and cattle and cultivated\nfields, the girl seemed to take all in, in that long, mournful\ngaze which she cast upon them; but the thoughts and regrets which\nthey forced upon her, growing in bitterness as she dwelt upon\nthem, became at last too strong for calm endurance, and throwing\nherself down upon her knees upon the cold, damp earth, she\ncovered her face with both her hands, and burst into a passionate\nfit of weeping. Her sobs must have roused up the inmates of the\nhut; for almost immediately afterward the door was cautiously\nunclosed, and an ancient dame, with a large colored handkerchief\ncovering her gray hairs, and tied under her chin, even as her\ndescendants wear it to this hour, peeped out, with an evident\nresolve to see as much and be as little seen as possible in\nreturn, by the person who had, at that undue hour, disturbed her\nquiet slumbers. The moment, however, she discovered who it was\nthat was weeping there, all thoughts of selfish fear seemed to\nvanish from her mind, and with a wild cry, in which love and\ngrief and sympathy were mingled, as only an Irish cry can mix\nthem, she flung her strong, bony arms around the girl, and\nexclaimed in Irish, a language with which--we may as well, once\nfor all remark--the proud lords of the Pale were quite\nconversant, using it not only as a medium of communication with\ntheir Irish dependents, but by preference to English, in their\nfamiliar intercourse with each other. For this reason, while we\nendeavor to give the old lady's conversation verbatim, as far as\nidiom and ideas are concerned, we have ventured to omit all the\nmispronunciations and bad grammarisms which, whether on the stage\nor in a novel, are rightly or wrongly considered to be the one\nthing needed toward the true delineation of the Irish character,\nwhatever the rank or education of the individual thus put on the\nscene may happen to be.\n\n\"O my darling, my darling!\" cried the old woman, almost lifting\nthe girl by main force from the ground; \"my heart's blood,\na-cushla machree! what are you doing down there upon the damp\ngrass, (sure it will be the death of you, it will,) with the\nmorning fog wrapping round you like a curtain? Is there anything\nwrong up there at the castle? or what is it all, at all, that\nbrings you down here before the sun has had time to say\n'Good-morrow' to the tree-tops?\"\n\n\"O Grannie, Grannie!\" sobbed the girl, \"have you not heard? do\nyou not know already? It was to say good-by--I could not go\nwithout it. Grannie! I never shall see you again--perhaps\nnever.\"\n\nPity, and love, and sympathy, all beaming a moment before upon\nthe face of the old hag, changed as instantaneously as if by\nmagic, into an expression of wild hatred, worthy the features of\na conquered savage.\n\n\"It is true, then!\" she cried; \"it is true what I heard last\nnight! what I heard--but wouldn't believe, Miss Nellie--if you\nwere not here to the fore to say it to me yourself! It is true\nthat they are for robbing the old master of his own; and that\nthem murdering Cromwellians--my black curse on every mother's son\nof them--\"\n\nBut before she could bring her denunciation to its due\nconclusion, the girl had put her hand across her mouth, and, with\nterror written on every feature of her face, exclaimed:\n\n{84}\n\n\"Hush, Grannie, hush? For Christ and his sweet Mother's sake,\nkeep quiet! Remember such words have cost many an honest man his\nlife ere now, and God alone can tell who may or may not be within\nhearing at this moment.\"\n\nShe caught the old woman by the arm as she spoke, dragging rather\nthan leading her into the interior of the cottage. Once there,\nhowever, and with the door carefully closed behind her, she made\nno scruple of yielding to the anguish which old Grannie's\nlamentations had rather sharpened than allayed, and sitting down\nupon a low settle, suffered her tears to flow in silence. Grannie\nsquatted herself down on the ground at her feet, and swaying her\nbody backward and forward after the fashion of her people, broke\nout once more into vociferous lamentations over the fallen\nfortunes of her darling.\n\n\"Ochone! ochone! that the young May morning of my darling's life\n(which ought to be as bright as God's dear skies above us) should\nbe clouded over this way like a black November's! Woe is me! woe\nis me! that I should have lived to see the day when the old stock\nis to be rooted out as if it was a worthless weed for the sake of\na set of beggarly rapscallions, who have only come to Ireland,\nmay be, because their own land (my heavy curse on it, for the\nheavy hand it has ever and always laid on us!) wasn't big enough\nto hold their wickedness.\"\n\nIt was in perfect unconsciousness and good faith that old Grannie\nthus spoke of Nellie and her family as of the old stock of the\ncountry--a favorite expression to this day among people of her\nclass in Ireland.\n\nThe English descendants of Ireland's first invaders had, in fact,\nas years rolled by, and even while proudly asserting their own\nclaims as Englishmen, so thoroughly identified themselves both by\nintermarriages and the adoption of language, dress, and manners\nwith the Celtic natives of the soil that the latter, ever ready,\ntoo ready for their own interest perhaps, to be won by kindness,\nhad ended by transferring to them the clannish feeling once given\nto their own rulers, and fought in the days we speak of under the\nstandard of a De Burgh or a Fitzgerald as heartily and bitterly\nagainst Cromwell's soldiers as if an O'Neil or a MacMurrough had\nled them to the combat. To Nellie Netterville, therefore, the\nsympathy and indignation of old Grannie seemed quite as much a\nmatter of course as if the blue blood coursing through her veins\nhad been derived from a Celtic chieftain instead of from an old\nNorman baron of the days of King Henry. Nellie was, moreover,\nconnected with the old woman by a tie which in those days was as\nstrong, and even stronger, than that of race; for the English of\nthe Pale had adopted in its most comprehensive sense the Irish\nsystem of fosterage, and Grannie having acted as foster-mother to\nNellie's father, was, to all intents and purposes, as devoted to\nthe person of his daughter as if she had been in very deed a\ngrandchild of her own.\n\nBut natural as such sympathy might have seemed, and soothing as\nno doubt it was to her wounded feelings, it was yet clothed in\nsuch dangerous language that it had an effect upon Nellie the\nvery opposite of that which, under any other circumstances, it\nmight have been expected to produce. It recalled her to the\nnecessity of self-possession, and conscious that she must command\nher own feelings if she hoped to control those of her\nwarm-hearted dependent, she deliberately wiped the tears from her\neyes, and rose from the settle on which she had flung herself\nonly a few minutes before, in an uncontrolled agony of grief.\n{85}\nWhen she felt that she had thoroughly mastered her own emotion,\nshe drew old Grannie toward her, made her sit down on the stool\nshe herself had just vacated, and kneeling down beside her, said\nin a tone of command which contrasted, oddly yet prettily enough,\nwith the child-like attitude assumed for the purpose of giving\nit:\n\n\"You must not say such things. Grannie. I forbid it! Now and for\never I forbid it! You must not say such things. They can neither\nhelp us nor save us sorrow, and they might cost your life, old\nwoman, if any evil-designing person heard them.\"\n\n\"My life! my life!\" cried old Grannie passionately. \"And tell me,\nacushla, what is the value of my life to me, if all that made it\npleasant to my heart is to be taken from me? Haven't I seen your\nfather, whom I nursed at this breast until (God pardon me!) I\nloved him as well or better than them that were sent to me for my\nown portion? haven't I seen him brought back here for a bloody\nburial in the very flower of his days? and didn't I lead the\nkeening over him at the self-same moment that I knew my own poor\nboy was laying stiff and stark on the battle-field, where he had\nfallen (as well became him) in the defence of his own master? And\nnow you come and tell me that you--you who are all that is left\nme in the wide world; you who have been the very pulse of my\nheart ever since you were in the cradle--that you and the old\nlord are to be driven out of your own kingdom, and sent, God only\nknows where, into banishment--(him an old man of seventy, and you\na slip of a girl that was only yesterday, so to speak, in your\nnurse's arms)--and you would have me keep quiet, would you? You'd\nhave me belie the thought of my heart with a smiling face? and\nall for the sake of a little longer life, forsooth! Troth,\na-lannah, I have had a good taste of that same life already, and\nit's not so sweet I found it, that I would go as far as the river\nto fetch another sup of it. Not so sweet--not so sweet,\" moaned\nthe old woman, rocking herself backward and forward in time to\nthe inflection of her voice, \"not so sweet for the lone widow\nwoman, with barely a roof above her head, and not a chick or\nchild (when you are out of it) for comfort or for coaxing!\"\n\nGrannie had poured forth this harangue with all the eloquent\nvolubility of her Irish heart and tongue, and though Nellie had\nmade more than one effort for the purpose, she had hitherto found\nit quite impossible to check her. Want of breath, however,\nsilenced her at last, and then her foster-child took advantage of\nthe lull in the storm to say:\n\n\"Dear old Grannie, do not talk so sadly. I will love and think of\nyou every day, even in that far-off west to which we are exiled.\nAnd I forgot to say, moreover, that my dear mother is to remain\nhere for some months longer, and will be ready (as she ever is)\nto give help and comfort to all that need it, and to you, of\ncourse, dear Grannie, more than to all the rest--you whom she\nlooks, upon almost as the mother of her dead husband.\"\n\n\"Ready to give help? Ay, that in troth she is,\" quoth Grannie,\n\"God bless her for a sweet and gentle soul, that never did aught\nbut what was good and kind to any one ever since she came among\nus, and that will be eighteen years come Christmas twelvemonth.\nOchone! but them were merry times, a-lannah! long before you were\nborn or thought of.\n{86}\nGod pity you that you have burst into blossom in such weary days\nas these are!\"\n\n\"Merry times? I suppose they were,\" said Nellie good-naturedly,\ntrying to lead poor Grannie's thoughts back to the good old times\nwhen she was young and happy. \"Tell me about it now, dear\nGrannie, (my mother's coming home, I mean,) that I may amuse\nmyself by thinking it all over again, when I am far away in the\nlone west, and no good old Grannie to go and have a gossip with\nwhen I am tired of my own company.\"\n\n\"Why, you see, Miss Nellie, and you mustn't be offended if I say\nit,\" said Grannie, eagerly seizing on this new turn given to her\nideas; \"we weren't too well pleased at first to hear that the\nyoung master was to be wedded in foreign parts, and some of us\nwere even bold enough to ask if there weren't girls fair enough,\nay, and good enough too, for that matter, for him in Ireland,\nthat he must needs bring a Saxon to reign over us! However, when\nthe old lord up yonder at the castle, came down and told us how\nshe had sent him word, that for all she had the misfortune to be\nEnglish born, she meant, once she was married in Ireland, to be\nmore Irish than the Irish themselves, then, I promise you, every\nvein in our hearts warmed toward her; and on the day of her\ncoming home, there wasn't, if you'll believe me, a man, woman, or\nchild, within ten miles of Netterville, who didn't go out to meet\nher, until, what with the shouting and the hustling, she began to\nthink, (the creature,) as she has often told me since, that it\nwas going to massacre her, may be, that we were; for sure, until\nthe day she first saw the young master, it was nothing but tales\nupon tales she had heard of how the wild Irish were worse than\nthe savages themselves, and how murder and robbery were as common\nand as little thought of with us as daisies in the springtime.\nAny way, if she thought that for a moment, she didn't think it\nlong; for when she faced round upon us at the castle-gates,\nstanding between her husband and her father-in-law, (the old lord\nhimself,) we gave her a cheer that might have been heard from\nthis to Tredagh, if the wind had set that way; and though she\ndidn't then understand the '_Cead-mille-failthe_ to your\nladyship!' that we were shouting in our Irish, she was cute\nenough, at all events, to guess by our eyes and faces what our\ntongues were saying. And that wasn't all,\" continued Grannie,\ngrowing more and more garrulous as she warmed to her theme; \"that\nwasn't all neither; for when the people were so tired they could\nshout no more, and quiet was restored, she whispered something to\nthe young master; and what do you think he did, my dear, but led\nher right down to the place where me and my son (his own\nfoster-brother, that's gone, God rest him!) were standing in the\ncrowd, and she put out her pretty white hand and said, (it was\nthe first and last time that ever I liked the sound of the\nEnglish,) 'It is you, then, that was my husband's foster-mother,\nisn't it?' And says I, in her own tongue, for I had picked up\nEnglish enough at the castle for that, 'Please your ladyship, I\nam, and this is the boy,' says I, pulling my own boy forward--for\nhe was shy like, and had stepped a little backward when she came\nnear--'this is the boy that slept with Master Gerald' (that was\nthe master, you know, honey) 'on my breast.'\"\n\n{87}\n\n\"'Well, then,' said she, giving one hand to me and the other to\nmy boy, 'remember it is with my foster-brother I mean to lead out\nthe dancing to-night;' and troth, my pet, she was as good as her\nword, and not a soul would she dance with, for all the fine lords\nand gentlemen who had come to the wedding, until she had footed\nit for a good half-hour at least with my Andie, Ah! them were\ntimes indeed, my jewel,\" the old crone querulously wound up her\nchronicle by saying. \"And to think that I should have lived to\nsee the day when the young master's father and the master's child\nare to be hunted out of their own by a Cromwellian upstart with\nhis 'buddagh Sassenachs,' (Saxon clowns,) like so many\nbloodhounds at his heels, to ride over us roughshod.\"\n\nSo far the young girl had \"seriously inclined her ear\" to listen,\npartly to soothe old Grannie's grief by suffering it to flow\nover, and partly, perhaps, because her own mind, exhausted by\npresent sufferings, found some unconscious relief in letting\nitself be carried back to those bright days when the sun of\nworldly prosperity still lighted up her home. The instant,\nhowever, that the old woman began, with all the ferocity of a\nhalf-tamed nature, to pour out denunciations on the foes who had\nwrought her ruin, she checked the dangerous indulgence of her\nfeelings by saying:\n\n\"Hush, dear Grannie, and listen to me. My mother is to stay here\nuntil May, (so much grace they have seen fit to do us,) in order\nthat she may collect our stock and gather such of our people\ntogether as may choose to follow us into exile.\"\n\n\"Then, may be, she'll take me,\" cried old Grannie suddenly, her\nwithered face lightening up into an expression of hope and joy\nthat was touching to behold. \"May be she'll take me, a-lannah!\"\n\nNellie Netterville eyed Grannie wistfully. Nothing, in fact,\nwould she have better liked than to have taken that old relic of\nhappier days with her to her exile; but old, decrepid, bowed down\nby grief as well as years, as Grannie was, it would have been\nfolly, even more than cruelty, to have suffered her to offer\nherself for Connaught transplantation. It would have been,\nhowever, but a thankless office to have explained this in as many\nwords; so Nellie only said: \"When the time comes, dear old woman,\nwhen the time comes, it will be soon enough to talk about it\nthen--that is to say, if you are still able and willing for the\nventure.\"\n\n\"Willing enough at all events, God knows,\" said Grannie\nearnestly. \"But why not go at once with you, my darling? The\nmistress _is the mistress_ surely; but blood is thicker than\nwater, and aren't you the child of the man that I suckled on this\nbosom? Why not go at once with you?\"\n\n\"I think it is too late in the year for you--too cold--too\nwretched; and besides, we are only to take one servant with us,\nand of course it must be a man,\" said Nellie, not even feeling a\ntemptation to smile at the blind zeal which prompted Grannie to\noffer herself, with her sixty years and her rheumatic limbs, to\nthe unprofitable post of bower-maiden in the wilderness. \"It\nwould not do to alter our arrangements now,\" she continued\ngently; \"but when spring comes, we will see what can be done; and\nin the mean time, you must go as often as you can to the castle,\nto cheer my dear mother with a little chat. Promise me that you\nwill, dear Grannie, for she will be sad enough and lonely enough,\nI promise you, this poor mother, and nothing will help her so\nmuch in her desolation as to talk with you of those dear absent\nones, who well she knows are almost as precious to you as they\ncan be to herself. And now I must begone--I must indeed!\n{88}\nI could not go in peace without seeing you once more, and so I\nstole out while all the rest of the world were sleeping; but now\nthe sun is high in the heavens, and they will be looking for me\nat the castle. Good-by, dear Grannie, good-by!\"\n\nSobbing as if her heart would break, Nellie flung her arms round\nthe old woman's neck; but Grannie, with a wild cry of mingled\ngrief and love, slipt through her embraces and flung herself at\nher feet. Nellie raised her gently, placed her once more upon the\nsettle, and not daring to trust herself to another word, walked\nstraight out of the cottage, and closed the door behind her.\n\n\n    Chapter II.\n\nThe sun had by this time nearly penetrated through the heavy fog,\nwhich had hung since early dawn like a vail over the valley; and\njust as Nellie reached the foot of the path leading straight up\nto the castle, it fairly broke through every obstacle, and cast a\ngleam of wintry sunshine on her face. That face, once seen, was\nnot one easily to be forgotten. The features were almost, and yet\nnot quite, classic in their beauty, gaining in expression what\nthey lost in regularity; and the frequent mingling, by\nintermarriages, of Celtic blood with that of her old Norman race,\nhad given Nellie that most especial characteristic of Irish\nbeauty--hair black and glossy as the raven's wing, with eyes blue\nas the dark, double violet, and looking even bluer and darker\nthan they were by nature through the abundance of the long,\nsilken lashes, the same color as her hair, which fringed them.\nShe carried her small, beautifully-formed head with the grace and\nspirit of a young antelope, and there was something of firmness\neven in the elastic lightness of her movements, which gave an\nidea of energy and decision not naturally to be looked for in one\nso young and girlish, both as to form and feature. Her\ntight-fitting robe of dark and strong material, though evidently\nmerely adopted for the convenience of travelling, rather set off\nthan detracted from the beauty of her form; and over it hung that\nlong, loose mantle of blue cloth which seems, time out of mind,\nto have been a favorite garment with the Irish. It was fastened\nat the throat by a brooch of gold, curious and valuable even then\nfor its evident antiquity; and with its broad, graceful folds\nfalling to her feet, and its hood drawn forward over her head,\nand throwing her sweet, sad face somewhat into shadow, gave her\nat that moment, as the sun shone down upon her, the very look and\nexpression of a Mater Dolorosa.\n\nTen minutes' rapid walking up a path, which looked more like an\nirregular staircase cut through rock and turf-mould than a way\nworn gradually by the pressure of men's feet, brought her to the\nplatform upon which the castle stood.\n\nMoated and circumvallated toward the south and west, which were\neasy of access from the flat lands beyond, Netterville was\ncomparatively defenceless on the side from whence Nellie now\napproached it; its builders and inhabitants having evidently\nconsidered the deep stream and valley which lay beneath as a\nsufficient protection against their enemies.\n\nThe great gate stood looking eastward, and Nellie could see from\nthe spot where she halted that all the preparations for her\napproaching journey were already almost completed. A couple of\nsorry-looking nags, (garrans, the Irish would have called them,)\none with a pillion firmly fixed behind the saddle, were being led\nslowly up and down in readiness for their riders.\n{89}\nLittle sorrowful groups of the Irish dependents of the family\nstood here and there upon the terraces, waiting (faithful to the\nlast as they ever were in those days) to give one parting glance\nand one sorrowful, long farewell to their deposed chieftain and\nhis heiress; and a little further off, like hawks hovering around\ntheir prey, might be seen a band of those iron-handed,\niron-hearted men in whose favor the transplantation of the\npresent owners of the soil had been decreed, and who had been set\nthere, half to watch and half to enforce departure, should\nanything like evasion or resistance be attempted. Something very\nlike an angry frown clouded Nellie's brow as she caught sight of\nthese men for whose benefit she was being robbed of her\ninheritance; but, unwilling to indulge such evil feelings, she\nsuffered her gaze to pass quietly beyond them until it rested\nonce more on the streamlet and valley as they stretched eastward\ntoward the sea. Just then some one tapped her on the shoulder,\nand, turning sharply round, Nellie found herself confronted by a\nwoman not many years older, probably, than herself, but with a\nface upon which, beautiful as it was, the early indulgence of\nwild passions had stamped a look of premature decay.\n\n\"What would you with me?\" said Nellie, surprised at the\nfamiliarity of the salutation, and not in the least recognizing\nthe person who had been guilty of it. \"I know you not. What do\nyou want with me?\"\n\n\"Oh! little or nothing,\" said the other, in a harsh and taunting\nvoice; \"little or nothing, my fair young mistress--heiress, that\nhas been, of the house of Netterville--only I thought that, may\nbe, you could say if the old mistress will be after going with\nyou into exile. _They_ told me she was,\" she added, with a\ngesture toward the soldiers; \"and yet, as far as I can see, only\none of the garrans has a pillion to its back. But, may be, she'll\nbe for going later--\"\n\n\"I have already said,\" Nellie coldly answered, for she neither\nliked the matter nor the manner of the woman's speech--\"I have\nalready said that I know you not, and, in all likelihood, neither\ndoes my mother. Why, therefore, do you ask the question?\"\n\n\"Because I _hope_ it!\" said the woman, with such a look of\nhatred on her face that Nellie involuntarily recoiled a\nstep--\"because I hope it; and then perhaps, when she is houseless\nand hungry herself, she will remember that cold December night\nwhen she drove me from her door, to sleep, for all that she\ncared, under the shelter of the whin-bushes in the valley.\"\n\n\"If my mother, good and gentle as she is to all, ever acted as\nyou say she did, undoubtedly she had wise and sufficient reasons\nfor it,\" Nellie coldly answered.\n\n\"Undoubtedly--good and sufficient reasons had she, and so, for\nthat matter, had I too, when I put my heavy curse upon her and\nall her breed,\" retorted the girl, with a coarse and taunting\nlaugh. \"And see how it has come to work,\" she added wildly--\"see\nhow it has come to work! Ay, ay--she'll mind it when it is too\nlate, I doubt not; and will think twice before she lets loose her\nSaxon pride to flout a poor body for only asking a night's\nshelter under her roof. Roof! she'll soon have no roof for\nherself, I guess; but if ever she has one again, she'll think\nbetter of it, I doubt not.\"\n\n{90}\n\n\"She will think next time just what she thought last time--that,\nso long as you lead the life you lead at present, you would not,\nthough you were a princess, be fitting company for the lowest\nscullion in her kitchen.\"\n\nThus spoke a grave, sweet voice (not Nellie's) close at the\nwoman's elbow. She started, as if a wasp had stung her, and\nturned toward the speaker.\n\nA tall lady, dressed in widow's weeds, with a pale face and eyes\nweary, it almost seemed, with sorrow, had approached quietly from\nbehind, and overhearing the girl's defiant speech, saved Nellie\nthe trouble of an answer by that firm yet most womanly response.\nThen passing to the front, she put her arm round Nellie's waist,\nas if to protect her from the very presence of the other, and\ndrew her away, saying:\n\n\"Come along, my daughter; the morning wears apace, and these long\ndelays do but embitter partings. Your grandfather is already\nwaiting. Remember, Nellie,\" she added in a faltering voice, \"that\nhe, with his seventy years, will be almost as dependent upon your\nstrength and energy as you can be on his. He is my dead husband's\nfather, and therefore, after a long and bitter struggle with my\nown heart, I have devoted you, my own and only treasure, to be\nhis best support and help and comfort in the long and\nunseasonable journey to which the cruelty of our conquerors has\ncompelled him. I trust--I trust in God and his sweet Mother that\nI shall see no cause later to repent me of this decision!\"\n\nNellie drew a little closer to her mother, and a strange firmness\nof expression passed over her young face as she answered quietly:\n\n\"My own unselfish mother, doubt not that I will be all--son and\ndaughter both in one--to him; and fear not, I do beseech you, for\nour safety. What though he has seen his seventy winters, and I\nbut barely seventeen! We are strong and healthy, both of us; and\nwith clean consciences (which is more than our foes can boast of)\nand good wits, I doubt not we shall reach our destination safely.\nDestination!\" she repeated bitterly--\"ay, destination; for home,\nin any sense of the word, it never can be to us.\"\n\n\"Say not so, my Nellie--say not so,\" said her mother gently.\n\"Home, after all, is only the place where we garner up our\ntreasures; and, therefore, in the spot where I may rejoin you,\nhowever wild and desolate it otherwise shall be, _my_ heart,\nat all events, will acknowledge it has found its home!\"\n\nAs they thus conferred together, mother and daughter had been\nmoving slowly toward the castle, in absolute forgetfulness of the\nwoman who had originally made a third in the group, and who was\nstill following at a little distance. She stopped, however, on\ndiscovering that they had no intention of making her a sharer in\ntheir conversation, and, gazing after them with a fearful\nmingling of hatred and wounded pride on her coarse, handsome\nfeatures, exclaimed aloud:\n\n\"The second time you have flouted me, good madam! Well, well, the\nthird is the charm, and then it will be my turn. See if I do not\nmake you rue it!\"\n\nShaking her fist, as she spoke, savagely in the air, she turned\nher back upon Netterville towers, and rushed down a path leading\ndirectly to the river.\n\nAs Mrs. Netterville and her daughter approached the castle-gates,\na young man came out to meet them, and, with a look and bearing\nhalf-way between that of an intelligent and trusted servant and a\npetted follower, said hurriedly:\n\n{91}\n\n\"My lord grows impatient, madam. He says he is ready to depart at\nonce, and that the sooner it is done the better. And, in troth, I\nam much of the same way of thinking my own self,\" he added, with\nthat sort of grim severity which some men seem almost naturally\nto assume the moment they feel themselves in danger of giving way\nto grief, in the womanly fashion of tears.\n\nHamish was of the same age as Nellie, though he looked and felt\nat least eight years older. He was her foster-brother, as we have\nalready said, and had been her companion in the nursery; but as\nwar and poverty thinned the ranks of followers attached to the\nhouse of Netterville, he had been gradually advanced from one\npost of confidence to another, until, young as he was, he united\nthe various duties of \"bailiff\" or \"steward,\" as it would be\ncalled in Ireland--major-domo or butler, valet, and footman, all\nin his own proper person.\n\n\"True,\" said Mrs. Netterville, in answer to his\ncommunication--\"too true. Every moment that he lingers now will\nbe but a fresh barbing of the arrow. Come, my Nellie, let us\nhasten to your grandfather. Would that I could persuade him to\ntake Hamish with him instead of Mat, who has little strength and\nless wit to help you in such a journey. I should be far more at\nease, both on his account and yours, my daughter.\"\n\n\"Faix, madam, and it was just that same that I was thinking to\nmyself awhile ago,\" cried Hamish eagerly. \"Sure, who has a better\nright to go with Mistress Nellie than her own foster-brother? And\nam not I strong enough, and more than willing enough to fight for\nher--ay, and to die for her too, if any of them black-browed\nhypocrites should dare for to cast their evil eyes upon her or\nthe old master?\"\n\n\"Strong enough and brave enough undoubtedly you are,\" said\nNellie, speaking before her mother could reply, \"and true-hearted\nmore than enough, my dear foster-brother, are you; but, if only\nfor that very reason, you must stay here to help and comfort my\ndear mother. Bethink you, Hamish, hers is, in truth, the hardest\nlot of any. We shall have but to endure the weariness of long\ntravel; she will have to contend with the insolence of men in\nhigh places--yes, and perhaps even to dispute with them, day by\nday, and hour by hour, for that which is her rightful due and\nours. This is man's work, not woman's; and a man, moreover,\nquick-witted and fearing no one. Will you not be that man,\nHamish, to stand by her against the tyrant and oppressor, and to\nact for her whenever and wherever it may be impossible for her to\nact for herself?\"\n\nHamish would have answered with a fervor equal to her own, but\nMistress Netterville prevented him by saying, with a mingling of\ngrief and impatience in her manner:\n\n\"It is in vain to talk to you, Nellie! You have all your\ngrandfather's stiff-necked notions on this subject. Nevertheless\nit would have been far more to my real contentment if he and you\nhad yielded to my wishes, seeing that there is many a one still\nleft among our dependents to whom, on a pinch, I could entrust\nthe care both of cattle and of household gear, and but one (and\nthat is Hamish) to whom willingly I would confide my child.\"\n\n\"Now, may Heaven bless you for that very word, madam,\" cried\nHamish eagerly and gratefully; and then turning to Nellie, he\nwent on: \"See now, Mistress Nellie, see now, when her ladyship\nherself has said it--surely you would never think of going\ncontrary to her wishes!\"\n\n{92}\n\n\"Listen to me, Hamish,\" said Nellie, putting her hand on his\nshoulder and standing still, so that her mother unconsciously\nmoved on without her. \"Ever since that weary day when the sheriff\ncame here to inform us of our fate, I have had a strange,\nuncomfortable foreboding that my mother will soon find herself in\neven a worse plight than ours. A woman, as she will be, alone and\nfriendless--foemen all around her--foemen domiciled even in her\nhousehold--foemen, the worst and cruelest of any, with prayer on\ntheir lips and hypocrisy in their hearts, and a strong sword at\ntheir hips, ready to smite and slay, as they themselves express\nit, all who oppose that wicked lusting for wealth and power which\nthey so blindly mistake for the promptings of a good spirit! With\nus, once we have obtained our certificate from the commissioners\nat Loughrea, it will be far otherwise. Each step we take in our\nwild journey westward will, if, alas! it leads us further from\nour friends, set, likewise, a safer distance between us and our\noppressors. Promise me, therefore, to ask no more to follow us\nwho go to peace and safety, but to abide quietly here, where\nalone a real danger threatens. Promise me even more than this, my\nfoster-brother--promise to stay with her so long as ever she may\nneed you; and should aught of evil happen to her, which may God\navert! promise to let me know at once, that I may instantly\nreturn and take a daughter's proper place beside her. Promise me\nthis, Hamish--nay, said _I promise!_--Hamish, you must\nswear it!\"\n\n\"I swear it! by the Mother of Heaven and her blessed Child, I\nswear it!\" said Hamish fervently; for he saw at once that there\nwas much probability in Nellie's view of the subject, though, in\nhis overweening anxiety for the daughter, he had hitherto\noverlooked the chances of danger to the mother. \"But, Christ save\nus!\" he added suddenly, as some wild notes of preparation reached\nhis experienced ear; \"Christ save us, if the old women are not\ngoing to keen for your departure as if it were a burial!\"\n\n\"Oh! do not let them--do not let them; bid them stop if they\nwould not break our hearts!\" cried Nellie, rushing on to overtake\nher mother, while Hamish, in obedience to her wishes, struck\nright across the terrace toward a distant group of women, among\nwhom, judging by their excited looks and gestures, he knew that\nhe should find the keeners. Long, however, ere he could reach\nthem, a wild cry of lamentation, taken up and prolonged until\nevery man, woman, and child within ear-shot had lent their voices\nto swell the chorus, made him feel that he was too late; and\nturning to ascertain the cause of this sudden outburst, he saw\nthat Lord Netterville had come forth from the castle, and was\nstanding at the open gates. A fine, soldierly-looking man he was,\ncounting over seventy years, yet in appearance not much more than\nsixty, and as he stood there, pale and bare-headed, in the\npresence of his people, a shout of such mingled love and\nsympathy, grief and execration rent the air, that some of the\nCromwellian soldiers made an involuntary step forward, and\nhandled their muskets in expectation of an attack.\n\n\"Tell them to stop!\" cried the old man, throwing up his arms like\none who could bear his agony no longer. \"For God's sake, tell\nthem to stop! Let them wait, at least,\" he added, half bitterly,\nhalf sorrowfully, \"until, like the dead, I am out of hearing.\"\n\n{93}\n\nThere was no need for Hamish to become the interpreter of his\nwishes. That sudden cry of a man's irrepressible anguish had\nreached the hearts of all who heard it, and a silence fell upon\nthe crowd--a silence more expressive of real sympathy than their\nwildest lamentations could have been.\n\nThe old lord bowed, and tried to speak his thanks, but the words\ndied upon his lips, and he turned abruptly to take leave of his\ndaughter-in-law. She knelt to receive his blessing. He laid his\nhand upon her head, and then, making an effort to command his\nvoice, said tenderly:\n\n\"Fare thee well, my best and dearest! It is the way of these\ncanting times to be for ever quoting Scripture, and for once I\nwill follow fashion. May Heaven bless and keep thee, daughter;\nfor a very Ruth hast thou been to me in my old age; yea, and\nbetter than seven sons in this the day of my poverty and sorrow!\"\n\nHe stooped to kiss her brow and to help her to rise, and as he\ndid so, he added in a whisper, meant only for the lady's ear:\n\n\"Forgive me. Mary, if I once more allude to that subject we have\nso much discussed already. Are you still in the mind to send\nNellie with me? Think better of it, I entreat you. The daughter's\nplace should ever, to my poor thinking, be beside her mother!\"\n\n\"I _have_ thought,\" she answered, \"and I _have_\ndecided. If Nellie is my child, she is your grandchild as well;\nand the duty which her father is no longer here to tender, it\nmust be her pride and joy to offer you in his stead. Moreover, my\ngood lord,\" she added, in a still lower tone, \"the matter hath\nanother aspect. Nellie will be safer with you! This place and all\nit contains is even now at the mercy of a lawless soldiery, and\ntherefore it is no place for her. Too well I feel that even I,\nher mother, am powerless to protect her.\"\n\nLord Netterville cast a wistful glance on the fair face of his\nyoung granddaughter, and said reluctantly:\n\n\"It may be that you are right, sweet Moll, as you ever are. Come,\nthen, if so it must be, give us our good-speed, and let us hasten\non our way.\"\n\nHe once more pressed her affectionately in his arms, then walked\nstraight up to his horse, and leaped almost without assistance to\nthe saddle. But his face flushed scarlet, and then grew deadly\npale, and as he shook his reins and settled himself in his seat,\nit was evident to Hamish, who was holding his stirrup for him,\nthat he was struggling with all his might and main to bear\nhimself with a haughty semblance of indifference before the\nEnglish soldiery. After he was seated to his satisfaction, he\nventured a half glance around his people, and lifted his beaver\nto salute them. But the effort was almost too much; the big tears\ngathered in his eyes, and his hand shook so violently that he\ncould not replace his hat, which, escaping from his feeble grasp,\nrolled under his horse's feet. Half a dozen children darted\nforward to recover it, but Hamish had already picked it up and\ngiven it to his master, who instantly put it on his head, saying,\nin a tone of affected indifference:\n\n\"Pest on these trembling fingers which so libel the stout heart\nwithin. This comes of wine and wassail, Hamish. Drink thou water\nall thy life, good youth, if thou wouldst match a sturdy heart\nwith a steady hand, when thy seventy years and odd are on you.\"\n\n{94}\n\n\"Faix, my lord, will I or nill I,\" said Hamish, trying to fall in\nwith the old man's humor by speaking lightly; \"will I or nill I,\nit seems only too likely that water will be the best part of my\nwine for some time to come; leastways,\" he added in a lower\nvoice, \"leastways till your honor comes back to your own again,\nand broaches us a good cask of wine to celebrate the day.\"\n\n\"Back again! back again!\" repeated Lord Netterville, shaking his\nhead with a mixture of grief and impatience impossible to\ndescribe. \"I tell thee, Hamish, that men never come back again\nwhen they carry seventy years with them to exile. But where is my\ngranddaughter? Bid her come forth at once, for it's ill lingering\nhere with this weeping crowd around us, and yonder pestilent\ngroup of fanatics marking out every mother's son among them,\ndoubtless, for future vengeance.\"\n\nMrs. Netterville heard this impatient cry for her only child, and\nflung her arms for one last passionate embrace round Nellie's\nneck. Then, firm and unfaltering to the end, she led her to\nHamish, who lifted her as reverently as if she had been an\nempress (as indeed she was in his thoughts) to the pillion behind\nher grandfather.\n\nLord Netterville barely waited until she was comfortably settled,\nere he stooped to kiss once more his daughter-in-law's uplifted\nbrow, after which, waving his hands toward the weeping people, he\ndug his spurs deep into his horse's sides, and rode swiftly\nforward.\n\nThen, as if moved by one common impulse, every man, woman, and\nchild in presence there, fell down upon their knees, mingling\nprayers and blessings, and howls and imprecations, as only an\nIrish or an Italian crowd can do; and yet obedient to the last to\nthe wishes of their departing chief, it was not until he was\nwell-nigh out of sight that they broke out into that wild,\nwailing keen, with which they were known to accompany their loved\nones to the grave. But the wind was less considerate, and as it\nunluckily set that way, it bore one or two of the long, sad notes\nto him in whose honor they were chanted. As they fell upon the\nold exile's ears, the stoical calmness which he had hitherto\nmaintained forsook him utterly; the reins fell from his hands, he\nbowed his head till his white locks mingled with his horse's\nmane, and, \"lifting up his voice,\" he wept as sadly and\nunrestrainedly as a woman.\n\n\n     To Be Continued.\n\n--------\n\n{95}\n\n  The Church Review and Victor Cousin. [Footnote 31]\n\n    [Footnote 31: _The American Quarterly Church Review_.\n    New York: N. S. Richardson. January, 1868. Art. ii., \"O. A.\n    Brownson as a Philosopher. Victor Cousin and his Philosophy.\n    _Catholic World_.\"]\n\nThe article in the _Church Review_ promises an estimate of\nthe character of Dr. O. A. Brownson as a philosopher; but what it\nsays has really no relation to that gentleman, and is simply an\nattempt, not very successful, nor very brilliant indeed, to\nvindicate M. Cousin's philosophy from the unfavorable judgment we\npronounced on it, in the magazine of last June. Dr. Brownson is\nnot the editor, nor one of the editors, of _The Catholic\nWorld_; the article in question was signed by no name, was\nimpersonal, and the _Review_ has no authority for charging\nits authorship to any one but ourselves, or for holding any but\nourselves responsible for its merits or demerits. When the name\nof a writer is signed to an article, he should be held answerable\nfor its contents; but when it is not, the magazine in which it\nappears is alone responsible. According to this rule, we hold the\n_Church Review_ answerable for its \"rasping\" article against\nours.\n\nThe main purpose of the reviewer seems to be to prove that we\nwrote in nearly entire ignorance of M. Cousin's philosophy, and\nto vindicate it from the very grave charges we urged against it.\nAs to our ignorance, as well as his knowledge, that must speak\nfor itself; but we can say sincerely that we should be most happy\nto be proved to have been in the wrong, and to see Cousin's\nphilosophy cleared from the charge of being unscientific,\nrationalistic, pantheistic, or repugnant to Christianity and the\nchurch. One great name would be erased from the list of our\nadversaries, and their number would be so much lessened. We\nshould count it a great service to the cause which is so dear to\nus, if the _Church Review_ could succeed in proving that the\nerrors we laid to his charge are founded only in our ignorance or\nphilosophical ineptness, and that his system is entirely free\nfrom them. But though it talks largely against us, assumes a high\ntone, and makes strong assertions and bold denials, we cannot\ndiscover that it has effected anything, except the exhibition of\nitself in an unenviable light. It has told us nothing of Cousin\nor his philosophy not to be found in our article, and has not in\na single instance convicted us of ignorance, malice,\nmisstatement, misrepresentation, or even inexactness. This we\nshall proceed now to show, briefly as we can, but at greater\nlength, perhaps, than its crude statements are worth.\n\nThe principal charges against us are:\n  1. We said M. Cousin called his philosophy eclecticism;\n  2. We wrongly denied scepticism to be a system of philosophy;\n  3. Showed our ignorance of Cousin's doctrine in saying it\n     remained in psychology, never attained to the objective, or\n     rose to ontology;\n  4. Misstated his doctrine of substance and cause;\n  5. Falsely denied that he admits a nexus between the creative\n     substance and the created existence;\n  6. Falsely asserted that he holds creation\n     to be necessary;\n  7. Wrongly and ignorantly accused him of Pantheism;\n  8. Asserted that he had but little knowledge of Catholic\n     theology;\n  9. Accused him of denying the necessity of language to thought.\n\n{96}\n\nIn preferring these charges against M. Cousin's philosophy, we\nhave shown our ignorance of his real doctrine, our contempt for\nhis express declarations, and our philosophical incapacity, and\nthe reviewer thinks one may search in vain through any number of\nmagazine articles of equal length, for one more full of errors\nand fallacies than ours. This is bad, and, if true, not at all to\nour credit. We shall not say as much of his article, for that\nwould not be courteous, and instead of saying it, prefer to let\nhim prove it. We objected that M. Cousin assuming that to the\noperation of reason no objective reality is necessary, can never,\non his system, establish such reality; the reviewer, p. 541,\ngravely asserts that we ourselves hold, that to the operations of\nreason no objective reality is necessary, and can never be\nestablished! This is charming. But are these charges true? We\npropose to take them up _seriatim_, and examine the\nreviewer's proofs.\n\n1. We said M. Cousin called his philosophical system eclecticism.\nTo this the reviewer replies:\n\n  \"'Eclecticism can never be a philosophy;' making, among other\n  arguments, the pertinent inquiry: 'How, if you know not the\n  truth in its unity and integrity beforehand, are you, in\n  studying those several systems, to determine which is the part\n  of truth and which of error?'\n\n  \"We beg his pardon, but M. Cousin never called his\n  philosophical system Eclecticism. In the introduction to the\n  _Vrai, Beau, et Bien_, he writes:\n\n  \"'One word as to an opinion too much accredited. Some persons\n  persist in representing eclecticism as the doctrine to which\n  they would attach my name. I declare, then, that eclecticism\n  is, undoubtedly, very dear to me, for it is in my eyes the\n  light of the history of philosophy; but the fire which supplies\n  this light is elsewhere. Eclecticism is one of the most\n  important and useful applications of the philosophy I profess,\n  but it is not its principle. My true doctrine, my true flag, is\n  spiritualism; that philosophy, as stable as it is generous,\n  which began with Socrates and Plato, which the gospel spread\n  abroad in the world, and which Descartes placed under the\n  severe forms of modern thought'\n\n  \"And the principles of this philosophy supply the touchstone\n  with which to try 'those several systems, and to determine\n  which is the part of truth and which of error.' Eclecticism, in\n  Cousin's view of it, as one might have discovered who had\n  'studied his works with some care,' is something more than a\n  blind syncretism, destitute of principles, or a fumbling among\n  conflicting systems to pick out such theories as please us.\"\n\nIf M. Cousin never called his philosophical system eclecticism,\nwhy did he defend it from the objections brought on against it,\nthat, i. Eclecticism is a syncretism--all systems mingled\ntogether; 2. Eclecticism approves of everything, the true and the\nfalse, the good and the bad; 3. Eclecticism is fatalism; 4.\nEclecticism is the absence of all system? Why did he not say at\nonce that he did not profess eclecticism, instead of saying and\nendeavoring to prove that the eclectic method is at once\nphilosophical and historical? [Footnote 32]\n\n    [Footnote 32: See _Fragments Philosophiques_, t i. pp.\n    39-42.]\n\nEverybody knows that he professed eclecticism and defended it. As\na method, do you say? Be it so. Does he not maintain, from first\nto last, that a philosopher's whole system is in his method? Does\nhe not say, \"Given a philosopher's method, we can foretell his\nwhole system\"? And is not his whole course of the history of\nphilosophy based on this assumption? We wrote our article for\nthose who knew Cousin's writings, not for those who knew them\nnot. There is nothing in the passage quoted from the reviewer,\nquoted from Cousin, that contradicts what we said. We did not say\nthat he always called philosophy eclecticism, or pretend that it\nwas the principle of his system. We said:\n\n{97}\n\n  \"There is no doubt that all schools, as all sects, have their\n  part of truth, as well as their part of error; for the human\n  mind cannot embrace pure, unmixed error any more than the will\n  can pure, unmixed evil; but the eclectic method is not the\n  method of constructing true philosophy any more than it is the\n  method of constructing true Christian theology. The Catholic\n  acknowledges willingly the truth which the several sects hold;\n  but he does not derive it from them, nor arrive at it by\n  studying their systems. He holds it independently of them; and\n  having it already in its unity and integrity, he is able, in\n  studying them, to distinguish what they have that is true from\n  the errors they mix up with it. It must be the same with the\n  philosopher. _M. Cousin was not unaware of this, and he\n  finally asserted eclecticism rather as a method of historical\n  verification, than as the real and original method of\n  constructing philosophy_. The name was therefore unhappily\n  chosen, and is now seldom heard.\" (_Catholic World_, p.\n  335.)\n\nHad the reviewer read this passage, he would have seen that we\nwere aware of the fact that latterly Cousin ceased to profess\neclecticism save as a method of verification; and if he had read\nour article through, he would have seen that we were aware that\nhe held spiritualism to be the principle of his system, and that\nwe criticised it as such.\n\n2. Cousin counts scepticism as a system of philosophy. We object,\nand ask very pertinently, since he holds every system has a\ntruth, and truth is always something affirmative, positive,\n\"What, then, is the truth of scepticism, which is a system of\npure negation, and not only affirms nothing, but denies that any\nthing can be affirmed?\" Will the reviewer answer the question?\n\nThe reviewer, of course, finds us in the wrong. Here is his\nreply:\n\n  \"In the history of the progress of the human mind, the phase of\n  scepticism is not to be overlooked. At different periods it has\n  occurred, to wield a strong, sometimes a controlling, often a\n  salutary, influence over the thought of an age. Its work, it is\n  true, is destructive, and not constructive; but not the less as\n  a check and restraint upon fanciful speculation, and the\n  establishment of unsound hypotheses, it has its _raison\n  d'\u00eatre_, and contributes, in its way, to the advancement of\n  truth. Nor can the works of Sextus, Pyrrho, Glanvil, Montaigne,\n  Gassendi, or Hume be considered less 'systematic' than those of\n  any dogmatist, merely from their being 'systems of pure\n  negation.'\" (P. 533.)\n\nThat it is sometimes reasonable and salutary to doubt, as if the\nreviewer should doubt his extraordinary genius as a philosopher,\nwe readily admit; but what salutary influence has ever been\nexerted on science or morals by any so-called system of\nscepticism, which denies the possibility of science, and renders\nthe binding nature of virtue uncertain, we have never yet been\nable to ascertain. Moreover, a system of pure negation is simply\nno system at all, for it has no principle and affirms nothing. A\nsceptical turn of mind is as undesirable as a credulous mind.\nThat the persons named, of whom only one, Pyrrho, professed\nuniversal scepticism, and perhaps even he carried his scepticism\nno farther than to doubt the reality of matter, may have rendered\nsome service to the cause of truth, as the drunken helotae\npromoted temperance among the Spartan youth, is possible; but\nthey have done it by the truth they asserted, not by the doubt\nthey disseminated. There is, moreover, a great difference between\ndoubting, or suspending our judgment where we are ignorant or\nwhere our knowledge is incomplete, and erecting doubt into the\nprinciple of a system which assumes all knowledge to be\nimpossible, and that certainty is nowhere attained or attainable.\nIt seems, we confess, a little odd to find a Church Review taking\nup the defence of scepticism.\n\n{98}\n\n3. We assert in our article that M. Cousin, though he professes\nto come out of the sphere of psychology, and to rise legitimately\nto ontology, remains always there; and, in point of fact, the\nontology he asserts is only an abstraction or generalization of\npsychological facts. The reviewer is almost shocked at this, and\nis \"tempted to think that the time\" we claim to have spent in\nstudying the works of Cousin with some care \"might have been\nbetter employed in the acquisition of some useful knowledge more\nwithin the reach of our 'understanding.'\" It is possible. But\nwhat has he to allege against what we asserted, and think we\nproved? Nothing that we can find except that Cousin professes to\nattain, and perhaps believes he does attain, to real objective\nexistence, and, scientifically, to real ontology. But, my good\nfriend, that is nothing to the purpose. The question is not as to\nwhat Cousin professes to have done, or what he has really\nattempted to do, but what he has actually done. When we allege\nthat the being, the God asserted by Cousin, is, on his system,\nhis principles, and method, only an abstraction or a\ngeneralization; you do not prove us wrong by reiterating his\nassertion that it is real being, that it is the living God, for\nit is, though you seem not to be aware of it, that very assertion\nthat is denied. We readily concede that Cousin does not\n_profess_ to rise to ontology by induction from his\npsychology, but we maintain that the only ontology he attains to\nis simply an induction from his psychology, and therefore is, and\ncan be, only an abstraction or a generalization. We must here\nreproduce a passage from our own article.\n\n  \"What is certain, and this is all the ontologist need assert,\n  or, in fact, can assert, is, that ontology is neither an\n  induction nor a deduction from psychological data. God is not,\n  and cannot be, the generalization of our own souls. But it does\n  not follow from this that we do not think that which is God,\n  and that it is from thought we do and must take it. We take it\n  from thought and by thinking. What is objected to in the\n  psychologists is the assumption that thought is a purely\n  psychological or subjective fact, and that from this\n  psychological or subjective fact we can, by way of induction,\n  attain to ontological truth. But as we understand M. Cousin,\n  and we studied his works with some care thirty or thirty-five\n  years ago, and had the honor of his private correspondence,\n  this he never pretends to do. What he claims is, that in the\n  analysis of consciousness we detect a class of facts or ideas\n  which are not psychological or subjective, but really\n  ontological, and do actually carry us out of the region of\n  psychology into that of ontology. That his account of these\n  facts or ideas is to be accepted as correct or adequate we do\n  not pretend, but that he _professes_ to recognize them and\n  distinguish them from purely psychological facts is undeniable.\n\n  \"The defect or error of M. Cousin on this point was in failing,\n  as we have already observed, to identify the absolute or\n  necessary ideas he detects and asserts with God, the only\n  _ens necessarium et reale_, and in failing to assert them\n  in their objectivity to the whole subject, and in presenting\n  them only as objective to the human personality. He never\n  succeeded in cutting himself wholly loose from the German\n  nonsense of a subjective-object or objective-subject, and when\n  he had clearly proved an idea to be objective to the reflective\n  reason and the human personality, he did not dare assert it to\n  be objective in relation to the whole subject. It was\n  impersonal, but might be in a certain sense subjective, as Kant\n  maintained with regard to the categories.\" (_Catholic\n  World_, PP. 335, 336.)\n\nThe reviewer, after snubbing us for our ignorance and ineptness,\nwhich are very great, as we are well aware and humbly confess,\nreplies to us in this manner:\n\n  \"And yet nothing in Cousin is clearer or more positive than\n  that this 'pure and sublime degree of the reason, when will,\n  reflection, and personality are as yet absent'--this\n  'intuition and spontaneous revelation, which is the primitive\n  mode of reason'--is objective to the whole subject in every\n  _possible_ sense, and is, consequently, conformed to the\n  objective, and a revelation of it.\n\n  \"Can the critic have read Cousin's Lectures on Kant, 'thirty or\n  thirty-five years ago'? If so, we advise him to refresh his\n  memory by a re-perusal, and perhaps he may withdraw the strange\n  assertion that Cousin held an 'absolute idea to be impersonal,\n  but that it might be in a certain sense subjective, _as Kant\n  maintained with regard to the categories_.' 'The scepticism\n  of Kant,' says Cousin, [Footnote 33] 'rests on his finding the\n  laws of the reason to be subjective, personal to man; but here\n  is a mode of the reason where these same laws are, as it were,\n  deprived of all subjectivity--where the reason shows itself\n  almost entirely impersonal.\n\n{99}\n\n  \"How the critic would wish this impersonal activity to be\n  objective to the 'whole subject,' and not to the 'personal\n  only,' as if there was any greater degree of objectivity in one\n  case than in the other, it is not easy to see. It looks like a\n  distinction without a difference. The abstract and logical\n  distinction is apparent, but though distinct, the 'whole\n  subject,' and the 'human personality,' cannot be separated, so\n  that what is objective to one, shall not be so to the other\n  also. The 'whole subject' is, simply, the thinking, feeling,\n  willing being, which we are, as distinguished from the world\n  external to us. If an idea, then, is revealed to us by what is\n  completely foreign to us--if an act of the reason is\n  spontaneous and unreflective, +hat is, impersonal--what is\n  there that can be more objective to the subject?\n\n  \"We have said, that such an act is objective to the subject in\n  every _possible_ sense. For we are not to forget the\n  conditions of the case. 'Does one wish,' says Cousin, 'in order\n  to believe in the objectivity and validity of the reason, that\n  it should cease to make its appearance in a particular\n  subject--in man, for instance? But then, if reason is outside\n  of the subject, that is, of myself, it is nothing to me. For me\n  to have consciousness of it, it must descend into me, it must\n  make itself mine, and become in this sense subjective. A reason\n  which is not mine, which, in itself being entirely universal,\n  does not incarnate itself in some manner in my consciousness,\n  is for me as though it did not exist. [Footnote 34]\n  Consequently, to wish that the reason, in order to be\n  trustworthy, should cease entirely to be subjective, is to\n  demand an impossibility.'\" (Pp. 534, 535.)\n\n    [Footnote 33: Lecture viii.]\n\n    [Footnote 34: Lectures on Kant, viii.]\n\nWe have introduced this long extract in order to give our readers\na fair specimen of the reviewer's style and capacity as a\nreasoner. It will be seen that the reviewer alleges, as proof\nagainst us, what is in question--the very thing that he is to\nprove. We have read Cousin's Lectures on Kant, and we know well,\nand have never thought of denying, that he criticises Kant\nsharply, says many admirable things against him, and professes to\nreject his subjectivism; we know, also, that he holds what he\ncalls the impersonal reason to be objective, operating\nindependently of us; all this we know and so stated, we thought,\nclearly enough, in our article; but we, nevertheless, maintain\nthat he does not make this impersonal reason really objective,\nbut simply independent in its operations of our personality. He\nholds that reason has two modes of activity--the one personal,\nthe other impersonal; but he recognizes only a distinction of\nmodes, sometimes only a difference of degrees, making, as we have\nseen, as quoted by the reviewer, the impersonal reason a sublimer\n\"degree\" of reason than the personal. He calls the impersonal\nreason the spontaneous reason, sometimes simply spontaneity. All\nthis is evident enough to any one at all familiar with Cousin's\nphilosophical writings.\n\nBut what is this reason which operates in these two modes,\nimpersonal and spontaneous in the one, personal and reflective in\nthe other? As the distinction between the personal and impersonal\nis, by Cousin's own avowal, a difference simply of modes or\ndegrees, there can be no entitative or substantial difference\nbetween them. They are not two different or distinct reasons, but\none and the same reason, operating in two different modes or\ndegrees. Now, we demand, what is this one substantive reason\noperating in these two different degrees or modes? It certainly\nis not an abstraction, for abstractions are nullities and cannot\noperate or act at all. What, then, is it? Is it God, or is it\nman? If you say it is God, then you deny reason to man, make him\na brute, unless you identify man with God.\n{100}\nIf you say it is man, that it is a faculty of the human soul, as\nCousin certainly does say--for he makes it our faculty and only\nfaculty of intelligence--then you make it subjective, since\nnothing is more subjective than one's own faculties. They are the\nsubject itself. Consequently the impersonal reason belongs as\ntruly to man, the subject, as the personal reason, and therefore\nis not objective, as we said, to the whole subject, but at best\nonly to the will and the personality--what Cousin calls _le\nmoi_. The most distinguished of the disciples of Cousin was\nTheodore Jouffroy, who, in his confessions, nearly curses Cousin\nfor having seduced him from his Christian faith, whose loss he so\nbitterly regretted on his dying-bed, and who was, in Cousin's\njudgment, as expressed in a letter to the writer of this article,\n\"a true philosopher.\" This true philosopher and favorite disciple\nof Cousin illustrates the difference between the impersonal\nreason and the personal by the difference between _seeing_\nand _looking_, _hearing_ and _listening_, which\ncorresponds precisely to the difference noted by Leibnitz between\nwhat he calls simple _perception_ and _apperception_.\nIn both cases it is the man who sees, hears, or perceives; but in\nthe latter case, the will intervenes and we not only see, but\nlook, not only perceive, but apperceive.\n\nNow, it is very clear, such being the case, that Cousin does not\nget out of the sphere of the subject any more than does Kant, and\nall the arguments he adduces against Kant, apply equally against\nhimself; for he recognizes no actor in thought, or what he calls\nthe fact of consciousness, but the subject. The fact which he\nalleges, that the impersonal reason necessitates the mind,\nirresistibly controls it, is no more than Kant says of his\ncategories, which he resolutely maintains are forms of the\nsubject. Hence, as Cousin charges Kant very justly with\nsubjectivism and scepticism, we are equally justified in\npreferring the same charges against himself. This is what we\nshowed in the article the reviewer is criticising, and to this he\nshould have replied, but, unhappily, has not. He only quotes\nCousin to the effect that, \"to wish the reason, in order to be\ntrustworthy, should cease entirely to be subjective, is to demand\nan impossibility,\" which only confirms what we have said.\n\nWe pursue in our article the argument still further, and add:\n\n  \"Reduced to its proper character as asserted by M. Cousin,\n  intuition is empirical, and stands opposed not to reflection,\n  but to discursion, and is simply the immediate and direct\n  perception of the object without the intervention of any\n  process, more or less elaborate, of reasoning. This is, indeed,\n  not an unusual sense of the word, perhaps its more common\n  sense, but it is a sense that renders the distinction between\n  intuition and reflection of no importance to M. Cousin, for it\n  does not carry him out of the sphere of the subject, or afford\n  him any basis for his ontological inductions. He has still the\n  question as to the objectivity and reality of the ideal to\n  solve, and no recognized means of solving it. His ontological\n  conclusions, therefore, as a writer in the _Christian\n  Examiner_ told him as long ago as 1836, rest simply on the\n  credibility of reason or faith in its trustworthiness, which\n  can never be established, because it is assumed that, to the\n  operation of reason, no objective reality is necessary, since\n  the object, if impersonal, may, for aught that appears, be\n  included in the subject.\" (_Catholic World_, p. 338.)\n\nWe quote the reply of the reviewer to this at full length, for no\nmortal man can abridge or condense it without losing its essence.\n\n{101}\n\n  \"If a man speaks thus, after a careful study of Cousin, it is\n  almost useless to argue with him. He either has not understood\n  the philosopher, or his scepticism is hopelessly obstinate.\n  Intuition, as asserted by Cousin, is not reduced to its proper\n  character, but simply misrepresented, when it is called\n  empirical; for it is the primitive mode of reason, and prior to\n  all experience. It is a revelation of the objective to the\n  subject, and to be a revelation must, of course, come into the\n  consciousness of the subject. Cousin has carefully and\n  repeatedly established the true character of intuition as a\n  disclosure to the understanding in the reason, and free from\n  any touch of subjectivity. _Of course, his ontological\n  conclusions rest on a belief in the credibility of reason, and,\n  of course, this credibility can never be established in a\n  logical way, although, metaphysically, it is abundantly\n  established_. One may 'assume,' to the end of time, that 'to\n  the operation of reason no objective reality is necessary,\n  since the object may, for aught that appears, be included in\n  the subject,' but the universal and invincible opinion of the\n  human race has been, and will be, to the contrary of such an\n  assumption.\n\n  \"As firmly as Reid and Hamilton have established the doctrine\n  of sensible perception, and the objective existence of the\n  material world, has Cousin that of the objective existence of\n  the absolute, and, on the very same ground, the veracity of\n  consciousness. And the mass of mankind have lived in happy\n  ignorance of any necessity for such arguments. When they sowed\n  and reaped, and bought and sold, they never questioned the real\n  existence of the objects they dealt with; _nor did they, when\n  the idea of duty or obligation made itself felt in their souls,\n  dream that, 'for such an operation of reason, no objective\n  reality was necessary_.'\n\n  \"Men have an unquestioning but unconquerable belief, that the\n  very idea of obligation implies _something outside of\n  them_, that obliges. Something other than itself it must be,\n  that commands the soul. Right is a reality, and duty a fact.\n  The philosophy, that does not come round to an enlightened and\n  intelligent holding of the unreflecting belief of mankind, but\n  separates itself from it, is worse than useless. In such wisdom\n  it is indeed 'folly to be wise.' And this philosophic folly\n  comes from insisting on a logical demonstration of what is\n  logically undemonstrable--of what is superior, because anterior\n  to reasoning. We cannot _prove_ to the understanding\n  truths which are the very basis and groundwork of that\n  understanding itself.\" (Pp. 536, 537.)\n\nThis speaks for itself, and concedes, virtually, all we alleged\nagainst Cousin's system; at least it convicts us of no\nmisapprehension or misrepresentation of that system; and the\nreviewer's sneer at our ignorance and incapacity, however much\nthey may enliven his style and strengthen his argument, do not\nseem to have been specially called for. Yet we think both he and\nM. Cousin are mistaken when they assume that to demand any other\nbasis for science than the credibility or faith in the\ntrustworthiness of reason, is to demand an impossibility, for a\nscience founded on faith is simply no science at all. There is\nscience only where the mind grasps, and appropriates, not its own\nfaculties only, but the object itself. The reason, personal or\nimpersonal, is the faculty by which we grasp it, or the light by\nwhich we behold it; not the object in which the mental action\nterminates, but the medium by which we attain to the object. If\nit were otherwise, there might be faith, but not science, and\nthough reason might search for the object, yet it would always be\npertinent to ask, Who or what vouches for reason? Descartes\nanswered, The veracity of God, which, in one sense, is true, but\nnot in the sense alleged; for on the Cartesian theory we might\nask, what vouches for the veracity of God? The only possible\nanswer would be, it is reason, and we should simply traverse a\ncircle without making the slightest advance.\n\nThe difficulty arises from adopting the psychological method of\nphilosophizing, or assuming, as Descartes does in his famous\n_cogito, ergo sum_, I think, therefore, I exist, that man\ncan think in and of himself, or without the presence and active\nconcurrence of that which is not himself, and which we call the\nobject. Intuition, on Cousin's theory, is the spontaneous\noperation of reason as opposed to discursion, which is its reflex\nor reflective operation, but supposes that reason suffices for\nits own operation.\n{102}\nIn his course of philosophy professed at the Faculty of Letters\nin 1818, he says, in the consciousness, that is, in thought,\nthere are two elements, the subject and object; or, in his\nbarbarous dialect, _le moi et le non-moi_; but he is careful\nto assert the subject as active and the object as passive. Now, a\npassive object is as if it were not, and can concur in nothing\nwith the activity of the subject. Then, as all the activity is on\nthe side of the subject, the subject must be able to think in and\nof itself alone. The fact that I think an existence other than\nmyself, on this theory, is no proof that there is really any\nother existence than myself till my thought is validated, and I\nhave nothing but thought with which to validate thought.\n\nThe _cogito, ergo sum_ is, of course, worthless as an\nargument, as has often been shown; but there is in it an\nassumption not generally noted; namely, that man suffices for his\nown thought, and, therefore, that man is God. God alone suffices,\nor can suffice, for his own thought, and needs nothing but\nhimself for his thought or his science. He knows himself in\nhimself, and is in himself the infinite Intelligibile, and the\ninfinite Intelligens. He knows in himself all his works, from\nbeginning to end, for he has made them, and all events, for he\nhas decreed them. There is for him no medium of science\ndistinguishable from himself; for he is, as the theologians say,\nthe adequate object of his own intelligence. But man being a\ncreature, and therefore dependent for his existence, his life,\nand all his operations, interior and exterior, on the support and\nactive concurrence of that which is not himself, does not and\ncannot suffice for his thought, and he does not and cannot think\nin and of himself alone, in any manner, mode, form, or degree, or\nwithout the active presence and concurrence of the object, as\nPierre Leroux has well shown in his otherwise very objectionable\n_R\u00e9futation de l'Eclecticisme._ The object being independent\nof the subject, and not supplied by the subject, must exist _a\nparte rei_, since, if it did not, it could not actually concur\nwith the subject in the production of thought. There can arise,\ntherefore, to the true philosopher, no question as to the\ncredibility or trustworthiness of reason, the validity or\ninvalidity of thought. The only question for him is, Do we think?\nWhat do we think? He who thinks, knows that he thinks, and what\nhe thinks, for thought is science, and who knows, knows that he\nknows, and what he knows.\n\nThe difficulty which Cousin and the reviewer encounter arises\nfrom thus placing the question of method before the question of\nprinciples, as we showed in our former article. No such\ndifficulty can arise in the path of him who has settled the\nquestion of principles--which are given, not found, or obtained\nby the action of the subject without them--and follows the method\nthey prescribe. The error, we repeat, arises from the\npsychological method, which supposes all the activity in thought\nis in the subject, and supposes reason to be operative in and of\nitself, or without any objective reality, which reality, on\nCousin's system, or by the psychological method, can never be\nestablished.\n\nThe reviewer concedes that objective reality cannot be\nestablished _in a logical way_, but maintains that there is\nno need of so establishing it; for \"men have an unquestioning, an\nunconquerable _belief_ that the very idea of obligation\nimplies something outside of them.\" Nobody denies the belief, but\nits validity is precisely the matter in question.\n{103}\nHow do you prove the validity of the idea of obligation? But the\nreviewer forgets that Cousin makes it the precise end of\nphilosophy to legitimate this belief, and all the universal\nbeliefs of mankind, and convert them from beliefs into science.\nHow can philosophy do this, if obliged to support itself on these\nvery beliefs?\n\nThe reviewer follows the last passage with a bit of philosophy of\nhis own; but, as it has no relevancy to the matter in hand, and\nis, withal, a little too transcendental for our taste, he must\nexcuse us for declining to discuss it. We cannot accept it, for\nwe cannot accept what we do not understand, and it professes to\nbe above all understanding. In fact, the reviewer seems to have a\nvery low opinion of understanding, and no little contempt for\nlogic. He reminds us of a friend we once had, who said to us, one\nday, that if he trusted his understanding and followed his logic\nhe should go to Rome; but, as neither logic nor understanding is\ntrustworthy or of any account, he should join the Anglican\nChurch, which he incontinently did, and since, we doubt not,\nfound himself at home. Can it be that he is the writer of the\narticle criticising us?\n\nThe reviewer, in favoring us with this bit of philosophy of his\nown, tells us, in support of it, that Sir William Hamilton says,\n\"All thinking is negation.\" So much the worse, then, for Sir\nWilliam Hamilton. All thinking is affirmative, and pure negation\ncan neither think nor be thought. Every thought is a judgment,\nand affirms both the subject thinking and the object thought, and\ntheir relation to each other. This, at least sometimes, is the\ndoctrine of Cousin, as any one may ascertain by reading his\nessays, _Du Fait de Conscience_ and _Du Premier et du\ndernier Fait de Conscience_. [Footnote 35] Though even in\nthese essays the doctrine is mixed up with much that is\nobjectionable, and which leads one, after all, to doubt if the\nphilosopher ever clearly perceived the fact, or the bearing of\nthe fact, he asserted. Cousin often sails along near the coast of\ntruth, sometimes almost rubs his bark against it, without\nperceiving it. But we hasten on.\n\n    [Footnote 35: _Fragments Philosophiques_, t. i. pp. 248,\n    256.]\n\n4. We are accused of misstating Cousin's doctrine of substance\nand cause. Here is our statement and the reviewer's charge:\n\n  \"'M. Cousin,' continues _The Catholic World_, 'professes\n  to have reduced the categories of Kant and Aristotle to\n  two--substance and cause; but as he in fact identifies cause\n  with substance, declaring substance to be substance _only in\n  so much_ [the italics are ours] as it is cause, and cause to\n  be cause _only in so much_ as it is substance, he really\n  reduces them to the single category of substance, which you may\n  call, indifferently, substance or cause. But, though every\n  substance is intrinsically and essentially a cause, yet, as it\n  _may be something more_ than a cause, it is not necessary\n  to insist on this, and it may be admitted that he recognized\n  two categories.'\n\n  \"What is exactly meant by these two contradictory statements it\n  is not easy to guess; but let Cousin speak for himself:\n  [Footnote 36]\n\n    [Footnote 36: VI. Lecture, Course of 1818, on the Absolute.]\n\n  \"'Previous to Leibnitz, these two ideas seemed separated in\n  modern philosophy by an impassable barrier. He, the first to\n  sound the nature of the idea of substance, brought it back to\n  the notion of force. This was the foundation of all his\n  philosophy, and of what afterward became the Monadology. ...\n  But has Leibnitz, in identifying the notion of substance with\n  that of cause, presented it with justness? Certainly, substance\n  is revealed to us by cause; for, suppress all exercise of the\n  cause and force which is in ourselves, and we do not exist to\n  ourselves. It is, then, the idea of cause which introduces into\n  the mind the idea of substance. But is substance nothing more\n  than cause which manifests it? .... The causative power is the\n  essential attribute of substance; it is not substance itself.\n  In a word, it has seemed to us surer to hold to these two\n  primitive notions; distinct, though inseparably united; one,\n  which is the sign and manifestation of the other, this, which\n  is the root and foundation of that.'\n\n{104}\n\n  \"One would think this sufficiently explicit for all who are not\n  afflicted with the blindness that will not see.\" (P. 539.)\n\nWe see no self-contradiction in our statement, and no\ncontradiction of M. Cousin. We maintain that M. Cousin really,\nthough probably not intentionally or consciously, reduces the\ncategories of Kant and Aristotle to the single category of\nsubstance, and prove it by the words italicized by the reviewer,\nwhich are our translation of Cousin's own words. Cousin says, in\nhis own language, in a well-known passage in the first preface of\nhis _Fragments Philosophiques_, \"Le Dieu de la conscience\nn'est pas un Dieu abstrait, un roi solitaire, r\u00e9legu\u00e9 pardel\u00e0 la\ncr\u00e9ation sur le tr\u00f4ne desert d'une \u00e9ternit\u00e9 silencieuse, et d'une\nexistence absolue qui ressemble au n\u00e9ant m\u00eame de l'existence:\nc'est un Dieu \u00e0 la fois vrai et r\u00e9el, \u00e0 la fois substance et\ncause, toujours substance et toujours cause, _n'\u00e9tant substance\nqu'en tant que cause, et cause qu'en tant que substance_,\nc'est-\u00e0-dire, \u00e9tant cause absolue, un et plusieurs, \u00e9ternit\u00e9 et\ntemps, espace et nombre, essence et vie, indivisibilit\u00e9 et\ntotalit\u00e9, principe, fin, et milieu, au sommet de l'\u00eatre et \u00e0 son\nplus humble degr\u00e9, infini et fini, tout ensemble, triple enfin,\nc'est-\u00e0-dire, \u00e0 la fois Dieu, nature, et humanit\u00e9. En effet,\n_si Dieu n'est pas tout il n'est rien._\" [Footnote 37] This\npassage justifies our first statement, because Cousin calls God\nsubstance, the one, absolute substance, besides which there is no\nsubstance. But as our purpose, at the moment, was not so much to\nshow that Cousin made substance and cause identical, as it was to\nshow that he made substance a necessary cause, we allowed, for\nreasons which he himself gives in the passage cited by the\nreviewer from his course of 1818 on the Absolute, that he might\nbe said to distinguish them, and to have reduced the categories\nto two, instead of one only, as he professes to have done. But\nthe reviewer hardly needs to be told that, when it is assumed\nthat substance is cause only on condition of causing, that is,\ncausing from the necessity of its own being, the effect is not\nsubstantially distinguishable from the substance causing, and is\nonly a mode or affection of the causative substance itself, or,\nat best, a phenomenon.\n\n    [Footnote 37: _Fragments Philosophiques_, t. i. p. 76.]\n\n5. Accepting substance and cause as two categories, we contend\nthat Cousin requires a third; namely, the creative act of the\ncausative substance, and contingent existences, as asserted in\nthe ideal formula. _Ens creat existentias_. To this the\nreviewer cites, from Cousin, the following passage in reply:\n\n  \"In the fifth lecture of the course of 1828, M. Cousin says:\n\n  \"'The two terms of this so comprehensive formula do not\n  constitute a dualism, in which the first term is on one side\n  and the second on the other, without any other connection\n  between them than that of being perceived at the same time by\n  the intelligence; so far from this, the tie which binds them is\n  essential. It is a connection of _generation_ which draws\n  the second from the first, and constantly carries it back to\n  it, and which, with the two terms, constitutes the _three_\n  integrant elements of intelligence. ... Withdraw this relation\n  which binds variety to unity, and you destroy the necessary\n  bond of the two terms of every proposition. These three terms,\n  distinct, but inseparable, constitute at once a triplicity and\n  an indivisible unity. ...  Carried into Theodicy, the theory I\n  have explained to you is nothing less than the very foundation\n  of Christianity. The Christians' God is at once triple and one,\n  and the animadversions which rise against the doctrine I teach\n  ought to ascend to the Christian Trinity.'\" (P. 540.)\n\n{105}\n\nWe said in our article, \"Under the head of substances he (Cousin)\nranges all that is substantial or that pertains to real and\nnecessary being, and under the head of cause the phenomenal or\nthe effects of the causative action of substance. He says he\nunderstands, by substance, the universal and absolute substance,\nthe real and necessary being of the theologians; and by\nphenomena, not mere modes or appearances of substance, but finite\nand relative substances, and calls them phenomena only in\nopposition to the one absolute substance. They are created or\nproduced by the causative action of substance. [Footnote 38] If\nthis has any real meaning, he should recognize three categories\nas in the ideal formula, _Ens creat existentias_, that is,\nBeing, existences, or creatures, and the creative act of being,\nthe real nexus between substance or being and contingent\nexistences, for it is that which places them and binds them to\nthe Creator.\"\n\n    [Footnote 38: _Fragments Philosophiques_, t i. pp. xix.\n    xx.]\n\nThe passage cited by the reviewer from Cousin is brought forward,\nwe suppose, to show that it does recognize this third category;\nbut if so, what becomes of the formal statement that he has\nreduced the categories to _two_, substance and cause, or, as\nhe sometimes says, substance or being and phenomenon? Besides,\nthe passage cited does not recognize the third term or category\nof the formula. It asserts not the _creative_ act of being\nas the _nexus_ between substance and phenomenon, the\ninfinite and the finite, the absolute and the relative, etc.; but\n_generation_, which is a very different thing, for the\ngenerated is consubstantial with the generator.\n\n6. We were arguing against Cousin's doctrine, that God, being\nintrinsically active, or, as Aristotle and the schoolmen say,\n_actus purissimus_, most pure act, must therefore\nnecessarily create or produce exteriorly. In prosecuting the\nargument, we anticipated an objection which, perhaps, some might\nbe disposed to bring from Leibnitz's definition of substance, as\na _vis activa_, and endeavored to show that, even accepting\nthat definition, it would make nothing in favor of the doctrine\nwe were refuting, and which Cousin undeniably maintains. We say,\n\"The doctrine that substance is essentially cause, and must, from\nintrinsic necessity, cause in the sense of creating, is not\ntenable. We are aware that Leibnitz, a great name in philosophy,\ndefines substance to be an active force, a _vis activa_, but\nwe do not recollect that he anywhere pretends that its activity\nnecessarily extends beyond itself. God is _vis activa_, if\nyou will, in a supereminent degree; he is essentially active, and\nwould be neither being nor substance if he were not; he is, as\nAristotle and the schoolmen say, most pure act; ... but nothing\nin this implies that he must necessarily act _ad extra_, or\ncreate. He acts eternally from the necessity of his own divine\nnature, but not necessarily out of the circle of his infinite\nbeing, for he is complete in himself, is in himself the plenitude\nof being, and always and everywhere suffices for himself, and\ntherefore for his own activity. Creation, or the production of\neffects exterior to himself, is not necessary to the perfection\nof his activity, adds nothing to him, as it can take nothing from\nhim. Hence, though we cannot conceive of him without conceiving\nhim as infinitely, eternally, and essentially active, we can\nconceive of him as absolute substance or being, without\nconceiving him to be necessarily acting or creating _ad\nextra_.\"\n\n{106}\n\nThe reviewer says, sneeringly, \"This is the most remarkable\npassage in this remarkable article.\" He comments on it in this\nmanner:\n\n  \"Thus appearing to accept the now exploded Leibnitzian theory,\n  which Cousin has combated both in its original form, and as\n  maintained by De Biran, our critic tries to escape from it by\n  this subtle distinction between the southern and south-eastern\n  sides of the hair. He enlarges upon it. God, according to him,\n  is indeed _vis activa_ in the most eminent degree, but\n  this does not imply that he must act _ad extra_, or\n  create. He acts eternally from the necessity of his nature, but\n  not necessarily out of the circle of his own infinite being.\n  Hence, though we cannot conceive of him but as infinitely and\n  essentially active, we can conceive of him as absolute\n  substance without conceiving him to be necessarily creating, or\n  acting _ad extra_. M. Cousin, he says, evidently confounds\n  the interior acts of the divine being with his exterior or\n  creative acts.\n\n  \"We have no wish to deny that he does make such a confusion. To\n  one who holds that 'to the operation of reason no objective\n  reality is necessary, and that such reality can never be\n  established,' this kind of subjective activity of the will,\n  which seems so nearly to resemble passivity--these pure acts,\n  or volitions, which never pass out of the sphere of the will\n  into causation--may be satisfactory; but to one who believes\n  that God is not a scholastic abstraction--to one who worships\n  the 'living God' of the Scriptures--it will sound like a\n  pitiful jugglery with words thinly veiling a lamentable\n  confusion of ideas. God is a person, and he acts as a person.\n  The divine will is no otherwise conceivable by us than as of\n  the same nature as man's will; it differs from it only in the\n  mode of its operation--for with him this is always immediate,\n  and no deliberation or choice is possible--and it is as absurd\n  to speak of the activity of his will, the eminently active\n  force, never extending 'out of the circle of his own infinite\n  being,' as it would be to call a man eminently an active person\n  whose activity was all merely purpose or volition, never\n  passing into the creative act _ad extra_, or out of the\n  circle of his own finite being.\n\n  \"If St. Anselm is right, that, to be _in re_ is greater\n  than to be _in intellectu_, then has the creature man,\n  according to the critic, a higher faculty than his Creator\n  _essentially and necessarily_ has. For his will is by\n  nature causative, creative, productive _ad extra_, and it\n  is nothing unless its activity be called forth into act\n  external to his personality, while the pure acts of the divine\n  will may remain for ever enclosed in the circle of the divine\n  consciousness without realizing themselves _ad extra_!\"\n  (Pp. 540, 541.)\n\nWe do not like to tell a man to his face, especially when he\nassumes the lofty airs and makes the large pretensions of our\nreviewer, that he does not know what he is talking about, or\nunderstand the ordinary terms and distinctions of the science he\nprofesses to have mastered, for that, in our judgment, would be\nuncivil; but what better is to be said of the philosopher who\nsees nothing more in the distinction between the divine act _ad\nintra_, whence the eternal generation of the Son and the\neternal procession of the Holy Ghost, and the divine act _ad\nextra_, whence man and nature, the universe, and all things\nvisible and invisible, distinguishable from the one necessary,\nuniversal, immutable, and eternal being, than in \"the distinction\nbetween the southern and south-eastern sides of the hair\"? The\nEpiscopalian journals were right in calling the _Church\nReview's_ criticism on us \"racy,\" \"rasping,\" \"scathing;\" it is\ncertainly astounding, such as no mortal man could foresee, or be\nprepared to answer to the satisfaction of its author.\n\nIn the passage reproduced from ourselves we neither accept nor\nreject the definition of substance given by Leibnitz, nor do we\nsay that Cousin accepts it, although he certainly favors it in\nhis introduction to the _Posthumous Works of Maine de\nBiran_, and adduces the fact of his having adopted it in his\ndefence against the charge of pantheism, [Footnote 39] but simply\nargue that, if any one should adopt it and urge it as an argument\nfor Cousin, it would be of no avail, because Leibnitz does not\npretend that substance is or must be active outside of itself, or\nout of its own interior, that is, must be creative of exterior\neffects. This is our argument, and it must go for what it is\nworth.\n\n    [Footnote 39: _Fragments Philosophiques_, t i. p. xxi.]\n\n{107}\n\nWe admit that in some sense God may be a _vis activa_, but\nwe show almost immediately that it is in the sense that he is\nmost pure act, that is, in the sense opposed to the _potentia\nnuda_ of the schoolmen, and means that God is _in actu_\nmost perfect being, and that nothing in his being is potential,\nin need of being filled up or actualized. When we speak of his\nactivity, within the circle of his own being, we refer to the\nfact that he is living God, therefore, Triune, Father, Son, and\nHoly Ghost. As all life is active, not passive, we mean to imply\nthat his life is in himself, and that he can and does eternally\nand necessarily live, and in the very fulness of life in himself;\nand therefore nothing is wanting to his infinite and perfect\nactivity and beatitude in himself, or without anything but\nhimself. This is so because he is Trinity, three equal persons in\none essence, and therefore he has no need of anything but\nhimself; nothing in his being or nature necessitates him to act\n_ad extra_, that is, create existences distinct from\nhimself. Does the reviewer understand us now? He is an\nEpiscopalian, and believes, or professes to believe, in the\nTrinity, and, therefore, in the eternal generation of the Son,\nand the eternal procession of the Holy Ghost. Do not this\ngeneration and this procession imply action? Action assuredly and\nnecessarily, and eternal action too, because they are necessary\nin the very essence or being of God, and he could not be\notherwise than three persons in one God, if, _per\nimpossibile_, he would. The unity of essence and trinity of\npersons do not depend on the divine will, but on the divine\nnature. Well, is this eternal action of generation and procession\n_ad intra_, or _ad extra?_ Is the distinction of three\npersons a distinction _from_ God, or a distinction _in_\nGod? Are we here making a distinction as frivolous as that\n\"between the southern and south-eastern sides of a hair\"? Do you\nnot know the importance of the distinction? Think a moment, my\ngood friend. If you say the distinction is a distinction\n_from_ God, you deny the divine unity--assert three Gods; if\nyou say it is a distinction in God, you simply assert one God in\nthree persons, or three persons in one God, or one divine\nessence. If you deny both, your God is a dead unity in himself,\nnot a living God.\n\nThe action of God _ad intra_ is necessary, proceeds from the\nfulness of the divine nature, and the result is the generation of\nthe Son and the procession of the Holy Ghost. Now, can you\nunderstand what would be the consequence, if we made the action\nof God _ad extra_, or creation, proceed from the necessity\nof the divine nature? The first consequence would be that\ncreation is God, for what proceeds from God by the necessity of\nhis own nature is God, as the Arian controversy long ago taught\nthe world. The second consequence would be that God is incomplete\nin himself, and has need to operate without, in order to complete\nhimself, which really denies God, and therefore creation,\neverything, which is really the doctrine of Cousin, namely, God\ncompletes himself in his works. Can you understand now, dear\nreviewer, why we so strenuously deny that God creates or produces\nexistences distinguishable from himself, through necessity?\nCousin says that God creates from the intrinsic necessity of his\nown nature, that creation is necessary. You say he has retracted\nthe expression. Be it so.\n{108}\nBut, with all deference, we assert that he has not retracted or\nexplained away his doctrine, for it runs through his whole\nsystem; and as he nowhere makes the distinction between action\n_ad intra_ and action _ad extra_, his very assertion\nthat God is substance only in that he is cause, and cause only in\nthat he is substance, implies the doctrine that God, if substance\nat all, cannot but create, or manifest himself without, or\ndevelop externally. What say we? Even the reviewer sneers at the\ndistinction we have made, and at the efforts of theologians to\nsave the freedom of God in creating. Thus, in the paragraph\nimmediately succeeding our last extract, he says, \"But all this\nquibbling comes from an ignorant terror, lest God's free-will\nshould be attacked.\" The reviewer, on the page following, admits\nall we asserted, and falls himself, blindfold, as it were, into\nthe very error he contends we falsely charge to the account of\nCousin. \"The necessity he (Cousin) speaks of is a metaphysical\nnecessity, which no more destroys the free-will of God, than the\nmetaphysical necessity of doing right, that is, obligation,\ndestroys man's free-will.\" [Footnote 40] (P. 542.)\n\n    [Footnote 40: The reviewer, misled by the evasive answer of\n    Cousin, supposes the objection urged against his doctrine,\n    that creation is necessary, is, that it destroys the\n    free-will of God; but that, though a grave objection, is not\n    the one we insisted on; the real objection is, that if God is\n    assumed to create from the necessity of his own nature, he is\n    assumed not to create at all, for what is called his creation\n    can be only an evolution or development of himself, and\n    consequently producing nothing distinguishable in substance\n    from himself, which is pure pantheism. Of course, all\n    pantheism implies fatalism, for if we deny free-will in the\n    cause, we must deny it in the effect; but it is not to escape\n    fatalism, but pantheism that Cousin's doctrine of necessary\n    Creation is denied, as we pointed out in our former article.]\n\n_Metaphysical_ necessity, according to the reviewer, p. 537,\nmeans real necessity, since he says, \"Metaphysics is the science\nof the real,\" and therefore God is under a real necessity of\ncreating. Yet it is to misrepresent Cousin to say that, according\nto him, creation is necessary! But assume that, by\n_metaphysical_, the reviewer means _moral_; then God is\nunder a moral necessity, that is, morally bound to create, and\nconsequently would sin if he did not. But we have more yet, in\nthe same paragraph: \"A power essentially creative _cannot but\ncreate._\" Agreed. But to assert that God is essentially\ncreative, is to assert that he is necessary creator, and that\ncreation is necessary, for God cannot change his essence or belie\nit in his act. But this assertion of God as essentially creative,\nis precisely what we objected to in Cousin, and therefore, while\nasserting that God is infinitely and essentially _active_ in\nhis own being, we denied that he is essentially _creative_.\nHe is free in his own nature to create or not, as he pleases. The\nreviewer does not seem to make much progress in defending Cousin\nagainst our criticisms.\n\n7. That Cousin was knowingly and intentionally a pantheist, we\nhave never pretended, but have given it as our belief that he was\nnot. We do not think that he ever comprehended the essential\nprinciple of pantheism, or foresaw all the logical consequences\nof the principles he himself adopted and defended. But his\ndoctrine, notwithstanding all his protests to the contrary, is\nundeniably pantheism, if any doctrine ever deserved to be called\nby that name. It is found not here and there in an incidental\nphrase, but is integral; enters into the very substance and\nmarrow of his thought, and pervades all his writings. We felt it\nwhen we attempted to follow him as our master, and had the\ngreatest difficulty in the world to give him a non-pantheistic\nsense, and never succeeded to our own satisfaction in doing it.\n\n{109}\n\nCousin's pantheism follows necessarily from two doctrines that\nhe, from first to last, maintains. First, there is only one\nsubstance. Second, Creation is necessary. He says in the\n_Avertissement_ to the third edition of his _Philosophical\nFragments_ that he only in rare passages speaks of substance\nas one, and one only, and when he does so, he uses the word, not\nin its ordinary sense, but in the sense of Plato, of the most\nillustrious doctors of the church, and of the Holy Scripture in\nthat sublime word, I AM that I AM; that is, in the sense of\neternal, necessary, and self-existent Being. But this is not the\ncase. The passages in which he asserts there is and can be only\none substance, are not rare, but frequent, and to understand it\nin any of these passages in any but its ordinary sense, would\nmake him write nonsense. He repeats a hundred times that there\nis, and can be, only one substance, and says, expressly, that\nsubstance is one or there is no substance, and that relative\nsubstances contradict and destroy the very idea of substance. He\nis talking, he says in his defence, of absolute substance. Be it\nso; interpret him accordingly. \"Besides the one only absolute\nsubstance, there is and can be no substance, that is, no other\none only absolute substance.\" Think you M. Cousin writes in that\nfashion? But we fully discussed this matter in our former\narticle, and as the reviewer discreetly refrains from even\nattempting to show that we unjustly accused him of maintaining\nthat there is and can be but one substance, we need not attempt\nany additional proof. The second doctrine, that creation is\nnecessary, the reviewer concedes and asserts, \"In Cousin, as we\nhave attempted to explain, creation is not only possible, but\nNECESSARY,\" repeating Cousin's own words.\n\n  \"As to Cousin's pantheism, if any one is disposed to believe\n  that the systems of Spinoza and of Cousin have anything in\n  common, we can only recommend to him a diligent study of both\n  writers, freedom from prejudice, and a distrust of his own\n  hastily formed opinions. It is too large a question to enter\n  upon here, but we would like to ask the critic how he\n  reconciles the two philosophers on the great question he last\n  considered--the creation. In Spinoza, there is no creation. The\n  universe is only the various modes and attributes of substance,\n  subsisting with it from eternity in a necessary relation. In\n  Cousin, creation, as we have attempted to explain, is 'not only\n  possible but necessary.' The relation between the universe and\n  the supreme Substance is not a necessary relation of substance\n  and attribute, but a contingent relation of cause and effect,\n  produced by a creative fiat.\" (P. 545.)\n\nA necessitated creation is no proper creation at all. And Cousin\ndenies that God does or can create from nothing; says God creates\nout of his own fulness, that the stuff of creation is his own\nsubstance, and time and again resolves what he calls creation\ninto evolution or development, and makes the relation between the\ninfinite and the finite, as we have seen, not that of\n_creation_, but that of _generation_, which is only\ndevelopment or explication. He also denies that individuals are\nsubstances, and says they have their substance in the one\nabsolute substance. Let the reviewer read the preface to the\nfirst edition of the _Fragments_, reproduced without change\nin subsequent editions, and he will find enough more passages to\nthe same effect, two at least in which he asserts that finite\nsubstances, not being able to exist in themselves without\nsomething beyond themselves, are very much like phenomena; and\nhis very pretension is, that he has reduced the categories of\nKant and Aristotle to two, substance or being, and phenomenon.\n\nNow, the essential principle of pantheism is the assertion of one\nonly substance and the denial of all finite substances.\n{110}\nIt is not necessary, in order to be a pantheist, to maintain that\nthe apparent universe is an eternal mode or attribute of the one\nonly substance, as Spinoza does; for pantheism may even assert\nthe creation of modes and phenomena, which are perishable; its\nessence is in the assertion of one only substance, which is the\nground or reality of all things, as Cousin maintains, and in\ndenying the creation of finite substances, that can act or\noperate as second causes. Cousin, in his doctrine, does not\nescape pantheism, and we repeat, that he is as decided a\npantheist as was Spinoza, though not precisely of the same\nschool.\n\nThe reviewer says, p. 544, \"We proceed to another specimen of the\ncritic's accuracy; 'M. Cousin says pantheism is the divinization\nof nature, taken in its totality as God, But this is sheer\natheism.'\" Are we wrong? Here is what Cousin says in his own\nlanguage: \"Le panth\u00e9ism est _proprement_ la divinisation du\ntout, le grand tout donn\u00e9 comme Dieu, l'universe Dieu de la\nplupart de mes adversaires, de Saint-Simon, par example. C'est au\nfond un veritable ath\u00e9isme.\" [Footnote 41] If he elsewhere gives\na different definition, that is the reviewer's affair, not ours.\nWe never pretended that Cousin never contradicts himself, or\nundertook to reconcile him with himself; but the reviewer should\nnot be over-hasty in charging inaccuracy, misrepresentation, or\nignorance where none is evident. He may be caught himself. The\nreviewer stares at us for saying Cousin's \"exposition of the\nAlexandrian philosophy is a marvel of misapprehension.\" Can the\nreviewer say it is not? Has he studied that philosophy? We\nrepeat, it is a marvel of misapprehension, both of Christian\ntheology and of that philosophy itself. The Neoplatonists were\npantheists and emanationists, and Cousin says the creation they\nasserted was a creation proper. Let that suffice to save us from\nthe scathing lash of the reviewer.\n\n    [Footnote 41: _Fragments Philosophiques_, t i. pp. 18,\n    19.]\n\n8. We said, in our article, \"It was a great misfortune for M.\nCousin that what little he knew of Catholic theology, caught up,\napparently, at second hand, served only to mislead him. The great\ncontroversies on Catholic dogmas have enlightened the darkest\npassages of psychology and ontology, and placed the Catholic\ntheologian on a vantage-ground of which they who know it not are\nincapable of conceiving. Before him your Descartes, Spinozas,\nKants, Fichtes, Hegels, and Cousins dwindle into pigmies.\" The\nreviewer replies to this:\n\n  \"This is something new indeed, and we think the great Gallican\n  churchmen of the seventeenth century, whom Cousin understood so\n  intimately, and for whom he had so sincere an admiration, would\n  be the last to claim an exclusive vantage-ground from their\n  knowledge of the controversies on Catholic dogma. For these\n  men, alike of the Oratory and of Port Royal, were Cartesians,\n  and their faith was interwoven with their philosophy; it was\n  not in opposition to it. And they knew that that philosophy was\n  based upon a thorough understanding of the great 'controversies\n  on Catholic dogma,' which had been carried on in the schools by\n  laymen as well as by ecclesiastics.\n\n  \"But who is the Romish theologian the critic refers to, and how\n  is it he makes so little use of his 'vantage-ground'? Since\n  Descartes brought modern philosophy into being by its final\n  secularization, we do not recollect any theologian so eminent\n  that all the great men he has named dwindle into pigmies before\n  him. Unless, indeed, this should take place from their being so\n  far out of the worthy man's sight and comprehension, as to be\n  'dwarfed by the distance,' as Coleridge says.\" (Pp. 546, 547.)\n\n{111}\n\nWe referred to no _Romish_ theologian in particular; but if\nthe reviewer wants names, we give him the names of St. Augustine,\nSt. Gregory the Great, St. Anselm, St. Bonaventura, St. Thomas of\nAquino, Fonseca, Suarez, Malebranche, even Cardinal Gerdll, and\nGioberti, the last, in fact, a contemporary of Cousin, whose\n_Considerazioni sopra le dottrine del Cousin_ prove his\nimmense superiority over him, and of the others named with him.\nCousin may have admired the great Gallican churchmen of the\nseventeenth century, but intimately understand them as\ntheologians, he did not, if we may judge from his writings;\nmoreover, all the great churchmen of that century were not\nFrenchmen. As great, if not greater, were found among Italians,\nSpaniards, Poles, and Germans, though less known to the\nProtestant world. Has the reviewer forgotten, or has he never\nknown, the great men that in the sixteenth and seventeenth\ncenturies flourished in the great religious orders, the\nDominicans, Franciscans, the Augustinians, and especially the\nJesuits--men whose learning, genius, and ability were surpassed\nonly by their humility and sanctity?\n\nBut we spoke not of Cousin's little knowledge of churchmen, but\nof his little knowledge of Catholic theology. The reviewer here,\nprobably, is not a competent judge, not being himself a Catholic\ntheologian, and being comparatively a stranger to Catholic\ntheology; but we will accept even his judgment in the case.\nCousin denies that there is anything in his philosophy not in\nconsonance with Christianity and the church; he denies that his\nphilosophy impugns the dogma of the Word or the Trinity, and\nchallenges proof to the contrary. Yet what does the reviewer\nthink of Cousin's resolution of the Trinity, as cited some pages\nback, in his own language, into God, nature, and humanity? He\nsays God is triple. _\"Cest-\u00e0-dire, \u00e0 la fois Dieu, nature, et\nhumanit\u00e9.\"_ Is that in consonance with Catholic theology?\n\nThen, of the Word, after having proved in his way that the ideas\nof the true, the beautiful, and the good are necessary and\nabsolute ideas, and identified them with the impersonal reason,\nand the impersonal reason with the Logos, he asks what then? Are\nthey God? No, gentlemen, they are not God, he answers, but the\nWord of God, thus plainly denying the Word of God to be God. Does\nthat prove he knew intimately Catholic theology? What says the\nreviewer of Cousin's doctrine of inspiration and revelation? That\ndoctrine is, that inspiration and revelation are the spontaneous\noperations of the impersonal reason as distinguished from the\nreflective operations of the personal reason, which is pure\nrationalism. Is that Catholic theology, or does it indicate much\nknowledge of Catholic theology, to say it is in consonance with\nthat theology?\n\nIn his criticism on the Alexandrians or Neoplatonists, he blames\nthem for representing the multiple, the finite, what they call\ncreation, as a fall, and for not placing them on the same line\nwith unity, the infinite, or God considered in himself. Is that\nin accordance with Catholicity, or is it a proof of his knowledge\nof Catholic theology to assert that it is, and to challenge the\nworld to prove the contrary? But enough. No Catholic theologian,\nnot dazzled by Cousin's style, or carried away by his glowing\neloquence and brilliant generalizations, can read his\nphilosophical works without feeling that he was no Christian\nbeliever, and that he neither knew nor respected Catholic faith\nor theology. In his own mind he reduced Catholic faith to the\nprimitive beliefs of the race, inspired by the impersonal reason,\nand as he never contradicted these as he understood them, he\npersuaded himself that his philosophy did not impugn Christianity\nand the church.\n\n{112}\n\n9. The reviewer says:\n\n  \"One more extract, by way of capping the climax. Seemingly\n  ignorant of Cousin's criticism upon De Bonald's now exploded\n  theory of language, and his exposition of De Biran's, the\n  critic thinks, 'He would have done well to have studied more\n  carefully the remarkable work of De Bonald; had he done so, he\n  might have seen that the reflective reason cannot operate\n  without language.' Has this man not read what Cousin has\n  written, on the origin, purpose, uses, and effects of language,\n  that he represents him as believing that the reflective reason\n  can operate without language, without signs!\" (P. 547.)\n\nIf M. Cousin maintains that the reflective reason cannot operate\nwithout language, as in some sense he does, it is in a sense\ndifferent from that in which we implied he had need to learn that\nfact. We were objecting to the spiritualism--we should say\nintellectism, or noeticism--which he professed, that it assumed\nthat we can have pure intellections. Cousin's doctrine is that,\nthough we apprehend the intelligible only on the occasion of some\nsensible affection, yet we do apprehend it without a sensible\nmedium. This doctrine we denied, and maintained, in opposition,\nthat, being the union of soul and body, man has, and can have in\nthis life, no pure intellections, and that we apprehend the\nintelligible, as distinguished from the sensible, only through\nthe medium of the sensible or of a sensible representation, as\ntaught by Aristotle and St. Thomas. The sensists teach that we\ncan apprehend only the sensible, and that our science is limited\nto our sensations and inductions therefrom; the pure\ntranscendentalists, or pure spiritualists, assert that we can and\ndo apprehend immediately the noetic, or, as they say, the\nspiritual; the peripatetics hold that we apprehend it, but only\nthrough the medium of sensible representation; Cousin, in his\neclecticism, makes the sensation the occasion of the apprehension\nof the intelligible, but not its medium. On his theory the\nsensible is no more a medium of noetic apprehension than on that\nof the transcendentalists; for the occasion of doing a thing is\nvery different from the medium of doing it.\n\nNow, language is for us the sign or sensible representation of\nthe intelligible, and, as every thought includes the apprehension\nof the intelligible, therefore to every thought language, of some\nsort, is essential. The reviewer stumbles, and supposes that we\nare accusing Cousin of being ignorant of what he is not ignorant,\nbecause he supposes that we mean by reflective reason the\ndiscursive as distinguished from the intuitive faculty of the\nsoul, which, if he had comprehended at all our philosophy, he\nwould have seen is not the case. Intuition with us is ideal, not\nempirical. It is not our act, whether spontaneous or reflective,\nbut a divine judgment affirmed by the Creator to us, and\nconstituting us capable of intelligence, of reason, and\nreasoning. Reflective reason is our reason, and the reflex of the\ndivine judgment, or the divine reason, directly and immediately\naffirmed to us by the Creator in the very act of creating us. Not\nonly discursion, then, but what both Cousin and the reviewer call\nintuition, or immediate apprehension, is an operation of the\nreflective reason. Hence, to the operation of reason in the\nsimple, direct apprehension of the _intelligible_, as well\nas in discursion or reasoning, language of some sort, as a\nsensible medium, is necessary and indispensable. When the\nreviewer will prove to us that Cousin held, or in any sense\nadmitted this, he will tell us something of Cousin that we did\nnot know before, and we will then give him leave to abuse us to\nhis heart's content.\n\n{113}\n\nBut we have already dwelt too long on this attempt at criticism\non us in the _Church Review_--a _Review_ from which,\nconsidering the general character of Episcopalians, we expected,\nif not much profound philosophy or any very rigid logic, at least\nthe courtesy and fairness of the well-bred gentleman, such as we\nmight expect from a cultivated and polished pagan. We regret to\nsay that we have been disappointed. It sets out with a promise to\ndiscuss the character of Dr. Brownson as a philosopher, and\nconfines itself to a criticism on an article in our magazine\nwithout the slightest allusion to a single one of that\ngentleman's avowed writings. Even supposing, which the\n_Review_ has no authority for supposing, that Dr. Brownson\nwrote the article on Cousin, that article was entitled to be\ntreated gravely and respectfully; for no man in this country can\nspeak with more authority on Cousin's philosophy, for no one in\nthis country has had more intimate relations with the author, or\nwas accounted by him a more trust worthy expositor of his system.\n\nAs to the reviewer's own philosophical speculations, which he now\nand then obtrudes, we have, for the most part, passed them over\nin silence, for they have not seemed to us to have the stuff to\nbear refuting. The writer evidently has no occasion to pride\nhimself on his aptitude for philosophical studies, and is very\nfar from understanding either the merits or defects of such a man\nas Victor Cousin, in every respect so immeasurably above him. We\nregret that he should have undertaken the defence of the great\nFrench philosopher, for he had little qualification for the task.\nHe has provoked us to render more glaring the objectionable\nfeatures of Cousin's philosophy than we wished. If he sends us a\nrejoinder, we shall be obliged to render them still more glaring,\nand to sustain our statements by citation of passages from his\nworks, book and page marked, so express, so explicit, and so\nnumerous, as to render it impossible for the most sceptical to\ndoubt the justice of our criticism.\n\n-----------\n\n\n          The Tears Of Jesus.\n\n\n  \"And Martha said: Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had\n  not died. ... Jesus saith to her: Thy brother shall rise again.\n  ... And Mary saith to him: Lord, if thou hadst been here, my\n  brother had not died. ... And Jesus wept.\"\n\n\n         DISCIPLE.\n\n  \"Kind Lord,\n   Dost Martha's love prefer?\n   Cheer Mary's heavy heart likewise,\n     And say to her,\n   Thy brother once again shall rise.\n\n{114}\n\n  \"Why fall those voiceless tears\n     In sad reply\n   To her, as if thine ears\n     Heard not her cry?\n\n  \"What opens sorrow's deep abyss\n     At Mary's word?\n   When Martha spoke, no grief like this\n     Thy spirit stirred.\"\n\n\n          MASTER.\n\n  \"My child,\n   Remember what I said to her--\n     The elder of the twain,\n   When she, the busy minister,\n     Of Mary did complain.\n\n  \"Know, they who choose the better part\n     And love but me alone.\n   Ask only that my loving heart\n     Shall make their griefs mine own.\n\n  \"To Martha is the promise given\n     That Lazarus shall rise from sleep;\n   But Mary is the bride of heaven--\n     With her shall not the bridegroom weep?\"\n\n\n         DISCIPLE.\n\n  \"Kind Lord,\n   When breaks my heart in agony,\n   Dost ever shed a tear with _me_?\"\n\n\n         MASTER.\n\n  \"My Child,\n   Wilt all things else for me resign?\n   Wilt others' love for mine forego\n   Wilt find thy joy alone in me?\n   Then will I count thy griefs as mine.\n   And with thy tears my tears shall flow\n   In loving sympathy.\"\n\n---------\n\n{115}\n\n         Sister Simplicia.\n\n\n\"What a wet, disagreeable day it is! If papa hadn't bought the\ntickets last evening, I don't believe I should have come out\nto-day, even for the sake of hearing Ristori in Marie Antoinette.\nShe can't do better than she does in Mary Stuart, and I already\nwish ourselves back in your cosy little library again; besides, I\nhaven't half finished looking at those curious old illuminated\nbooks of your father's, and, as we go home to-morrow, I fear I\nshan't have time, for papa has an invitation for us all this\nevening.\"\n\nSo spoke Anita Hartridge as she and Mary Kenton took their places\nin the Broadway stage on their way to a matinee at the French\nTheatre. Anita's father was a Baltimore merchant. He was often in\nthe city buying goods, but this was the first time he had brought\nhis daughter with him. The two girls were warm friends. They had\nbeen educated together, and it was not yet a year since they had\nbidden adieu to the convent walls, the one to thread, motherless,\nthe gay mazes of Baltimore society; the other to come home as a\nhousehold angel to the father and mother, who were already\nbeginning to grow old. It has been a happy week, a week all too\nsoon coming to an end; and Mary Kenton sits thinking sadly, so\nwrapped in her reveries that she does not even raise her eyes\nwhen the stage stops to take in more passengers.\n\nShe is thinking of Anita, of her beauty and brilliancy, her\nquick, flashing, Southern gayety, and yet deep, true, sympathetic\nheart; and she wonders what will become of her friend, with no\nmother to restrain her impulsiveness and a father who thinks only\nof gratifying her lightest wish. How gladly she would share with\nher her own mother's tender care; and if she could but be taken\nfrom this whirl of amusement for a short time; but no; they\nreturn to-morrow. Well, here they are at Union Square, and Anita\nis speaking softly.\n\n\"Mary, did you ever see so beautiful a face? No, not opposite;\nover there in the corner next the door--that younger Sister of\nMercy. She looks like Elizabeth of Hungary. I have been watching\nher all this time, and she has never looked up once. She seems\ninspired. Do you believe any one _can_ be so happy as she\nlooks, I mean any one who leads so self-denying a life?\"\n\nBut there is no time to reply. They leave the omnibus and are\nsoon entranced under the magic power of the great tragedian.\n\n\"I wish I were Ristori,\" said Anita, as they left the theatre.\n\"To have her power and to be admired as she is admired; oh! that\nwere grand. That were a life worth living. What is it to live as\nwe do--to-day as yesterday, and to-morrow as to-day again--no\ngrand purpose; and when we die, have the world go on just the\nsame as before? Such lives are not worth living. I wish I could\nbe great as Madame de Sta\u00ebl, or beautiful as Madame Recamier.\"\n\n  \"'O world! so few the years we live,\n    Would that the life that thou dost give\n    Were life indeed!'\"\n\nrepeated Mary slowly; \"and yet, there are other lives that I had\nrather take for my model than any of these.\"\n\n{116}\n\n\"Yes, I know, Mary. You would take rather the life of some saint,\nSt. Elizabeth herself, perhaps; you are always so good and\ngentle; and Sister Agnes used to say that she knew you would come\nback to her some time as a sister yourself. But I am not at all\nso; I love the world, and society, and amusement, and am only\ndissatisfied because I am neither so brilliant nor beautiful as I\nshould like to be. I feel that your ideal is the better one, but\nI have not strength of character enough to live anything but a\ngay, butterfly life. You know my favorite song is, 'I'd be a\nbutterfly,' and indeed I do wish for beauty more than anything\nelse in the world. And yet, after all, that face that I saw under\nthe plain black bonnet was of a heavenly beauty that I cannot\nforget. Page's copy of the _Madonna della Seggiola_ that we\nadmired so much yesterday is scarcely more beautiful.\"\n\n\"And her life has been as beautiful as her face, they say. But\nthere is our stage. Let us hurry a little; mother will be waiting\ndinner for us already.\"\n\nA low rap at Mrs. Kenton's door. It is the hour after dinner, and\nDr. Kenton and Mr. Hartridge are in the library, alternately\ndiscussing business and their meerschaums. There are two hours\nyet before the ladies need dress for the evening. Mrs. Kenton is\nsitting in her large chair before the grate, and the girls come\nin quietly and draw up two low ottomans at her feet. The gas is\nnot yet lighted, and the twilight throws long, deep shadows from\nthe curtains and the quaint, old-fashioned high bedposts.\n\n\"Mother, we have seen Sister Simplicia to-day. Anita very much\nwishes to hear her history, and you have never told it to me yet.\nIt is just the night to tell a story, just such a night as we\nread of, 'without, the snow falling thick and fast, but within a\nbright fire throwing its cheerful light around the room and\nlighting up the countenance of the narrator,'\" said Mary,\nsmiling.\n\n\"I imagine the fire you are quoting about was of hickory logs in\na great, wide fireplace; and this is only a city grate,\" said her\nmother in the same tone; and then more seriously, \"but I will\ntell you the story, since you wish it, and all the more readily\nas I was thinking of her at the moment you entered.\n\n\"Eight years ago Rose Harding was the belle of our circle. I\nloved her as I would have loved a little sister of my own, had I\nbeen blessed with one. She was the younger sister of my dearest\nfriend; and when Rachel died, she left Rose half in my care, for\ntheir mother was dead and the father only too indulgent. But Rose\nwas not easily spoiled, and looking back now at this distance, I\nthink that I have never known another that was her equal. Mr.\nHarding was wealthy, and she had all that heart could wish. Of\ncourse she was much sought after and much loved; but few were\nmade unhappy through her, for she was far too generous and too\nconscientious to be a coquette; and when one evening she came to\nme, blushing and trembling, and told me that Willis Courtney\nloved her--\"\n\n\"Willis Courtney, the son of papa's old partner?\" asked Anita.\n\n\"You have seen him?\"\n\n\"Yes; he was my ideal when I was still a very little girl. But\nthen I was sent away to be educated, and never saw him\nafterward.\"\n\n\"He was worthy of Rose, though very different. How proud he was\nof her! I loved to watch them together. He was so gentle and\nthoughtful of every little attention, and she trusted and honored\nhim so fully. It seemed there never could be a brighter future in\nstore for any than for these two, and surely there never could be\nany more deserving of the choicest blessings of earth.\n{117}\nMr. Harding was happy in his child's happiness, and Willis only\nwaited a visit from his father to give him the glad surprise. Mr.\nCourtney was at that time the senior partner in your father's\nfirm, Anita! Willis was in the second year of his law studies,\nand in less than a year he could look forward to establishing a\nhome; for his father was growing old, and had told him often that\nhe only wished to see him happily settled in life before he died.\nAnd so the weeks passed in happiness, and tomorrow Mr. Courtney\nshould come. I shall never forget how anxiously Rose awaited this\ncoming--expectant, hopeful, timid. 'Willis says his father is a\nstern man. I shall be so afraid of him. Perhaps he will not\napprove of me'--with a half-frightened laugh; 'I do so want him\nto like me. Willis honors him so, and yet says he always stood in\nawe of him. _Do_ you think he will like me? I wish to-morrow\nwere past, I dread it so; and yet Willis says he is sure to love\nme, and that he will be so glad to have a daughter.'\n\n\"And Willis was at the depot, impatient to see his father again,\nand still more impatient to have the crowning seal of approval\nset upon his choice.\n\n\"At length the shrill whistle of the distant train, a few anxious\nglances through the darkness, and the bright red light of the\nengine glides past slowly. Why is it that this red glare, shining\nas it passes, seems to throw a sort of supernatural glare over\nthe platform and the waiting figures? A strange, weird feeling\ncomes over him. Is it himself standing there, or is he, too, only\nsome phantom of his own imagination? In a moment he lives over\nhis whole past life in one comprehensive flash, as people who are\ndrowning are said to do. But the train has stopped, and there is\nhis father's bald head among the crowd of rushing passengers.\nWillis passes his hand quickly over his forehead, as if to brush\naway the illusion, and advances to meet him.\n\n\"It is a glad meeting. Mr. Courtney looks at his son, and, as he\nlooks, the benignant smile on his face broadens and deepens. It\nis something to have delved in the counting-house all these\nyears, and bent his shoulders over the dull ledgers, that these\nshoulders may have no need to bend, and that this intellect shall\nhave the means of making the best of itself; and, as he walks\nbeside him to the waiting carriage, he says in his heart, 'There\nis none equal to _my_ son.'\n\n\"And now they sit in their parlor at the '---- House,' and the\nbottle of old port is almost emptied, for Mr. Courtney is fond of\ngood wine. The waiter has arranged the fire, and brought in a\nfresh bottle, and father and son are alone.\n\n\"'And now, Willis, who is she, this divinest of her sex; and when\nam I to see her?'\n\n\"'To-morrow, or this evening if you prefer. Mr. Harding is almost\nan invalid, and so spends his evenings at home, and Rose seldom\nleaves him.'\n\n\"'_Harding!_ What Harding is this? You always spoke of her\nas \"Rose,\" and I never thought to ask her family name,' said Mr.\nCourtney, in ill-suppressed anxiety.\n\n\"'Thomas Harding, formerly of New-Orleans. Why, father, what is\nit; are you ill? What can I do for you?' said Willis, rising from\nhis chair quickly, as Mr. Courtney arose and staggered toward the\nmantle piece. He stood there, resting his folded arms on it, with\nhis head so buried in them that the son could see nothing of his\nface.\n{118}\nJohn Courtney was not a man to be approached easily. Whatever the\njoys or sorrows of his life might have been, his son was as\nignorant of them as the stranger who met him just an hour ago. So\nWillis stood now at a little distance, not feeling sufficient\nfreedom to approach, and anxiously awaiting some word or movement\nthat should give him permission to speak. But none such came,\nand, after a few moments, Mr. Courtney raised his head, saying,\n'A glass of wine, Willis. I felt a little faint a moment ago.\nTravelling is tiresome work for an old man.' And Willis filled\nthe glass silently; for there was a look in the white face that\nchilled, while it awed him--a look of determination, and yet of\nindecision at the same time.\n\n\"It seemed as if a cold, misty atmosphere had suddenly entered\nthe room; and the two men spent the remainder of the evening in a\nvain effort to sustain a conversation upon all manner of general\nsubjects, which the son seemed always to succeed in shaping till\nit just approached the subject in which alone he was then\ninterested, and the father always to turn it off just in time to\nprevent its touching. At length Willis arose, saying:\n\n\"'But your journey has tired you very much, father. I will go\nnow, that you may have a long night's rest.'\n\n\"'Yes, yes. I am no longer so young as I was once.'\n\n\"But after his son had gone, he forgot his weariness, and spent\nthe night in walking up and down the length of the parlor, and\ndrinking wine, as the waiter said in the morning, 'like a\nhigh-bred gentleman;' and when the morning came, the look of\nindecision had passed away, and the determination alone remained.\n\n\"And Willis passed the long hours of darkness in a nightmare of\nundefined dread, half asleep, but yet entirely conscious of all\naround; a state that confused imagination and reality, till the\nmost frightful dreams became impressed with all the power of real\nevents--so real that only the morning, with the unchanged,\nfamiliar face of the servant could make him feel certain that\nthey were all waking dreams, and that he had not lived a horrible\nyear. But the cold water, and the cheerful breakfast-table, and\nall the invigorating morning influences served to restore him;\nand he laughed at the absurd fancies, and went around to his\nfather's hotel, wondering that he should have felt so discouraged\nand uncomfortable in his presence last evening, and mentally\nresolving to let no such chill come over their intercourse this\nmorning.\n\n\"As he stepped into the hall, he noticed the well-known baggage,\nwith the initials, 'J. C.,' and said to the waiter:\n\n\"'What carelessness is this? You have never carried up my\nfather's baggage.'\n\n\"'As soon as you had gone last evening,' said the waiter, 'I went\nup to his door, sir, and asked if I should send it up then; but\nhe said, \"No,\" as he should leave early in the morning, sir.'\n\n\"Willis hurried up and found the old man at breakfast, or rather\nsitting there beside it, for he had evidently eaten nothing,\nalthough he said he had finished.\n\n\"'Why, father! your baggage--'\n\n\"'Yes, yes, a telegram. Must return immediately; and now sit down\na moment. There is half an hour yet before going to the train.\nWhen do you finish your studies?'\n\n\"'In two months.'\n\n{119}\n\n\"'So I thought--so I thought. There is no hurry about your\nbeginning to practise, and I need your assistance in my business\njust at present. There are some speculations in the West that\nmust be attended to. There is money in them, but I can't trust\nStephens to go alone, and I want to send you with him. I shall\nmake all arrangements for you to start at the end of two months.'\n\n\"'But, father--Rose?'\n\n\"'Time enough. There's nothing will test your affections like a\nlittle absence. Besides, you aren't either of you old enough to\nknow what you want yet. If in two years you both feel as you do\nnow, why, then we'll see about matters; and you know your means\ndon't depend on your practice; besides, you'll get along better\nin that for seeing something of the world before you commence.\nI'm getting to be an old man, Willis, and need my son's help a\nlittle now. Surely he won't make any objections to doing what I\ndesire?'\n\n\"Filial respect and affection was a strong trait in Willis\nCourtney's character. Disobedience to the father whom he had\nalways feared, and to whom he was really so much indebted, was a\nthing of which he had never thought before, and thought of now\nonly to put away the idea as one unworthy of him; and Rose, who\nloved her own father devotedly, respected him the more for his\nduty to his; and so it came about that when the two months had\npassed, he went to California with Stephens, the head clerk of\nthe firm, and Rose had only the long, tender letters; and Mr.\nHarding, who had never been dissatisfied while Willis was here,\ngrew suddenly restless, and longed to travel.\n\n\"'As long as Rose was so happy, I was contented here,' he said,\n'but now she is often sad, and I think a little change will be\ngood for both of us. I have travelled too much in my life to be\nsatisfied to settle down in one spot and remain there. I must see\nItaly once again before I die.'\n\n\"And so their passage was taken, and one morning we stood on the\ndeck of an English steamer to bid them 'God speed;' and after we\nhad come on shore again, stood long watching the ship till it was\nfar down the bay.\n\n\"At first Rose wrote long, cheerful, descriptive letters. A\nsummer at a German watering-place had almost entirely restored\nMr. Harding's health, and in the early autumn they began their\ntour, intending to visit Vienna, and, passing directly from there\nto Venice, make a short stay in two or three cities of Northern\nItaly, and then go on to Rome to spend the winter.\n\n\"Letters came seldom now--it was at the beginning of our civil\nwar--and when they came, there was no longer any mention of\nWillis, nor of glad anticipations of return; and later, in a\nletter dated at Brescia, she wrote: 'I am in the city of Angela\nda Brescia. How was it possible for her to be what she was? I\ncannot understand it. To rise up out of the shadow of a great\ngrief, and to go forth cheerfully into the world and work to do\ngood and make others happy. It needs more than human will. God\nalone can give the strength to do this, and yet if he does it\nsometimes, as he did for her, why not always?'\n\n\"And still there was no mention of any personal grief; but the\nwhole tone of her letter was sad, and I felt that something more\nthan a mere transient annoyance had occurred to thus destroy her\naccustomed cheerfulness.\n\n{120}\n\n\"At first, the genial climate and the revival of old\nassociations--for he had spent several winters there in his\nyouth--had seemed to give Mr. Harding a new life, and almost a\nsecond youth, while they visited the familiar places, and he\npointed out to his daughter the glorious relics of past\narchitecture and the grand works of the old masters; but it was\nonly for a time, and when we heard again, his strength was\nfailing rapidly. At Rome they had met an old friend who was\nstaying there with his wife, so they joined company, and planned\ntheir return together for the ensuing summer.\n\n\"And all this time we had only heard of Willis Courtney that he\nhad, without returning home, joined the Union army as a private,\nand that his father, whose sympathies were entirely Southern, was\nvery much displeased; and, in addition, that he had sold out his\ninterest in the business, some said in order to retire and enjoy\nhis wealth, others, to avoid a financial crisis which he imagined\nto be impending.\n\n\"In May came another letter from Rose. The time of their return\nwas uncertain; her father was feeble, and wished neither to leave\nthe mild climate, nor to risk the danger of a voyage, till he\nshould be stronger. And in reply to some question of mine--'I\nhave heard no word from Willis Courtney this winter, and even\nlast autumn his letters had changed and were no longer like him.\nBut I cannot write of this. I do not understand it all. ... I\nhave spent almost the entire day in St. Peter's. I do this often.\nIt is God's grandest monument on earth, and I never feel so near\nhim as here. I never truly felt the love of holiness before; but\nhere, under the influence of the inimitable grandeur of his\nchurch, and in the presence of his earthly representative, I can\nalmost shut out the vanities of the world, and bow before God\nalone, worshipping him in supreme love and reverence. I love the\nbeautiful rites of the church. Ah! how gladly I would lie down\nbeneath the shadow of her walls, and sleep the last sleep--or if\nthat may not be, take the vows which should make me the bride of\nheaven alone, and shut out for ever the coldness and deceptions\nof the world. But my poor father needs me so much, and is so\nentirely dependent upon me, that I cannot leave him while he\nlives. He is fearfully changed, and has grown so much older\nwithin the last two months that you would scarcely recognize him\nnow. I hope he may soon be better, and am sure he must be, for he\nis always so cheerful.'\n\n\"But this was not to be, and after lingering a few weeks longer,\nhe died amid the scenes he had loved so well, having first\nexacted a promise from Rose that she would return to New York\nwith Mr. and Mrs. Rowland.\n\n\"They had a pleasant voyage, good weather and a smooth sea, and\nthe vessel glided along, making every day her full number of\nknots, and making glad the hearts of the passengers, who were\nreturning to home and friends.\n\n\"Mr. and Mrs. Rowland spent much of the time on deck, and Rose\nsat near them, always with a book lying open on her lap; to the\ncareless observer she appeared to be reading, but those who,\nafter a few days, began to notice the sad face, noticed, too,\nthat the leaves of the book were never turned and that her glance\nrested always on the sea. These were days of rest. The slow\nrolling of the waves lent her an artificial calmness. The events\nof the last few months had stunned her, and this was the\ntransition state before reaction. A sort of veil seemed to have\nbeen cast between her vision and the past, and the future seemed\na blank, a desert that she had no wish to explore, and before\nwhich she shut her eyes.\n{121}\nShe seemed to be falling into that dreamy melancholy which so\noften precedes insanity, and Mrs. Rowland watched her anxiously,\nand Mr. Rowland made every exertion to distract her attention,\nmaking every little excuse to get her to walk on deck, and to\nnotice some peculiar cloud or singular fish. And so the days\npassed till they were within two days of New York; then the pilot\ncame on board, and they began to realize, for the first time,\nthat they were almost home. He brought the last papers, three\ndays old now, and the hitherto quiet passengers were all\nexcitement, gathered here and there in little groups eagerly\ndiscussing the news he had brought, for those were times full of\ninterest, and this news was the defeat at Bull Run.\n\n\"Mr. Rowland had put a paper into Rose's hands, and as she read,\nshe became first interested; then the quick blood mounted to her\nface, and Mr. Rowland remarked:\n\n\"'You have not yet forgotten that you are an American, Miss\nHarding.'\n\n\"She replied quickly and continued reading. Presently the paper\ndropped from her hands; her face became deadly pale, and she\nleaned heavily against the rail for support. Mr. Rowland took up\nthe paper and searched the page she had been reading; but in\nvain; he saw nothing that should have startled her, and so turned\naway, thinking he had been mistaken, thus leaving her alone to\naccustom herself to the reality of what she had read.\n\n\"What she had read? It was only a name, and that the name of a\ncommon soldier.\n\n\"In looking over the list of the names of those found dead on the\nbattle-field of Bull Run, she had found that of Willis Courtney.\n\n\"The next day they reached Sandy Hook. But it was already\nevening, and they were obliged to anchor over night, and defer\nrunning up to the city till the next morning. There were many\nimpatient at this detention, but none more so than Rose Harding.\nWhat has come over her? her kind friends asked each other in\nvain; but she was no longer indifferent, and her face expressed a\ncheerful determination. It was a conviction of duty, and a\nresolution to fulfil it. All the night after the news, she had\nlain awake and pictured to herself the horrors of lying wounded\non the battle-field, and of dying alone in the cold and darkness.\nShe had loved Willis Courtney with the full depths of a first\nmatured affection, and she loved him now, despite the\nindifference and coldness with which he had rewarded that love.\nAnd now he was dead, and whatever had come between them on earth\nhad passed away; and, strange as it seemed to her, she felt that\nhe had come back to her, and that they were nearer together than\nthey had ever been. But he was dead, and he had died in a noble\ncause, and she felt ashamed of her own selfish grief, that had\nshut out the world and its cares and sorrows. The old words came\nringing in her ears:\n\n  'The noblest place for man to die,\n  Is where he dies for man.'\n\n\"Had he not died nobly? And then she contrasted her own life with\nhis. What had _she_ done to make any of God's creatures\nbetter or happier! 'Nothing! nothing!' Then came bitter regrets,\nand accusations against her destiny. Why had she not been\npermitted to be near him in the last struggle? Had not her own\npride been perhaps somewhat to blame? He had suffered alone.\n\n\"Then suddenly he seemed to stand beside her, and pointing\nupward, to repeat to her those words of Christ: 'Inasmuch as ye\nhave done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have\ndone it unto me.'\n\n{122}\n\n\"It was a revelation. What God had done for Angela da Brescia, he\nhad done for her. Darkness had passed away, and in its place was\nlight, and the warmth of renewed life. 'Unto the least of these.'\nWillis was gone. On earth she could do nothing more for him; but\nthere were others, others who were laying down their lives as\nnobly and in the same cause; for these she could work; and\nwhatever she could do 'unto the least,' she should be doing for\n_him_ and for _Christ_.\n\n\"It was no mere momentary enthusiasm. She came home to join the\ndevoted band of the Sisters of Mercy, and among these she was one\nof the bravest and truest. No duties were too arduous and no\ndangers too great, for this child of luxury to encounter.\nHerself, and the great wealth which she had inherited from her\nfather, she consecrated to the service of God. Like the noble\nPaula of old, who went forth from pagan Rome to assemble around\nher a community of sisters in Palestine, 'she was piteous to them\nthat were sick, and comforted them, and served them right\nhumbly,' and 'laid the pillows aright' with a tender hand; and\nmany a poor soldier thanked her for his life, and many more\nblessed with dying lips the name of her who had robbed the grim\nmessenger of his terrors, and shown the light of God's love\ngilding the horizon of the valley of the shadow of death.\n\n\"And when the war was ended, she came back to New York, to\ncontinue, in another field, her labors of love. Here she visited\nhospitals and prisons, carrying the promises of the Father's\nforgiveness to the repentant, and words of comfort and\nconsolation to those who were sick and weary of life.\n\n\"One morning, about a year ago, as she was visiting prisoners in\ncompany with an older sister, she noticed in the Tombs a new\nprisoner, who attracted her attention by his dignified bearing,\nand evident reluctance to speak to any of his companions; and as\nhe turned, and she caught a view of his profile, she was startled\nwith a feeling that it was familiar to her; and yet she had\nsurely never seen the man. But he seemed glad to talk of\nreligion; and when she left, she gave him a pocket Bible to read\nuntil she should next visit the prison. But all that day the face\nseemed to haunt her. It came between her and her prayers; it\nvisited her dreams in the night, and hung over her like an\nincubus that would not away at her entreaties; and she found\nherself looking forward to her next visit with a mixed feeling of\nanxiety and curiosity. When at last she went again, the old man\nrecognized her, and asked suddenly, in a trembling voice:\n\n\"'Are you Rose Harding?'\n\n\"'I am Sister Simplicia. I _was_ Rose Harding,' she replied,\nshocked at the suddenness and eagerness of the question.\n\n\"He looked at her wonderingly, and then said:\n\n\"'Are you happy? But what use to ask. Your face and voice show\nit. See here,' he added, and handed her back the open Bible. It\nwas one that Willis had given her years ago, and on the fly-leaf\nto which the man now opened was written--\n\n  'Rose Harding.\n    From Willis Courtney.'\n\n{123}\n\n\"This was the one relic she had kept of her past life. She had\nfastened those leaves together with thin white wafers, so that\nthe names should be invisible, and had felt still that _his_\nbook must be especially blessed, and so had given it often to\nprisoners to read. She had intended to destroy everything that\nshould remind her of Rose Harding; but these names, written in\nhis hand, she could not destroy, but had thought to hide them\neven from herself.\n\n\"And this man had torn them open. It was as if he had committed a\nsacrilege; as if he had opened the grave of the dead; for were\nthese not buried long ago?\n\n\"But he was speaking hurriedly:\n\n\"'I am John Courtney. I have something to tell you; something\nthat has hunted me down for years, and driven me here at last.'\nAnd she listened.\n\n\"He had been her father's confidential clerk years ago in New\nOrleans. In an evil moment, he had allowed himself to take a\nsmall sum from the drawer; for his salary, large though it was,\nwas not sufficient to meet the expenses of a young man who loved\ngay company, drank much and gambled more. It was not discovered,\nand so he had helped himself again, and Mr. Harding, who was\nscarcely older than himself, and had absolute confidence in him,\nhad still made no discovery; but when it became time to balance\nthe yearly accounts, he knew it could be concealed no longer, and\nso one night he took enough more to pay travelling expenses, and\nto help him in starting into some business for himself, and left\non a night-boat for the North. He remained secreted in St. Louis\ntill he had discovered through the papers that Mr. Harding had no\nintention of prosecuting him; then, after having adopted the\nprecaution of changing his appearance as much as possible, and\nhis name from James Rellerton to John Courtney, had come to\nBaltimore and gone into business, in which he had prospered, and\nhad married into one of the first families in the place. His wife\nhad died while Willis was yet a child, and he had centered his\npride and affection upon this only boy. For his sake he had\nworked untiringly, and had showered his wealth upon him, that he\nmight never know the temptation that had overcome his father. But\nfrom making any acknowledgment to Mr. Harding his pride shrunk.\nHe had, indeed, sent back the money he had taken, but to see Mr.\nHarding he had felt to be impossible. James Rellerton was dead,\nand John Courtney must stand without reproach before the world,\nand no man living must know that there was any connection between\nthe two.\n\n\"But when Willis had spoken the name of Thomas Harding as that of\nthe father of his affianced bride, it seemed that retribution,\nfrom being so long delayed, had come upon him with double\nharshness, as the interest of a debt that has run long is\nsometimes greater than the principal itself. Should he destroy\nthe happiness of the son for whom he would have given his life,\nor run the risk of being recognized by Mr. Harding?\n\n\"He could do neither; and besides, would Mr. Harding allow his\ndaughter to marry the son of James Rellerton?\n\n\"Then he had resolved to separate them, and let time and events\ndecide the future means to be employed. It had been a double\ngame. If Willis had been instructed to watch Stephens, Stephens\nhad been no less definitely instructed to watch Willis; and when,\nafter six months, he had reported that the correspondence between\nhim and Rose was undiminished, he had received instructions that\nhe must 'see to it that it should cease gradually;' and so the\nletters had been intercepted, a few times changed, and then no\nlonger sent in any form. The father had said:\n\n{124}\n\n\"'My son will blame her, and his pride will prevent his\nsuffering.'\n\n\"But when did pride prevent suffering? It may prevent the showing\nof any sign, and it did here; but Willis had been one of the\nfirst volunteers, and then he had fallen; and the old man had\nbeen left desolate with a double crime upon his conscience. He\nhad no object in attending to business and making money now, so\nhad sold his interest, and tried to find in travel that\nalleviation from thought which could alone make life endurable.\nBut he could not leave himself--the one thing he desired to\nleave--and an attraction beyond his control had brought him back\nto New Orleans. Here the necessity for excitement had again led\nhim into the old temptation of gambling. But he was not always\nsuccessful; and when the Mississippi was again open, he had\ntravelled on the boats, at first with better success, but at last\nhad become too well known, and in looking for a new field, had\nfallen in with a band of counterfeiters, and so had come to New\nYork in their employ.\n\n\"And this was the end of it all.\n\n\"At first Rose had listened with an intense loathing for the man.\nHad he not wronged her father, and blighted her own youth, and\neven chased his own son to his death; and was he not a\ncounterfeiter and a gambler; an outcast before God and man?\n\n\"Then, as she turned her glance, it fell upon her cross, and it\nbrought back the scene on Calvary and the face of Him who had\nprayed 'Father, forgive them.' Then she looked again at the old\nman, and, trembling with emotion, he cast himself on the floor at\nher feet, crying:\n\n\"'Merciful sister, pray for me!'\n\n\"And the peace of God came back to her, as she clasped her hands,\nand raising to heaven her eyes filled with the tears of a gentle\npity, prayed aloud:\n\n\"'O Jesus! be merciful; and deal with me even as I deal with this\nrepentant man.'\n\n\"The Bible of his son first, and the labors of the appointed\nministers of God afterward, brought him again under the\nbenediction of the church. But she it was who stood beside him in\nthe last struggle, and closed the eyes with more tenderness than\na daughter; for hers was that holy love, born of heaven and\nearth, which dwells only in the consecrated heart.\"\n\n  ......\n\nMrs. Kenton had finished. The long shadows had grown longer and\nmingled together, till it had become only darkness; and then the\nmoon had arisen and was shining with a pale light through the\nmasses of heavy clouds. They arose silently and went each to her\nown room. But for Anita Hartridge this night was the\nturning-point in life. The \"butterfly\" was such no longer, and in\nits place grew up the noble woman.\n\nDid Sister Simplicia, as she knelt at her prayers that night,\nknow the work she had done for her Master that day?\n\n---------\n\n{125}\n\n\n    The Merit Of Good Works\n\n\nIn a recent article we endeavored to explain the catholic\ndoctrine, that good works as well as faith are an essential\ncondition of justification. This implies, of course, that good\nworks are meritorious, and that eternal life is due to them as a\nrecompense. We wish to elucidate this point a little more fully,\nand to show what is the nature of that merit which is ascribed to\ngood works proceeding from the principle of faith informed by\ncharity.\n\nIn the widest sense of the word, merit signifies any kind of\nexcellence or worthiness. In this sense, a picture is said to\nhave merit; and purely physical or intellectual perfections,\nwhich are merely natural gifts, are said to merit admiration and\npraise. In the strict sense of the word, merit signifies the\nquality by which certain free, voluntary acts entitle the person\nwho performs them to an adequate recompense. It is in this sense\nthat merit is ascribed to the good works of a just man. These\nworks are said by Catholic theologians to deserve eternal life by\na merit of condignity and a title of justice.\n\nWhat is meant by merit of condignity? It means that there is an\nequality of dignity or intrinsic worth and value between the work\nperformed and the recompense bestowed. This is easily understood\nin regard to merely human affairs. It is not easy to understand,\nhowever, how a creature can deserve the reward of eternal life\nfrom the Creator. Good works, however excellent they may be in\nthe finite order, and as measured by a human standard, appear to\nbe totally incommensurate with the infinite, and therefore\nwanting in all condignity with an infinite recompense. So far as\nthe mere physical entity of the works is concerned, this is\nreally so. The gift of a cup of cold water to a person suffering\nfrom thirst, the recital of a few prayers, a trivial act of\nself-denial, evidently bear no proportion to eternal beatitude.\nNeither does a life like that of St. Paul, filled with labors, or\na long course of penance and prayer like that of St. Romuald, or\na martyrdom like that of St. Polycarp. The mere extent or\nduration of the labor or suffering, considered as something\nendured for the sake of God, is nothing in comparison with the\ncrown of immortal life. The condignity of good works is not\nderived from an equality or proportion between their physical\nextent and duration and the physical extent and duration of the\nrecompense. It is derived from an equality in kind between the\ninterior principle from which good works proceed, and the\ninterior principle of beatitude. The interior principle of good\nworks is charity; not a merely natural charity, but a\nsupernatural, a divine charity, produced by the Holy Spirit. Good\nworks proceed from a supernatural principle, and are performed by\na concurrence of the human will with the divine Spirit. They\nhave, therefore, a superhuman, divine quality, and are elevated\nto the supernatural order, the same order to which eternal\nbeatitude belongs. They are, therefore, equal to it in dignity in\nthis sense, that they are equally supernatural.\n{126}\nThe principle of divine charity in the soul is, moreover, the\ngerm of the eternal life itself, which is promised as the reward\nof the acts which proceed from charity. The life of grace is the\nlife of glory begun, and the life of glory is the life of grace\nconsummated. The germ is equal in grade and quality with the tree\nwhich it produces, though not equal in extent and perfection. In\nthe same manner, a little act, like that of giving a cup of water\nto another for the love of God, although trivial in itself,\ncontains a principle which is capable of uniting the soul to God\nfor all eternity. It is the principle of divine love, making the\nsoul like to God, imitating on a small scale those acts of the\nlove of God toward men which are the most stupendous, and\ntherefore, making the soul worthy to be loved by God with a love\nof complacency similar in kind to that love which he has toward\nhimself.\n\nAgain, the value and merit of services rendered by one person to\nanother are estimated, not alone by the substance of the services\nrendered, but by the quality of the person who renders them. An\narticle of small utility or cost is sometimes more valued as a\ntoken of affection from a dear friend, or as a sign of esteem and\nhonor from a person of high rank, than a large sum of money would\nbe which had been accumulated by the industry of a servant. The\ngood works of a just man fall under this category. They are\nestimated according to the quality and rank of the person who\nperforms them. The just man is the friend of God, and the\nservices he renders to God are valued accordingly, not as so much\nwork done, but as tokens of love and fidelity. As a friend of\nGod, the just man is a person of high rank in the scale of being.\nHe is a \"partaker of the divine nature,\" as St. Peter distinctly\naffirms. His human nature is exalted and sublimated to a certain\nsimilitude with the nature of God; and the acts which proceed\nfrom it have a corresponding dignity and elevation, proportioned\nto their end, which is eternal life, or the consummation of the\nunion between human nature and the divine nature in eternal\nbeatitude. The just man is the adopted son of God the Father,\nthrough his union with God the Son incarnate. This adoption into\na participation with Jesus Christ in his sonship reflects the\ndignity and excellence of the person of Christ upon his person\nand upon all his works. As a member of Christ and a son of God,\nhis person and his works are superior to the whole natural order,\nand, therefore, there is nothing which has the relation of\ncondignity toward them except the supernatural order itself.\n\nIt is evident, therefore, that regenerate nature has condignity\nwith the state of glory, and that the good works which proceed\nfrom it have condignity with degrees of splendor in this state of\nglory. Regenerate nature bears the image of God, aspires after\nunion with God, is fitted to find its beatitude in the vision of\nGod, is made apt and worthy to be admitted into the kingdom of\nheaven. It demands, therefore, as its last complement, the\n_lumen gloriae_ which enables it to see God face to face.\nThe personal love of the soul to God as its friend and Father,\nand the personal love of God to the soul as his friend and son,\nrequire that they should have mutual vision of each other and\nlive together. This living with God is eternal life, which is,\ntherefore, the only fitting recompense for the love of God\nexercised by the just man upon earth.\n\n{127}\n\nTheologians do not, however, regard the title in strict justice\nto a supernatural reward, or the ratio of condign merit, as\nconsisting solely in the condignity of the meritorious works\nthemselves. They place it partially in the promise of God, or the\ndecree of his providence which he has promulgated, in which\nspecial rewards are assigned as the recompense of good works\nperformed in the state of grace. Therefore, they say, the reward\nof eternal life is due in strict justice, not by an obligation\narising _per se_ from the act of the creature, but by an\nobligation of the Creator to himself to fulfil his own word. They\nsay that God may require, by virtue of his sovereign dominion,\nany amount of service from the creature as his simple due,\nwithout giving him any reward for it; that he may even annihilate\nhim if he pleases, and, moreover, that the holy acts of the\nblessed in heaven, although they have a perfect condignity with\nsupernatural rewards, do not receive any. Therefore, they say, a\ncreature cannot merit a reward from God according to rigorous\njustice, but only according to a rule of justice derived from the\nfree determination and promise of God. Scotus and some others\neven hold that the condignity of meritorious works with the\npromised reward is altogether extrinsic, and denotes merely that\nthey are conformed to the standard or rule which is laid down by\nthe divine law. It is, therefore, only required in strictness by\nthe definition of the church, that one should confess that the\ngood works of the just man entitle him to a supernatural reward\nby virtue of a promise which God has given. Those who are so\nextremely frightened at the sound of the phrase, \"merit of\ncondignity,\" as applied to men, can adopt the opinion of Scotus\nif they please. For our own part, we prefer the other and more\ncommon doctrine of condignity which we have already explained. We\ndo not apprehend any danger to the glory of the Almighty from the\nexaltation of his own works, or any diminution of the merits of\nChrist from the glorification of his saints. On the contrary, the\npower and glory of God are magnified the more, the more like to\nhimself the creature is shown to be which he has created. \"God is\nadmirable in his saints;\" and, the more excellent their works\nare, the greater is the praise and homage which accrues to him\nfrom these works which are offered up to him as acts of worship.\nThe only error to be feared is the attributing of something to\nthe creature which he derives from himself, as having\nself-existent, independent being. To attribute to angel or man as\nmuch good as is in a withered leaf, is equivalent to a total\ndenial of God, if this good is not referred to God as first\ncause. But to attribute to created nature all possible good, even\nto the degree of hypostatic union with the divine nature, does\nnot detract in the slightest degree from the truth that God alone\nis good in himself, if the good of the creature is referred to\nhim as its source and author. No doubt all right to existence, to\nimmortality, to felicity of any kind, is derived from God, and is\noriginally a free gift to the creature from him. But the right is\na real right, of which the creature has just possession when God\nhas given it to him, one which may be an inalienable right in\ncertain circumstances, that is, a right which God cannot, in\nconsistency with his own attributes, withdraw. When God creates a\nrational nature, in which he has implanted the desire and\nexpectation of immortal existence and felicity, he implicitly\npromises immortality and felicity. We do not like to hear it said\nthat he can annihilate such a creature or withhold from it the\nfelicity after which it naturally aspires, unless it be as a just\npunishment for sin.\n{128}\nSo, when God creates man anew in the supernatural order, by\ngiving him the grace of regeneration, he gives him an implicit\npromise of eternal beatitude. It is very true that he can exact\nfrom him any amount of service he pleases, as a debt that is due\nto his sovereign majesty; yet he cannot justly withhold from him\nfinal beatitude, unless he forfeits it by his own fault. The\nspecial reward annexed to every good work is undoubtedly due only\nby virtue of the explicit promise which God has made, to reward\nevery such good work by an increase of grace and glory. It is\nalso true that God does confer some degrees of glory on the just\nout of pure liberality and beyond the degree of merit. Moreover,\nthe period of merit is limited by the decree of God to this life,\nbecause it is fitting that the creature should increase and\nprogress, during his probation, toward the full measure of his\nperfection, and should afterward remain in that perfection when\nhe has arrived at his term. We think, therefore, that we have\nmade it plain enough that good works have a merit of condignity\nin relation to eternal life, and nevertheless derive this merit\nfrom the promise and appointment of God, subject to such\nconditions as he has seen fit, in his sovereign wisdom and\nliberality, to establish.\n\nThe doctrine we have laid down detracts in no way from the merits\nof Christ. Christ alone has the principle of merit in his own\nperson as an original source. He alone has merited of condignity\ngrace to be bestowed on others. His merits alone are the cause of\nthe remission of sins, and the bestowal of regenerating,\nsanctifying, saving grace. His merits merits of the saints as the\nhead is superior to the inferior members of the body. His\nincarnation, life, and death are, in a word, the radical\nmeritorious cause of human salvation from the beginning to the\nend; and, in their own proper sphere or order of causation, are\nentirely alone. Christ is the only mediator of redemption and\nsalvation between God and man, in whom the Father is reconciling\nthe world to himself. His acts alone are referable to no\nprinciple higher or more ultimate than his own personality. All\nmerely human grace, sanctity, or merit is, therefore, to be\nreferred to him as its chief author, and to merely human subjects\nonly as recipients or secondary and concurrent causes. It is easy\nto understand, therefore, what is meant by presenting the merits\nof the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints before God as a motive\nfor bestowing grace. The saints have not merited anything over\nand above that which Christ has merited, nor have they merited,\nby a merit of condignity, even the application of the merits of\nChrist to others. Through their personal merits, they have\nobtained a kind of right of friendship to ask in a specially\nefficacious manner for graces and favors to be conferred on those\nfor whom they intercede. Their mediation and merits are,\ntherefore, only efficacious by way of impetration and prayer, and\nnot by virtue of a right which they have obtained by a title of\njustice. This is what is meant by merit of congruity, which\ndenotes a certain fitness in a person to obtain from God the\nfavors for which he asks. This merit of congruity is all that is\nascribed to the Blessed Virgin or the saints, as a groundwork of\ntheir intervening power, by any Catholic theologian. It is the\nsame in kind with that which the just on earth possess, by virtue\nof which they obtain, through their prayers, blessings and graces\nfor other persons. It is easy to see, therefore, how completely\nthe Catholic doctrine is misunderstood by those who imagine that\nit either places man in the room of Christ, as his own Saviour,\nor substitutes the mediation of the Blessed Virgin and the saints\nfor the mediation of Christ.\n\n--------\n\n{129}\n\n         Full Of Grace.\n\n\n  Flowers in the fields, and odors on the air,\n    The spring-time everywhere;\n  Music of singing birds and rippling rills,\n    Soft breezes from the hills;\n  So broke the sweetest season, long ago,\n    Far from this death-cold snow.\n  In that blest land which smiles to every eye,\n    Most favored from on high;\n  And in one town whose sheltering mountains stand\n    Broad breast-plates of the land;\n  So fair a spring-time sure was never seen,\n    Since Eden's walks were green.\n\n  A sudden glory flashed upon the air,\n    A face unearthly fair;\n  A beauty given but to those alone\n    The nearest to the throne;\n  The great archangels who upon their hair\n    The seven planets wear.\n  Lightly as diamonds--such the form that now,\n    With brilliant eyes and brow.\n  Paused by the humble dwellings of the poor.\n    Entered the humblest door,\n  Veiling his awful beauty, far too bright,\n    With wide wings, strong and white.\n\n  Within the dwelling where his flight was stayed\n    A kneeling woman prayed.\n  The angel bowed before that holy face,\n    And hailed her \"Full of Grace.\"\n  No other title, not the kingly name\n    Which David's line can claim;\n  Not highest rank, though unto her was given\n    Queenship of earth and heaven;\n  Not as that one who gave life to the dead,\n    Bruising the serpent's head;\n  Not even as mother of the Sacrificed,\n    The world-redeeming Christ.\n\n  This thought might be a sermon, while yet we,\n    Heirs of eternity,\n  Walk this brief, sin-surrounded tract of life.\n    Wage this short, sharpest strife,\n  Which must be passed and won before the rest.\n    The triumph of the blessed.\n  And when the hour supreme of fate shall come,\n    And at our promised home\n  We wait in breathless and expectant dread\n    Between the quick and dead,\n  Then may the angel warders of the place\n    Welcome us, \"Full of Grace.\"\n\n--------\n\n{130}\n\n    Translated From L'Economiste Belge.\n\n       How Our History Will Be Told\n          In The Year 3000.\n\n\nIn those days--our latest posterity _loquitur_--the people\nwere not entirely freed from the savage instincts of their\nancestors, the anthropophagi, those ferocious contemporaries of\nthe deluge and such great inundations of the world. True, they\ndid not still eat their enemies, nor break their skulls with\nclubs; they did not pierce their bodies with arrows of bone and\nflint; but they did the work more delicately, entirely according\nto the rules of art, with the precision of a surgeon who cuts off\na limb, or the coolness of a butcher who bleeds a sheep. By dint\nof inventions, calculations, and trials of every kind, they\nfabricated, at last, most ingenious tools, very convenient and\nvery simple, and which they handled with equal dexterity. They\nwere not instruments of natural philosophy, chemistry, astronomy,\nor mathematics; our fathers possessed, it is true, objects of\nthis kind, but they did not think it proper to put them in the\nhands of the people. Their thermometers, microscopes, telescopes,\nand electrical machines remained in the shade of libraries or the\ncabinets of the learned. The people were ignorant of their names\nand uses, while they well understood the management of the tools\nof which I speak. So you will suppose these were very useful\narticles, as they were so generally employed in every clime and\nnation, and their object to moralize and instruct mankind, as\ngovernments consented to their gratuitous distribution among\ntheir subjects--went farther, even, and imposed their use. But\nalas! no; they were only tools of death and carnage, worthy to\nfigure among the arms and instruments of torture of preceding\nages; for while some shot off bullets, others threw to enormous\ndistances balls of brass and steel, that made holes in human\nwalls, burnt up towns, and sunk ships.\n\n{131}\n\nThe men of this time were called _\"civilized\"!_ Strange to\nsay, they had abolished torture, and wished to do away with the\npain of death. The scaffold horrified them, and the sight of the\ngallows gave them a vertigo! They had journals and books filled\nwith beautiful phrases in honor of peace and civilization. But\nthey did not comprehend the sense of aphorisms which they\nrepeated incessantly and inscribed everywhere, on the fronts of\ntheir temples, and the first page of their constitutions.\n\nTheir age to them was the age of light, and they seemed ready to\nburst with pride when they considered their enormous riches, the\nfame of their arts, and the extent of their sciences. And, in\nappearance, one might have believed them wise, and as good as the\nbeings who inhabit the more favored planets of our solar system.\nThey had noble aspirations and a generous ardor.\n\nIn the penumbra in which they were plunged, a confused mass of\nwhirling and exasperated workers was alone distinguishable,\nhungry, indefatigable, running up and down, like busy ants\nseeking their subsistence. The ear heard only a deafening and\nmonotonous noise, like the buzzing of a hive. But in spite of\nshocks and hurts, inevitable from such a clamorous multitude,\norder and harmony seemed about being established, when suddenly\nthe same beings who until then had appeared so laborious and\nactive, were seized with a sort of rage, and set violently upon\neach other. The red light of incendiarism and the thundering\nbrightness of battle thus demonstrated to the astonished gaze of\nphilanthropists and thinkers, that vices, sanguinary passions,\nand brutal instincts, always alive and always indomitable, were\nonly hidden in shade, and awaiting the favorable moment to break\ntheir bonds and annihilate civilization. By the artificial and\nslightly tarnished light of their sciences, philosophers had\ngathered round them men of policy and amiability, civilized and\npeaceable, distinguished by good manners, and saying pretty\nthings about fraternity and progress; but the light that broke\nupon them, the evidence that disenchanted them in this shock of\nnations, showed them only coarse and ignorant crowds, capable of\ncommitting, in their folly and cruelty, every crime and every\ninfamy. They had believed that the type of their epoch was the\nman of business, industrial or negotiating, the sharp worker,\narmed for competition, and prepared for the incessant struggles\nof production; and behold! suddenly this personage quits the\nscene, transforming himself into a fantastical being, clothed in\nbrilliant colors, his head ornamented with cock's feathers, his\nstep stiffened, his manners brusque, and his voice short and\nsonorous. At the first boom of the cannon, the rolling of the\ndrum, or the sound of a warlike march, millions of men, clothed\nin red, like the common hangman, marched out of the shade,\nfurnished with instruments suitable for bleeding, scorching,\ndisembowelling, crushing, burning, and stopping the breath of\ntheir neighbors. And perhaps you think these men were the refuse\nof society; that they came from low haunts and prisons; had\nneither heart nor intelligence; that they were given up to public\nexecration. You never were more mistaken. Each one of these\nauxiliaries of death was considered healthy in mind and body,\nvigorous and intelligent, honest and disciplined.\n{132}\nTo exercise his trade suitably, he was obliged to possess a crowd\nof precious qualities, know perfectly how to behave himself, be\nhonorable, and of unimpeachable integrity!\n\nAs to the great generals, they were wise men, and men of the\nworld. They were expected to study mathematics, as it specially\nteaches order and harmony; history, which proves that violence\nand force have never established anything; and many other\nsciences, which one would have imagined capable of directing\ntheir thoughts from their impious career, and rendering them\npacific and humane.\n\nToward 1866 a great invention agitated the world. You are ready\nto believe it was some means of aerial locomotion, or some\nprocess for utilizing central heat, or placing our planet in\ncommunication with the neighboring ones of Mars and Venus. Alas!\nno. Such discoveries were not yet ripe; and besides, men of this\nage had other preoccupations. A small province of the north of\nGermany, with an erudite and philosophical people, had the honor\nof giving to the world the celebrated _needle-gun_. Tired of\nthinking, they relinquished their ideal, to move heavily and\nnoisily under the sun of reality, and set about acting; but\ninstead of inventing a philosophy, they considered a new engine\nof destruction more creditable, and having tried it with the most\nmagnificent results, they offered to the public the instrument\nwhich was entirely to change the map of Europe, break the\nequilibrium of power, and annihilate all international right.\nAfter having laid low several millions of men on the field of\nbattle, this comparatively insignificant people on the borders of\nthe Spree, who until then had won more academical laurels than\ncannons, and more truths than promises, began to comprehend that\nthey could play a splendid _r\u00f4le_, and exercise a\npreponderating influence in Europe. Formerly they had invented an\nabsolute philosophy; now they invented and practised an absolute\npolicy. And this was the union of the German people, the triumph\nof Prussian institutions, the decay of the Latin and rise of the\nGermanic races, and many other changes which only absolute power\ncan effect. These little people on the borders of the Spree awoke\nto a new life, and determined to take all and absorb all; they\nthreatened Holland; coveted Alsace; were disposed to swallow up\nBavaria, the grand-duchy of Baden, and W\u00fcrtemberg. Other nations\nwere troubled, and justly; for the power of the Germans seemed to\nthem very much like absolutism. So each of them, in great haste,\nbegan to perfect their own instruments of death with the faint\nhope, too, that they might very soon make use of them. Old\nFrance, tired of conquests and interior struggles, wished only to\nrest. Having disturbed the tranquillity of Europe so often, she\nhad come to that age when repose is the chief good; so she\nfeigned ignorance of the insolent aspect and gestures of defiance\nof her young rival; but unhappily a few judicious men, and many\nmore of an intriguing nature, fools and ambitious ones, were at\nthe head of affairs. These loved war as a golden egg, and birds\nof prey, we know, derive their sustenance from a field of battle.\nSome already dreamed of wading through blood to conquer an\nepaulette, others that they gained millions in supplies, and\nbecame great dignitaries in the empire.\n{133}\nSo they went about repeating that their country was degraded,\nreduced to a second rank; that Germanic insolence must be\nchastised, and the glorious tricolor planted on the left shore of\nthe Rhine. The journals commented on their words, and the rustic\nin his hut, the laborer at his forge, and the financier in his\ncounting-house dreamed with terror of the dawning evil. Certain\npoliticians, meditating on the situation and the march of events,\ndeclared war inevitable, necessary, providential, and alone able\nto re\u00ebstablish the influence of the country and the\n_prestige_ of the government. So they burst out in eloquent\ndiscourses in favor of military armaments, while on their side\nstrategists, inventors, and administrators set to work, believing\nthey were the foundation of the future prosperity of their\ncountry.\n\nTheir theory was very simple. The power of a nation, they said,\ndepended on the number of men capable of bearing arms, and on the\nquantity and quality of the engines of destruction that they\npossessed. That is, our country must be powerful in order to be\nrich, prosperous, and free. _Ergo_, let us increase to every\nextent the effectiveness of our troops and fabricate without\nparsimony such arms as are unparalleled in Europe. Weak patriots\nand economists, the _Sancho Panzas_ of these _Don\nQuizotte_ politics, murmured a little, but they found\nthemselves obliged to be silent and bow their heads under the\ntaunts and reproaches with which they were loaded. \"Utopists,\"\ncried the inventors, \"you say our machines are not useful; but\nlook down there in the direction of Sadowa and Custozza, and tell\nus afterward if we have not rapidly and economically fabricated\nsmoke and glory. Ask the surgeons, and they will describe to you\nthe gaping wounds, the deep rents they can produce; [Footnote 42]\nask statesmen, and they will tell you the services they render to\nthe ambitious, and the good livings they secure thereby.\"\n\"Miserable citizens! men without energy and honor,\" cry they to\nothers, \"you lazily prefer well-being to glory, and the success\nof your personal enterprises to that of the national glory; but\nlet the hour of danger come, and we will make you walk at the\npoint of the bayonet, notwithstanding your cries and menaces.\"\n... And people who cared nothing for truth, and judged by\nappearances, echoed the cry, and called them utopists, hollow\ndreamers, theorists, and, after all, cowardly and egotistical.\n\n    [Footnote 42: _At Strasbourg the effects of the Chassepot\n    gun have just been certified by experiments on a corpse hung\n    at a distance of fifteen yards. The experiments were made by\n    M. Sarazin, and corroborated by the medical faculty. We will\n    hear the good doctor in his own words: \"I am far from\n    exaggerating,\" said he modestly, \"the practical value of my\n    experiences, and I well know the desiderata, easier to\n    distinguish than resolve, that they present from the point of\n    view in which the effect of the Chassepot gun is produced\n    according to distance and on the living being. However,\n    everywhere I have drawn the following conclusions:\n\n    \"At a short distance, and on a corpse the projectiles have\n    not deviated in their course.\n\n    \"1. The diameter of the orifice, as it enters, is the same as\n    that of the projectile.\n\n    \"2. The diameter of the orifice, as it goes out, is enormous,\n    seven to thirteen times larger than that of the ball.\n\n    \"3. The arteries and veins are cut transversely, drawn back\n    and gaping. The muscles are torn and reduced to the\n    consistency of pulp.\n\n    \"4. The bones are shattered to a considerable extent, and out\n    of all proportion to the shock of the projectile.\n\n    \"To sum up, the effects present a remarkable intensity, and\n    it is well to note that, after having traversed the corpse,\n    the projectile pierced two planks, each an inch thick, and\n    buried itself deeply in the wall.\"_]\n\nSo soon as such a river of ink flowed from the desks of the\njournalists, dragging in its course these insults and injuries,\nthe workmen commenced their labors. They made rifled cannon of\nsteel; hammered coats of mail for their men-of-war; pointed their\nsword-blades with steel and iron; made bullets, balls, bombs, and\nhowitzers, heaped up in their arsenals great quantities of\npowder.\n{134}\nAnd one bright day the government announced with pride to the\ncountry that it owned 9173 brass cannons, 2774 howitzer cannons,\nof the same material, 3210 bronze mortars, 3924 small bronze\nhowitzers, 1615 cast-iron cannons, 1220 howitzers, 20,000\ncarriages for ordnance, 10,000 covered wagons, 4,933,688 filled\ncannon-balls, 3,630,738 howitzer-balls, 18,778,549 iron bullets,\n351,107,574 ball-cartouches, 1,712,693 percussion guns, 817,413\nguns of flint, 10,263,986 pounds of powder--in short, enough to\nexterminate the entire globe. Admirable litany, which the good\ncitizens were to recite mentally every time they thought of the\nfuture of their country! Yet profound politicians said it was not\nenough, and the great statesmen were not at all satisfied. \"We\nmust have,\" said they, \"some terrible invention that will strike\nour enemies with terror. We would like a machine that would mow\nthem down like the scythe of the reaper in the harvest, with\nmovement so regular and continued that it would be impossible for\none to escape.\"\n\nThey did speak of a new apparatus, ornamented by its inventor\nwith the pretty name of the grape-gun, and which could send off,\ntwice a minute, a shower of fifty balls. But public opinion\ndemanded something better, and the mortified death-seekers\nrecommenced their labors.\n\nIn those days philanthropists and politicians tried to think of\nthe best means of establishing peace an Europe. So they met in a\ntown of Switzerland, on the borders of a beautiful lake, and in\npresence of grand and lovely scenery--a place which ought to have\ninspired them with high and holy resolutions. But, unfortunately,\nthey brought with them the bellicose thoughts of their own\ncountries; and so they concluded the only way to promote peace\nwas to destroy all bad and weak governments, abolish abuses,\nupset society, and so unite all peoples. One might have suggested\nthat a state of peace could alone have produced such harmony; but\nthey did not so closely consider the question.\n\nThey were so-called democrats, and they sincerely believed the\naurora of justice would shine in the future on the field of\nbattle, and brighten the smoking ruins of its former society. ...\n\nBut let us pardon our ancestors: they were more ignorant than\nwicked. Peace to their ashes! which, mingling now with the\nelements, circulate in the universe.\n\nSince their time, the globe has many times recommenced its\neternal evolutions; the sun has gone out of its orbit, and\ncarried with it the planets into the depths of space; science has\nbecome the principal work of human existence, and order is\nestablished everywhere; and we, the latest comers on the earth,\nlive happily, because we are free--free, because we are\nunited--united, because we are members of the same family, and\nchildren of the same God.\n\n--------\n\n{135}\n\n\n     Plan For A Country Church.\n\n\nAt the request of several bishops and clergymen, we intend to\npublish from time to time in this magazine, architectural plans\nsuitable for churches of moderate size and costliness. There are\nmany churches of this kind, especially in small country places,\nrequired by the wants of the people, where an architect cannot be\nfound, and where the materials, furniture, and other necessary\nparts or appendages of the sacred edifice must be of the cheapest\npossible kind. Generally speaking, churches of this sort are\nbuilt and furnished without any regard to beauty or rubrical\npropriety. It is, however, just as cheap and easy to make them\nattractive, neat, and strictly ecclesiastical in their style and\nproportions as the contrary, if only proper plans and directions\ncan be obtained. These we purpose to furnish after various styles\nof architecture, and suitable to the different exigencies and\ntastes of different places and persons. In so doing, we hope to\nsupply a want that has long been felt, and to assist a great\nnumber of priests who are laboriously engaged in the meritorious\nbut difficult task of building churches with but limited means\nfor carrying out their plans.\n\n\n    Description.\n\nThe design which we have engraved in this number will give\naccommodation to two hundred and fifty persons seated, the area\nof the floor of the church being 41 x 25 feet in the clear, with\na sanctuary of 12 x 16 feet, a sacristy 12 x 15 feet, and a porch\nto the front of the church sheltering the door against exposure.\nThe confessional is placed in such a position that the comfort of\nthe priest as well as the convenience of the people may be\nsecured.\n\nThe church should be framed with good, stout sills 8x12 inch\nsection, resting on a substantial wall of rubble masonry, where\nstone can be obtained, or of brick where this material becomes\nnecessary, which wall should be carried deep enough to be\nunaffected by the frosts of winter, and raised one foot at least\nabove the earth, a wall of rubble or brick being built along the\ncentre to bear the joists of the floor. The joists should be (3 x\n10) framed into the sills so that the top of the floor, when\nfinished, may be twenty-eight inches, above the earth, giving\nfour steps to the church, the floor of the sanctuary and sacristy\nbeing one step higher, and both on a level. The corner-posts\nshould be 8 X 8 pine timber, and four intermediate posts of 4 x\n8. under each principal of the roof. The plate on the top should\nbe 4 x 8, and carried round the whole building except where the\nchancel intervenes, and care should be taken that all the scarfs\nof this piece of timber should be carefully made. The posts\nshould all be braced with 4x6 pieces, and the walls studded with\n4x4, so that, should it be deemed necessary, in particular\nlocalities, to render the building less susceptible to the\nchanges of temperature, the inner space may be filled.\n\nThe roof should be framed as high as shown on the elevation, with\na slope of 60\u00b0 with the horizon, in order to obtain greater\nheight to the interior and greater strength to the truss, with a\ncollar about midway of the height, but not lower, and curved\nbraces, resting on hammer beams projecting from the side-walls at\nthe height of the plate, and a curved brace underneath this beam,\nbringing the strain of the truss as low as possible on the\nside-walls, but not incommoding the congregation.\n\n{136}\n\n [Image: Front Exterior image of church building.]\n\nElevation\n\n{137}\n\n [Image: Floor plan of church building.]\n\n{138}\n\nThis simple roof should be framed of the best seasoned timber,\n4x6 inches scantling, and should be dressed neatly, and, wherever\ndesired, may be moulded and have chamfered edges, and the\nspandrels filled with two-inch tracery.\n\nIn the sanctuary should this more especially be done to mark the\ndistinction of this part of the church. The principals of the\nroof should be 10 ft. 3 in. apart from the centres, with rafters\nof 2 x 8 laid across the same 2 ft. 6 in. apart, and the plank\ncovering to be laid neatly with narrow tongued and grooved boards\nwhere it may not be desired to plaster the under side of the\nrafters; in case it may be thought advisable to plaster the\nceiling, the plaster should be colored a light blue. The chancel\narch should be struck with a curve from the same centre as the\nroof-braces, with the edges of the jambs and soffit chamfered and\nmoulded.\n\nThe walls plastered up to the plate and floated with two coats\nand finished a light, pleasing, and warm color. If means\nsufficient warranted, a good cornice neatly moulded should finish\nthe side-walls and break against the principals of the roof, and\nmay be of wood or run in plaster.\n\nA label moulding should be run around each door and window, and\nin the sanctuary should be enriched whenever possible.\n\nThe window over the altar should be two lights wide or more,\nfilled with good geometrical tracery, like that in the front of\nthe pattern shown, the side-windows having pointed heads to the\nframes and sashes enclosed in segmental heads on the inside. All\nthe windows should be glazed with plain diamond quarry glass of a\nwarm color, and where it may be possible, the chancel window\nshould have enriched borders and the tracery filled with\nappropriate symbols.\n\nThe front of the chapel has been shown covered with shingles, the\ntimbers showing the framing prominently, and should be dressed\nand the angles chamfered in the manner indicated; the corner-post\nthat carries the bell-cot should be made in one length, and the\nbell-cot sheltered by a roof of considerable projection and\nsurmounted by a cross, which feature may not inappropriately be\ntransferred to the gable of the chapel at the option of the\npriest. In structures like the one presented, it is a simpler and\nat the same time better arrangement to allow the eaves of the\nroof to project and to dispense with the gutter, the earth below\nbeing protected by flagging, or a properly graded gravelled\nslope. The chimney shown on the plan should be placed in the\nposition marked, to render the draught more equable; in general,\nall other details of the church, such as pews, and a gallery if\nneeded, and the doors, must be made to accord with the style of\nthe building, and the painting should be the natural color of the\nwood, stained, unless it be sought to grain the roof or color in\nbright colors.\n\nIn presenting these directions for the builder, many details and\nfeatures are omitted which can only be supplied by\nspecifications.\n\nThis building can be executed for the sum of $3150, the work\nbeing plain but substantial, in accordance with the description.\n\n----------\n\n{139}\n\n         Miscellany.\n\n\nWe learn with much regret that on the 12th of February the\nprinting establishment of the Abb\u00e9 Migne, at Mont Rouge, in the\nsouthern suburb of Paris, was totally destroyed by fire. No\nparticulars of the occurrence have yet been given. The\nenterprise, conducted with extraordinary vigor and ability by the\nabb\u00e9, was unique in the history of publishing. It was founded for\nthe purpose of supplying books for the Catholic clergy of France\nand the whole world. Nearly two thousand volumes, in large\nimperial octavo, comprising the whole of the Greek and Latin\nfathers of the church, and writers on theology and ecclesiastical\nhistory, were edited, published, and kept constantly in print,\nemploying a staff of several hundred persons, including literary\nmen, printers, binders, etc.--_London Publishers' Circular._\n\n----\n\n_Amaurosis from Tobacco-Smoking._--Mr. Hutchinson has\nreported thirty-seven cases of amaurosis, of which he says\nthirty-one were among tobacco-smokers. Mr. Hutchinson concludes:\n\n  1. Amongst men, this peculiar form of amaurosis (primary white\n  atrophy of the optic nerve) is rarely met, except among\n  smokers.\n\n  2. Most of its subjects have been heavy smokers--half an ounce\n  to an ounce a day.\n\n  3. It is not associated with any other + affection of the\n  nervous system.\n\n  4. Amongst the measures of treatment, the prohibition of\n  tobacco ranks first in importance.\n\n  5. The circumstantial evidence tending to connect the affection\n  with the habit of tobacco-smoking is sufficient to warrant\n  further inquiry into the matter on the part of the\n  profession.--_Popular Science Review._\n\n----\n\n_The New Laboratory at the Sorbonne._--This magnificent\nestablishment, which is to be devoted to the pursuit of chemical\ninvestigation, seems to provide for the student's wants on even a\nmore liberal scale than its celebrated rival at Berlin. Besides\nthe various rooms for researches in chemistry, _pur et\nsimple_, there are numberless apartments exclusively intended\nfor investigation in optics, electricity, mechanics, and so\nforth. Motive-power is provided for by a steam-engine of great\nforce, which is connected by means of bands with wheels in the\nseveral laboratories. Again, besides the ordinary pipes carrying\ncoal-gas, there will be a series of pipes supplying oxygen from\nretorts kept constantly at work. Indeed, altogether the new\nlaboratory will be a species of Elysium for the chemical\ninvestigator.\n\n----\n\n_The Bessemer Steel Spectrum._--Father Secchi, who lately\npresented to the French Academy his fine memoir on the Stellar\nSpectra, compared the spectra of certain yellow stars with the\nspectrum produced in the Bessemer \"converter\" at a certain stage\nof the process of manufacture. The employment of the spectroscope\nin the preparation of this steel was begun a couple of years\nsince; but the comparison of the Bessemer spectrum with the\nspectrum of the fixed stars has not, so far as we can remember,\nbeen made before. The Bessemer spectrum is best seen when the\niron is completely decarbonized; it contains a great number of\nvery fine lines, and approaches closely to the spectrum of\n_a_ Ononis and _a_ Herculis. The resemblance, no doubt,\nis due to the fact that the Bessemer flame proceeds from a great\nnumber of burning metals. The greatest importance attaches to the\nanalogy pointed out by Father Secchi. Father Secchi suggests that\nbeginners could not do better than practise on the Bessemer flame\nbefore turning the spectroscope on the stars. Difficult an\ninstrument to conduct investigations with as the spectroscope\nundoubtedly is, the difficulty almost becomes perplexity when the\nstudent tries to examine stellar spectra.\n\n----\n\n{140}\n\n         New Publications.\n\n  Count Lucanor; or, The Fifty Pleasant Stories of Patronio.\n  Written by the Prince Don Juan, A.D. 1335-1347.\n  First done into English, from the Spanish,\n  by James York, Doctor of Medicine, 1868:\n  Basil Montague Pickering, Piccadilly,\n  in the City of Westminster.\n  For sale at the Catholic Publication House,\n  126 Nassau Street, New-York.\n\nMr. Pickering seems to revel in literary oddities. His book on\nthe _Pilgrim's Progress_ was quaint enough, and this volume\nis scarcely behind it in any of its queer qualities. A more\ntotally _foreign_ book we do not remember ever seeing. In\nstyle, idiom, turn of thought, everything, it is remote, _toto\ncaelo_, from all the ideas and criteria of English and modern\ncriticism. Its publication strikes us as being a remarkably bold\nstroke; we cannot imagine for what class of readers it could have\nbeen intended. The only market we could conceive of for such a\nwork in this country, would be a class of Mr. George Ticknor's,\nif he were to have one, in Spanish archaeology. In Spanish, and\nas Spanish, we should think it would prove most interesting; even\nthough the translation is intensely Iberian, both in structure\nand thought.\n\nThe \"Fifty Pleasant Stories\" are very simple as to the machinery,\nso to speak, of the telling of them. \"Count Lucanor\" throughout\nthe book asks advice of his friend Patronio, stating his case,\nand being responded to with a story. Who Count Lucanor may have\nbeen is a mystery for ever. The book shows him to posterity only\nas a Spanish gentleman of apparent consequence, whose forte, as\npoor Artemus Ward would say, seems to have been to fall into\ndifficulties and ask advice of Patronio. This gentleman appears\nas a sort of Don Abraham Lincoln, or Se\u00f1or Tom Corwin, rather.\nEvery question instantly and irresistibly reminds him of \"a\nlittle story, you know,\" etc., etc. This is all of their history.\nWhat the end of a man must have been who answered every question\nwith an anecdote, we can only shudderingly decline to conjecture.\nWhether the gallant Count Lucanor sportively ran him through the\nbody after one story too many some roystering day; whether he\nwent mad when the stories gave out, or whether death interrupted\nhim in a sage narrative, with his sapient hand button-holing the\ncount's doublet, it is not said.\n\nThere is a world of dry, old-world, dusty, aged pithiness about\nthe stories. They are generally very fairly to the point, and\noften full of the peculiar patness so characteristic of Sancho\nPanza. The most remarkable thing about the book, though, is the\nreally large number of apparent originals it contains. In it are\ngems of all manner of precepts and principles that others have\namplified into poetry, and tragedy, and novels, and almost\neverything. Still, we cannot call this more than a seeming\noriginality, because directly alongside of a tale we are\nsurprised to trace in Shakespeare, or La Fontaine, (a principal\ndebtor to Count Lucanor,) or some other admired author, we are as\nlikely to find some story so aged, so thread-bare, so worn and\ntorn and sapless with the use of centuries, that one is tempted\nto refer it back to the year 1. Several of the tales are taken\nfrom the _Arabian Nights_, and Don Juan Manuel generally\nmodernized them (?) to suit the enlightened Castilian and\nanti-Moorish tastes of A.D. 1335, The old, old story of\nAlnaschar, for instance, is dished up as \"What happened to a\nWoman called Pruhana,\" and the note to the story quietly goes on\nto the original original, (skipping old Alnaschar with a word as\na mere junior copy,) namely, \"the fifth part of the _Pantcha\nPantra_,\" which, all will be charmed to learn, is entitled\n\"Aparickchita Kariteva,\" which latter an Irish friend translates,\n\"Much good may it do ye,\" and our annotator \"Inconsiderate\nConduct.\"\n{141}\nWe will not quote the intensely thrilling narrative of this\nHindoo classic, but content ourselves with assuring our readers,\non our honor as a Brahmin, that the point is identically the\nsame.\n\nOne of the best examples of the characteristic aptness of the\nbook is Chapter vii.--\"The Invisible Cloth.\" Count Lucanor's\nquandary is all of a man who offered the count great advantages\nif he would trust absolutely in him and in no one else. Three\nimpostors (we condense the good Patronio mercilessly) come to a\nking as weavers of a peculiar cloth that no man but a legitimate\nson of his father could see; to any one with even a secret taint\nupon his authenticity it was utterly invisible. The king,\ndelighted with this test of so interesting and gossipable a\nmatter, shuts them up in his palace to make the cloth, furnishing\nthem rich raw material of all sorts. After some days the king is\ninvited alone to see the wonderful woof. King-like, the king\nsends his chamberlain first. The chamberlain, trembling for his\npedigree, opens his mind's eye, sees the cloth distinctly, and\nreturns full of its praises. The king goes next, can't see it\neither, is terrified for his title to his throne, and decides to\nsee it also; does see it, and admires it extravagantly. Finding\nit still rather puzzling, he sends his Superintendent Kennedy\n(_alguacil_) to work up the case. This functionary, likewise\nfailing to see it, and fearing supersedure by the senior\ninspector of police, makes up his mind that the king's eyes are\ngood enough for him, and, through them, sees it too. Next a\ncouncillor goes to report, and, like a true councilman as he is,\nhonors his father and mother by seeing it in the same light as\nthe powers that be. Finally, for some one of the three hundred\nand sixty-five extraordinary feast-days of Spain, the king orders\na suit of the invisible cloth, doesn't dare not to see it, and\nrides forth among his leal subjects in a costume strikingly like\nthat famous fatigue uniform of the Georgia cavalry, that we used\nto hear so much of during the war. His people generally, out of\nrespect to their parents, submit to the optical illusion, till,\nfinally, a Spanish citizen of African descent, \"having (says\nPatronio--not we) nothing to lose, came to him and said: 'Sire,\nto me it matters not whose son I am; therefore, I tell you that\nyou are riding without any clothes.'\" The result is a general\nopening of eyes, a sudden change of tailors, it is hoped, by the\nking, and the disappearance of the weavers with the rich raw\nmaterial. Moral (slightly condensed from one page of\nPatronio)--\"Don't Trust.\"\n\n\"James York, Doctor of Medicine,\" has wasted valuable medical\ntime in translating this, with a good deal of fidelity to the\nspirit of the Spanish. His style really does render much of its\nquaintness; as much, perhaps, as today's English will hold in\nsolution. He is also very fairly fortunate with certain small\nmottoes, or couplets, which close each story, prefaced thus, with\nslight variations: \"And Don Juan, (another utterly mystical\ncharacter, who does nothing but what follows,) also seeing that\nit was a good example, wrote it in this book, and made these\nlines, which say as follows:\n\n  'Who counsels thee to secrecy with friends,\n   Seeks to entrap thee for his own base ends.'\"\n                 (Chapter vii., above given.)'\n\nThe notes appended to each story are as odd, many of them, as the\nstories. Generally, they are little more than notes of\nadmiration, but often brief _excursuses_, showing quite a\nvaried range of reading, and full of all manner of reconditeness.\nThese would seem to be mainly Mr. York's, and they do him credit\nin spite of their ludicrously high praise now and then.\n\nIn the mechanical execution of the volume, Mr. Pickering, we\nobserve, cleaves to his chosen model, the Aldine press, and so\ngives us in great perfection that accurate and studious-looking\nprint which we all feel we ought to like, and which none of us do\nlike. For our own part, we frankly own our preference for the\nshort _s_, and all the modern improvements.\n{142}\nStill, one must bear in mind a thing very obvious in all this\nline of publications, that it is expressly to meet and foster a\nkind of taste almost unknown in this country, and that the\npublisher is evidently carrying out with consistency and energy a\npeculiar policy of his own, whose success must at last be the\ntest of its own merit.\n\nThe general American reader will find this a thoroughly curious\nbook; the lover of cheap learning, a perfect treasure-house of\nrather uncommon commonplaces; and the Spanish scholar, \"a\ngenuine, if rugged, piece of ore from that rich mine of early\nSpanish literature which yet lies hidden and unwrought.\"\n\n----\n\n  Peter Claver: A Sketch of his Life and Labors\n  in behalf of the African Slave.\n  Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1868.\n  For sale at the Catholic Publication House,\n  126 Nassau street, New York.\n\nThis little book is a brief compendium of the life of a great\nsaint, who was the apostle of the negro slaves in South America.\nIts publication is very timely, as it shows to the\nphilanthropists of New-England and of the country at large, who\ninterest themselves so much in behalf of the African race, what\nCatholic charity has done and can do in their behalf. We\nrecommend it to their attention. The Catholic religion, and it\nalone, can really and completely meet the wants of this\nmuch-to-be-compassionated portion of mankind. The striking\nvignette of this little volume, representing St. Peter Claver\nsupporting the head of a dying negro, who holds a crucifix\nclasped to his dusky bosom, is an expressive emblem of this\ntruth. It would be an excellent thing if our philanthropists, in\nCongress and out of Congress, would get a copy of this very\nsuggestive photograph framed and hung up in some place where they\nare accustomed to say their prayers.\n\n----\n\n  The Book of Moses; or, The Pentateuch in its\n  Authorship, Credibility, AND Civilization.\n  By the Rev. W. Smith, Ph.D.\n  Volume I. London: Longman, Green & Co. 1868.\n  For sale at the Catholic Publication House, New York.\n\nDr. Smith has given us in this volume the first instalment of an\nextensive work on the Pentateuch. The authorship alone is treated\nof in this portion of the work. Dr. Smith happily combines\northodoxy of doctrine with a scientific spirit. He has evidently\nstudied Egyptology, geology, comparative philology, and other\nsciences bearing on sacred science. He has also made himself\nfamiliar with Jewish and Protestant, as well as Catholic\ncommentators. From a cursory examination, we are inclined to\njudge that his great and useful task has been thus far very well\nand thoroughly performed, and to expect that it will be completed\nin a satisfactory manner. The volume is brought out in the best\nstyle of English typographical art, with fac-similes of ancient\npictures and inscriptions, which add much to its value. We\nrecommend it to all students of the Holy Scriptures as one of the\nmost valuable aids to their researches which has yet been\npublished in the English language.\n\n----\n\n  Life of St. Catharine of Sienna.\n  By Doctor Caterinus Senensis.\n  Translated by the Rev. John Fen, in 1609,\n  and Re\u00ebdited, with a Preface, by Very\n  Rev. Father Aylward.\n  New York: Catholic Publication Society. 1868.\n\nThis biography is a charming one, translated in the inimitable\nEnglish idiom of the 17th century. Father Aylward has very\nsuccessfully imitated the antiquated style in his valuable\npreface. The biography leaves nothing to be desired as a history\nof the private, interior life of the saint, though her wonderful\npublic career is but slightly touched upon. The sketch of it in\nFather Aylward's preface induces us to wish that he would add to\nthe history of Saint Catharine's private life by Caterinus, an\nequally complete history of her public life, with translations of\nher letters, from his own graceful and devout pen, which would\nfurnish the English public with one of the best and most valuable\nbiographies of a truly great and heroic woman to be found in any\nlanguage.\n\n----\n\n{143}\n\n  Prayer the Key of Salvation.\n  By Michael M\u00fcller, C.S.S.R.\n  Baltimore: Kelly & Piet. 1868.\n\nThis book is an expansion of the excellent work of St. Alphonsus\nLiguori on Prayer. The object of it seems to be, to explain the\nsaint's doctrine and illustrate it by examples, so as to bring it\nmore within the comprehension of the mass of the people. But we\nare sorry to be obliged to say that the execution of the work\ndoes not come up to the idea. Without commenting on the matter,\nwhich is, in general, very good, we are compelled to say that the\nstyle is faulty in the extreme; the sentences are mostly\nun-English in their construction, and sometimes so long and\ninvolved that they are hard to understand. It also abounds in\ngrammatical errors. In short, it is a pity it was not first\nthoroughly overlooked and revised by a competent hand before\nbeing allowed to go to press. However much we may desire to\ncommend this book, we cannot in conscience do so, so long as it\ncontinues in its present dress.\n\n----\n\n  La Reforme en Italie, les Precurseurs:\n  Discours Historiques de C\u00e9sar Cantu.\n  Traduits de l'Italien par Aniset\n  Digard et Edmond Martin.\n  Paris: Adrien le Clere, 29 Rue Cassette. 1867.\n\nCaesar Cantu is the author of the best universal history extant,\nand of other historical works of the first class. He has\nundertaken the task of crushing the destructive pseudo-reformers\nof Italy under the weight of his massive historical erudition.\nThe first volume of the present work, which is the only one yet\npublished, brings down the subject to the 16th century, and will\nbe followed by three others. The author is a sound and orthodox\nCatholic, yet, as a layman and as a historian, his work has not\nthe distinctively professional style and spirit which are usually\nfound in the works of ecclesiastical authors. He is fearless and\nfree in speaking the historical truth, even when it is\ndiscreditable to ecclesiastical rulers and requires the exposure\nof scandals and abuses in the church. His spirit is calm and\nimpartial, and the theological and ascetical elements are\ncarefully eliminated. He has gone back to the very origin of\nChristianity, in order to trace the course of events from their\nbeginning, and has traced the outlines of the constitution of\nhistorical Christianity. Church principles and dogmas are,\nhowever, exhibited in a purely historical method, and as\nessential portions of the history of facts and events. Such a\nwriter is terrible to parties whose opinions and schemes cannot\nbear the light of history. The whole class of pseudo-reformers,\nwhether semi-Christian or openly infidel, are of this sort. Cantu\nsweeps them off the track of history by the force and weight of\nhis erudition, as a locomotive tosses the stray cows on the track\nof a railway, with broken legs, to linger and die in the meadows\nat each side of it. It is only Catholic truth, either in the\nsupernatural or the natural order, which can bear investigation,\nor survive the crucial test of history. The so-called Reformation\nretains its hold on the respect of the world only through\nignorance. When history is better and more generally known, it\nwill be universally admitted that it was not only a great crime,\nbut a great blunder, a _faux pas_ in human progress.\n\n----\n\n  The Infant Bridal, and other Poems.\n  By Aubrey De Vere. London: MacMillan & Co.\n\nWe are glad to see this book, rather for the memories than the\nnovelties it brings us. Almost all its contents have been\npublished in the author's other volumes, and there is nothing in\nthis to alter the opinions, either good or ill, that we took\noccasion to express in a former review of them at large. The most\nremarkable about the book is the selection of the republished\npieces.\n{144}\nIt only verifies anew the observation that authors, no more than\nwe of the world, have the giftie to see themselves as others see\nthem. Some of the best poems are there, and some of the worst.\n_The Infant Bridal_ and _The Search for Proserpine_ are\nperhaps the very two poorest of all the author's longer\nproductions. Still, perhaps the many faults we fancy we see in\nthe tact of the compilation, only come to this--that we ourselves\nwould have compiled differently, and possibly worse.\n\nBut we meet, all over these elegant tinted pages, lines and\nbeauties that we fondly remember loving of old--fine blank verse,\nwonderful descriptions, delicious idyls. These latter, by the\nway, are equally remarkable and unremarked. They are from the\nsame fount with Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus. We cannot resist\ngiving one extract, from _Glance_, p. 64:\n\n  \"Come forth, dear maid, the day is calm and cool,\n   And bright though sunless. Like a long green scarf,\n   The tall pines, crowning yon gray promontory,\n   In distant ether hang, and cut the sea.\n   But lovers better love the dell, for there\n   Each is the other's world. How indolently\n   The tops of those pale poplars, bending, sway\n   Over the violet-braided river brim!\n   Whence comes this motion? for no wind is heard,\n   And the long grasses move not, nor the reeds.\n   Here we will sit, and watch the rushes lean\n   Like locks, along the leaden-colored stream\n   Far off; and thou, O child, shall talk to me\n   Of Naiads and their loves.\"\n\nOne more sample of the contents of this volume, and we have said\nall there is to say. It is an unusual vein for De Vere, but one\nin which, like Tennyson, he engages never lightly and always with\ntelling success. It is the close of _A Farewell to Naples_,\np. 255:\n\n  \"From her whom genius never yet inspired.\n   Or virtue raised, or pulse heroic fired;\n   From her who, in the grand historic page.\n   Maintains one barren blank from age to age;\n   From her, with insect life and insect buzz.\n   Who, evermore unresting, nothing does;\n   From her who, with the future and the past,\n   No commerce holds--no structure rears to last.\n   From streets where spies and jesters, side by side.\n   Range the rank markets and their gains divide;\n   Where faith in art, and art in sense is lost.\n   And toys and gewgaws form a nation's boast;\n   Where passion, from affection's bond cut loose,\n   Revels in orgies of its own abuse;\n   And appetite, from passion's portals thrust.\n   Creeps on its belly to its grave in dust;\n   Where vice her mask disdains, where fraud is loud.\n   And naught but wisdom dumb, and justice cowed;\n   Lastly, from her who planted here unawed,\n   'Mid heaven-topped hills and waters bright and broad,\n   From these but nerves more swift to err has gained\n   And the dread stamp of sanctities profaned;\n   And, girt not less with ruin, lives to show\n   That worse than wasted weal is wasted woe--\n   We part; forth issuing through her closing gate.\n   With unreverting faces, not ingrate.\"\n\nCannot this book speak better for itself than our good word?\n\n----\n\n  Folks and Fairies. Stories for little children.\n  By Lucy Randall Comfort.\n  With engravings. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1868.\n\nJudging, not, however, from perusal,\nbut from hearsay, we think the pleasure\nof Mrs. Comfort's juvenile readers would\nbe increased if she had given them more\n\"Folks\" and less \"Fairies.\" On the\nsame high authority we also protest\nagainst some of the engravings, for example,\n\"Otho returning home,\" as illustrations\nof the text.\n\n----\n\n         Books Received.\n\nFrom Leypoldt & Holt, New York:\n\n  Mozart. A Biographical Romance.\n  From the German of Heribert Ran.\n  By E. R. Sill, 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 323.\n\n  Easy French Reading: Being selections of historical tales and\n  anecdotes, arranged with copious foot-notes, containing\n  translations of the principal words, a progressive development\n  of the form of the verb, designations of the use of\n  prepositions and particles, and the idioms of the language. By\n  Professor Edward T. Fisher. To which is appended a brief French\n  grammar. By C. J. Delille. 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 232.\n\n\nFrom Kelly & Piet, Baltimore:\n\n  A Catechism of the Vows.\n  For the use of persons consecrated to\n  God in the religious state.\n  By the Rev. Father Peter Cotel, S.J.\n\nFrom Samuel R. Wells, New York:\n\n  Oratory, Sacred and Secular: or, The Extemporaneous Speaker.\n  With sketches of the most eminent speakers of all ages. By\n  William Pittenger, author of Daring and Suffering. Introduction\n  by Hon. John A. Bingham, and appendix containing a Chairman's\n  Guide for conducting public meetings according to the best\n  parliamentary models, 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 220.\n\n  Life in the West; or, Stories of the Mississippi Valley.\n  By N. C. Meeker, Agricultural Editor\n  of the New York Tribune, 1 vol. 12mo, pp. 360.\n\nFrom Lee & Shepard, Boston:\n\n  Red Cross; or, Young America in England and Wales.\n  A story of Travel and Adventure.\n  By Oliver Optic,\n  1 vol. 12mo, pp. 336.\n\n--------------\n\n{145}\n\n          The Catholic World.\n\n      Vol. VII., No. 38.--May, 1868.\n\n\n    Tennyson In His Catholic Aspects.\n\n\nFor a poet eminently modern and English in his modes of thought,\nTennyson is singularly free from the spirit of controversy. His\nnative land is distracted by religious feuds, yet he who has been\ncalled \"the recognized exponent of all the deeper thinkings of\nhis age,\" takes no active part in them, and seldom drops a line\nthat bespeaks the school of theology to which he belongs. At long\nintervals, indeed, devout breathings escape him. Once now and\nthen he extracts a block of dogma from the deep quarry within,\nand fixes it in an abiding place. He never scatters doubts\nwantonly; he is always on the side of faith, though not perfect\nand Catholic faith. He alludes to Christian doctrines as\npostulates. For his purpose they need no proof. It would be idle\nto prove anything if they were not true. They are the life of the\nsoul, and the vitality of verse.\n\n  \"Fly, happy, happy sails, and bear the press,\"\n\nhe cries; but he adds this apostrophe likewise:\n\n  \"Fly happy with _the mission of the cross_.\"\n\n\t\t\t   _The Golden Year._\n\nHe looks for the resurrection of the body, and bids the dry dust\nof his friend (Spedding) \"lie still, _secure of change_.\"\n(_Lines to J. S._) When the spirit quits its earthly frame,\nhe follows it straight into the unseen world and the presence of\nits Creator and God. He points to \"the grand old gardener and his\nwife\" in \"yon blue heavens,\" smiling at the claims of long\ndescent, (_Lady Clara Vere de Vere;_) and he speeds the soul\nof the expiring May Queen toward the blessed home of just souls\nand true, there to wait a little while for her mother and Effie:\n\n  \"To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast--\n   Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.\"\n\n\t\t\t\t  _The May Queen_.\n\nIntensely as he loves nature, Tennyson is no Pantheist. Though\nlike the wild Indian, he \"sees God in clouds and hears him in the\nwind,\" he does not therefore confound matter with its Maker, nor\nlose sight of the personality of the Being whom he adores. He is\nno disciple of fate or chance, but recognizes in all human\naffairs the working of a divine and retributive providence, whose\nfinal judgment of good and evil is foreshadowed and begun during\nour mortal life.\n{146}\nTo His presence and promptitude in reply to prayer, he refers\nmore than once in pathetic and pointed language. He tells us how\nEnoch Arden, when cast away on a desert island, heard in his\ndream \"the pealing of his parish bells,\" and\n\n    \"Though he knew not wherefore, started up\n  Shuddering, and when the beauteous, hateful isle\n  Returned upon him, had not his poor heart\n  Spoken with that, which, being everywhere.\n  Lets none who speak with Him seem all alone,\n  Surely the man had _died of solitude_.\"\n\n                                _Enoch Arden._\n\nIt would not be difficult for those who are acquainted with\nTennyson's earlier history, to discover the church of which he is\na member, and the section of it whose views he adopts. _In\nMemoriam_ takes us into the interior of his father's\nparsonage, to the Christmas hearth decorated with laurel, and the\nold pastimes in the hall; to the witch-elms and towering\nsycamore, whose shadows his Arthur had often found so fair; to\nthe lawn where they read the Tuscan poets together; and the\nbanquet in the neighboring summer woods. We almost hear the songs\nthat then pealed from knoll to knoll, while the happy tenants of\nthe presbytery lingered on the dry grass till bats went round in\nfragrant skies, and the white kine glimmered, couching at ease,\nand the trees laid their dark arms about the field. \"The merry,\nmerry bells of Yule,\" with their silver chime, are referred to\nmore than once in Tennyson's poems. They seem to be ever ringing\nin his ears. They controlled him, he says, in his boyhood, and\nthey bring him sorrow touched with joy.\n\nIt is in singing of Arthur Hallam that the poet's faith in the\nimmortality of the soul is brought out with beautiful clearness.\nThe bitterness of his grief draws him to the \"comfort clasped in\ntruth revealed,\" and he looks forward with hope to the day when\nhe shall arrive at last at the blessed goal, and He who died in\nHoly Land shall reach out the shining hand to him and his lost\nfriend, and take them \"as a single soul.\" (_In Memoriam_,\nlxxxiii.)\n\nFrom the verses addressed to the Rev. F. D. Maurice, (January,\n1854.) we learn that one of Tennyson's children claims that\ngentleman as his godfather, and we gather from it and other\npoems, what all the Laureate's friends know, that his sympathies\nare with the _Broad Church_, of which Mr. Maurice, Kingsley,\nTemple, the Bishop of London, and Dr. Stanley are distinguished\nleaders. It is one of the peculiarities of this school to\nmoderate the torments of the lost and to deny that they are\neternal, to hope that good will in some way be the final goal of\nill, and that every winter will at last change to spring. It\ncannot be disputed that this teaching is at variance with\nCatholic doctrine; but it is one which Tennyson puts forward with\nsingular modesty, describing himself as\n\n   \"An infant crying in the night;\n    An infant crying for the light;\n  And with no language but a cry.\"\n\n                  _In Memoriam_, liii.\n\nThe _Broad Church_, as its name implies, professes large and\nliberal views. Not wishing to be tried by too strict a standard\nitself, it repudiates all harsh judgments on others. Accordingly,\nwe find in Tennyson few allusions to errors, real or supposed, in\nthe creed of others. He regards as sacred whatever links the soul\nto a divine truth. He has many friends who are Catholics, and we\nhave heard that he has expressed sincere anxiety to publish\nnothing relative to the Catholic religion calculated to give\noffence to its followers.\n{147}\nThere are few lines in his volumes which grate on the most pious\near, and no devout breathings in which we do not cordially join.\nIt is in one of his earlier poems, and only in sport, that he\nmakes the Talking Oak tell of--\n\n  \"Old summers, when the monk was fat,\n     And, issuing shorn and sleek,\n   Would twist his girdle tight, and pat\n     The girls upon the cheek,\n   Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's pence,\n     And numbered bead, and shrift.\n   Bluff Harry broke into the spence,\n     And turned the cowls adrift.\"\n\nIn conning his verse, therefore, the Catholic mind is at ease; it\nlights on no charges to be repelled, and (so far as we know,\nafter long and close study of every line he has published) no\nmistakes regarding our faith which require to be rectified. There\nare those who imagine that in _St. Simeon Stylites_, he has\nwilfully misrepresented the character of a Catholic saint; but we\nventure to entertain a more lenient opinion, and shall endeavor\npresently to justify it. It is in a tone of irony, such as we\nmust admire, that he describes the \"heated pulpiteer in chapel,\nnot preaching simple Christ to simple men,\" but fulminating\n\"against the scarlet woman and her creed,\" and swinging his arms\nviolently, as if he held the apocalyptic millstone, while he\npredicts the speedy casting of great Babylon into the sea.\n(_Sea Dreams_.) Nor are there wanting points of contact\nbetween Tennyson's ideas on religious matters and some of those\ndwelt on by Catholic divines. Thus he, like Dr. Newman, finds the\narguments for the existence of God drawn from the power and\nwisdom discoverable in the works of nature, cold and inconclusive\nin comparison with that one which arises from the voice of\nconscience and the feelings of the heart. The cxxiiid section of\n_In Memoriam_ runs singularly parallel with this beautiful\npassage in the _Apologia_, (p. 377:)\n\n  \"Were it not for this voice, speaking so clearly in my\n  conscience and my heart, I should be an atheist, or a pantheist\n  or a polytheist, when I looked into the world. ... I am far\n  from denying the real force of the arguments in proof of a God,\n  drawn from the general facts of human society; but these do not\n  warm me or enlighten me; they do not take away the winter of my\n  desolation, or make the buds unfold and the leaves grow within\n  me, and my moral being rejoice.\"\n\nThe arguments adduced by infidels, in support of their unbelief,\nhave never been rebutted in verse more cleverly than by Tennyson.\nHis blade flashes like lightning, and severs with as fine a\nstroke as Saladin's scimitar. _The Two Voices_ may be cited\nin proof, and also the following passages in the matchless elegy\non Arthur Hallam:\n\n  The Fates not blind,           (_In Memoriam_)  iii.\n\n  Life shall live for evermore.  (_In Memoriam_)  xxxiv.\n\n  If Death were death, love\n    would not be true love,      (_In Memoriam_)  xxxv.\n\n  Individuality defies the tomb, (_In Memoriam_)  xlvi.\n\n  Immortality,                   (_In Memoriam_)  liv. lv.\n\n  Doubt issuing in belief.       (_In Memoriam_)  xcv.\n\n  Knowledge without wisdom.      (_In Memoriam_)  cxiii.\n\n  Progress,                      (_In Memoriam_)  cxvii.\n\n  We are not all matter.         (_In Memoriam_)  cxix.\n\n  The course of human things,    (_In Memoriam_)  cxxvii\n\nThese verses are no doubt the record of a mental conflict carried\non during some years of the author's earlier life--a battle\nbetween materialism and spiritualism, between faith and unbelief,\nreason and sense. The _Two Voices_ is philosophy singing, as\n_In Memoriam_ is philosophy in tears. The _English\nCyclopaedia_ well calls the last poem \"wonderful,\" and adds:\n\"In no language, probably, is there another series of elegies so\ndeep, so metaphysical, so imaginative, so musical, and showing\nsuch impassioned, abnormal, and solemnizing affection for the\ndead.\"\n\nBut it is now time to point to those passages in which Tennyson\nmay be said to have, more particularly, Catholic aspects. Be they\nfew or many, they are worth noticing, even though they prove\nnothing but that a Protestant poet of the highest order has such\naspects, intense, striking, and lovely in no ordinary degree.\n{148}\nEvery true poet is in a certain sense a divine creation, and\nnothing but a celestial spark could ignite a Wordsworth, a\nLongfellow, or an Emerson. It has ever been the delight of the\nancient church and her writers to discover portions of her truth\namong those who are separated from her visible pale. Far from\ngrudging them these precious fragments, she only wishes they were\nless scanty, and would willingly add to them till they reached\nthe full measure of the deposit of the faith. It would be easy to\nmake out a complete cycle of her doctrine in faith and morals\nfrom the poems of Protestant and Mohammedan authors, but it would\nbe only by combining extracts from many who, in matters of\nbelief, differ widely from each other. In looking through the\nLaureate's volumes for traces of the church's teaching, we are in\na special manner struck by his treatment of the invocation of the\ndeparted. With what deep feeling does he invite the friend, who\nis the subject of his immortal elegy, to be near him when his\nlight is low, when pain is at its height, when life is fading\naway. (_In Memoriam_, xlix.) It reminds us of good Dr.\nJohnson's prayer for the \"attention and ministration\" of his lost\nwife, as Boswell has given it us. Can any Catholic express more\nfully than the Laureate the frame of mind becoming those who\ndesire that the departed should still be near them at their side?\n(_In Memoriam,_ 1.)\n\n  \"How pure at heart and _sound in head_,\n     _With what divine affections bold_.\n     Should be the man whose thoughts would hold\n   An hour's communion with the dead.\n\n  \"In vain shall thou, or any, call\n    The spirits from their golden day,\n    Except, like them, thou too canst say,\n   My spirit is at peace with all.\n\n  \"They haunt the silence of the breast,\n    Imaginations calm and fair,\n    The memory like a cloudless air,\n  The conscience as a sea at rest.\n\n  \"But when the heart is full of din,\n    _And doubt beside the portal waits_.\n    They can but listen at the gates.\n  And hear the household jar within.\"\n\n                          _In Memoriam_, xciii.\n\n\"If I can,\" says the dying May Queen in _New Year's Eve_--\n\n  \"If I can, I'll come again, mother, from out my resting-place;\n   Though you'll not see me, mother, _I shall look upon your face_;\n   Though I cannot speak a word, _I shall hearken what you say_,\n   _And be often, often with you, when you think I'm far away._\"\n\nIt is not, therefore, in a vague and dreamy way, but with the\nfull force of the understanding, that Tennyson invokes the\nspirits in their place of rest. It is not merely as a poet, but\nas a Christian, that he exclaims:\n\n  \"Oh! therefore, from thy sightless range,\n    With gods in unconjectured bliss.\n    Oh  from the distance of the abyss\n  Of tenfold, complicated change,\n\n  \"Descend, and touch, and enter: hear\n    The wish too strong for words to name;\n    That in the blindness of the frame\n  My ghost may feel that thine is near.\"\n\n                           _In Memoriam_, xcii.\n\nWe say \"as a Christian;\" for we warmly repudiate the harsh\ninterpretation which is often put on his words addressed to the\nSon of God:\n\n  \"Thou _seemest_ human and divine,\n    The highest, holiest manhood thou.\"\n\n\"See,\" it is said, \"this is the most you can get from your\nfavorite about Christ--that he _seems_ divine. It is an\nappearance, a semblance only.\" Now, this reasoning is most\nunfair. The remainder of the verse implies his godhead--\n\n  \"Our wills are ours, we know not how;\n    Our wills are ours, _to make them thine._\"\n\nThe verses which follow are a prayer to Christ, imploring from\nhim light and aid, wisdom and forgiveness. (Prefatory lines to\n_In Memoriam_)\n{149}\nIn fact, it is evident from other parts of Tennyson's elegy, that\nhe does not use the word _seem_ in the sense of appearing to\nbe what a thing is _not_, but in the sense of its appearing\nto be _what it is_. Thus, in the fifth stanza, below the\nlines just quoted, we have--\n\n  \"Forgive what _seemed_ my sin in me;\n    What _seemed_ my worth since I began;\n    For merit lives from man to man,\n  And not from man, O Lord! to thee.\"\n\nSo again, _In Memoriam_, xxxiii.,\n\n  \"O thou that after toil and storm,\n    May'st _seem_ to have reached a purer air;\"\n\nwhere \"_seem_ to have reached\" is equivalent to \"thou who\n_hast_ reached,\" with that delicate shade of difference only\nwhich belongs to Greek rather than to English diction. Thus the\nverb [Greek text] is repeatedly used in the New Testament as an\nexpletive, not meaningless to the ear, though adding no distinct\nidea which can be expressed in a single word, [Greek text], (St.\nMatt. iii. 9,) means to all intents, simply, \"Say not in\nyourselves,\" and [Greek text] (Gal. ii. 9) means, \"who were\nreally the pillars they seemed to be.\" Such passages, it is true,\nprove nothing as to Tennyson's use of the word _seem_, but\nthey do illustrate it. The perfect godhead of Christ is brought\nout fully in the sermon preached by Averill in _Aylmer's\nField_. \"The Lord from heaven, born of a village girl,\ncarpenter's son,\" is there styled in the prophet's words,\n\"Wonderful, Prince of Peace, the Mighty God.\"\n\nWhen the Laureate prays that his very worth may be forgiven, he\nemploys the language of deep humility which meets us so\nconstantly in the writings of Catholic saints. It reminds us of\ntheir prayers to the Father of Lights that the best they have\never done may be pardoned, that their tears may be washed, their\nmyrrh incensed, their spikenard's scent perfumed, and their\nbreathings after God fumigated. It is no shallow view that he\ntakes of repentance when he makes Queen Guinevere ask:\n\n  \"What is true repentance but in thought--\n   Not e'en in inmost thought to think again\n   The sins that made the past so pleasant to us?\"\n\n                              _Idylls of the King._\n\nHe has been accused of making St. Simeon Stylites a\nself-righteous saint. That he makes him ambitious of saintdom is\ntrue, but this hope which he \"will not cease to grasp,\" is\nfostered by no sense of his own merits, but, on the contrary,\nsprings from the deepest possible conviction of his unworthiness.\nHe describes himself as\n\n                   \"The basest of mankind,\n  From scalp to sole one slough and crust of sin,\n  Unfit for earth, unfit for heaven, scarce meet\n  For troops of devils mad with blasphemy.\"\n\nHe proclaims from his pillar, his \"high nest of penance,\"\n\n  \"That Pontius and Iscariot by _his_ side\n   Showed like fair seraphs.\"\n\nHe details, indeed, in language strikingly intense, his\nsufferings, prayers, and penances; but he disclaims all praise on\naccount of them, and ascribes all his patience to the divine\nbounty. He does not breathe or \"whisper any murmur of complaint,\"\nwhile he tells how his teeth\n\n  \"Would chatter with the cold, and all his beard\n   Was tagged with icy fringes in the moon;\"\n\nhow his \"thighs were rotted with the dew;\" and how\n\n  \"For many weeks about his loins he wore\n   The rope that haled the buckets from the well.\n   Twisted as tight as I could knot the noose;\"\n\nyet the climax of it all is, \"Have mercy, mercy: take away my\nsin.\"\n\nThe Catholic aspects in _St. Agnes' Eve_ and _Sir\nGalahad_, are no less marked than those of _St. Simeon\nStylites_.\n{150}\nAs a devout breathing of a dying nun, the first of these poems is\ntouching and exquisite. The snows lie deep on the convent-roof,\nand the shadows of its towers \"slant down the snowy sward,\" while\nshe prays and says:\n\n  \"As these white robes are soiled and dark.\n     To yonder shining ground;\n   As this pale taper's earthly spark,\n     To yonder argent round;\n   So shows my soul before the Lamb,\n     My spirit before Thee;\n   So in mine earthly house I am,\n     To that I hope to be.\"\n\nAll heaven bursts its \"starry floors,\" the gates roll back, the\nheavenly Bridegroom waits to welcome and purify the sister's\ndeparting soul. The vision dilates. It is mysteriously\nvague--mysteriously distinct:\n\n  \"The sabbaths of eternity.\n     One sabbath deep and wide--\n   A light upon the shining sea--\n     The Bridegroom with his bride!\"\n\nThere is in such verse an indescribably Catholic tone. It is like\nthe heavenly music of faith, which pervades the _Paradise_\nof Dante, and which (in spite of the lax lives of the authors)\nruns through the \"Sacred Songs\" of Moore, and the _Epistle of\nEloisa_, and _The Dying Christian's Address to his Soul_,\nby Pope. But if Tennyson has proved equal to portraying a\nCatholic saint, he has also depicted most graphically a Catholic\nknight of romance. Sir Galahad, one of the ornaments of King\nArthur's court, (_Idylls of the King_., p. 213,) whose\n\n    \"strength is as the strength of ten,\n  Because his heart is pure,\"\n\ngoes in quest of the Sangreal--the sacred wine. He hears the\nnoise of hymns amid the dark stems of the forest, sees in vision\nthe snowy altar-cloth with swinging censers and \"silver vessels\nsparkling clean.\" He sails, in magic barks, on \"lonely mountain\nmeres,\" and catches glimpses of angels with folded feet \"in\nstoles of white,\" bearing the holy grail.\n\n  \"Ah! blessed vision! _blood of God!_\n     My spirit beats her mortal bars.\n   As down dark tides the glory slides,\n     And star-light mingles with the stars. ...\n   So pass I hostel, hall, and grange.\n     By bridge and ford, by park and pale.\n   All armed I ride, whate'er betide.\n     Until I find the holy grail.\"\n\n                        _Poems_, p. 336.\n\nA Catholic aspect may sometimes be observed in a single word.\n\"And so thou lean on our fair father Christ,\" (_Idylls,\nGuinevere_, p. 254,) may perhaps sound strange to some ears,\nand is familiar to Catholics only. \"He alone is our inward life,\"\nsays Dr. Newman, speaking of Christ; \"He not only regenerates us,\nbut (to allude to a higher mystery) _semper gignit_; he is\never renewing our new birth and our heavenly sonship. In this\nsense he may be called, _as in nature so in grace, our real\nFather_.\" (_Letter to Dr. Pusey_, p. 89.) Hence, in the\nLitany of the Holy Name we say, \"Jesu, _Pater_ futuri\nseculi,\" and \"Jesu, _Pater_ pauperum.\"\n\nThe Catholic who well understands his own faith will always be\nvery scrupulous about disturbing that of others. If there is\nanything abhorrent to him, \"it is the scattering doubt and\nunsettling consciences without necessity.\" (_Newman's\nApologia_, p. 344.) There is a well-known poem in _In\nMemoriam_, (xxxiii.,) which admirably illustrates this\nfeeling. We quote but one verse, as the reader's memory will no\ndoubt supply the rest.\n\n  \"Leave thou thy sister, when she prays,\n     Her early heaven, her happy views;\n     Nor thou with shadowed hint confuse\n   A life that leads melodious ways.\"\n\nThe theory and practice of the wisest Catholics conform to the\nspirit and letter of this injunction. Their devotional life, too,\nis perfectly reflected in Tennyson whenever he writes of prayer.\n{151}\nThere is a depth of feeling in his expressions on this subject\nwhich reaches to the fact that prayer is the truest\nreligion--that it is the link which unites man more closely to\nhis Creator than any outward acts, any meditations, any professed\ncreed, and is the spring and current of religious life.\n\n                             \"Evermore\n  _Prayer_ from a living source within the will,\n  And beating up through all the bitter world,\n  Like fountains of sweet water in the sea,\n  Kept him a living soul\"\n\n                        _Enoch Arden_, p. 44.\n\n  \"Thrice blest _whose lives are faithful prayers_.\n     Whose loves in higher love endure:\n     What souls possess themselves so pure?\n   Or is there blessedness like theirs?\"\n\n                         _In Memoriam_, xxxii.\n\nThus again, in the _Morte d'Arthur_, which was a forecast of\n_The Idylls of the King_, we are reminded of the efficacy of\nprayer in language worthy of being put into a Catholic's lips:\n\n  \"Pray for my soul. _More things are wrought by prayer_\n   _Than this world dreams of_. Wherefore, let thy voice\n   Rise like a fountain for me night and day.\n   For what are men better than sheep or goats.\n   That nourish a blind life within the brain,\n   If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer\n   Both for themselves and those who call them friend?\n   _For so the whole round earth is every way\n   Bound by gold chains about the feet of God._\"\n\nIn the following lines, on the rarity of repentance, there is a\nreference to the co\u00f6peration of human will with divine grace,\nwhich equals the precision of a Catholic theologian:\n\n  \"Full seldom _does_ a man repent, or _use_\n   _Both grace and will_ to pick the vicious quitch\n   _Of blood and custom_ wholly out of him.\n   And make all clean, and plant himself afresh.\"\n\n                     _Idylls of the King_, p. 93.\n\nIn the same poem we find lines of a distinctly Catholic tone on\nthe repentant queen's entering a convent, and on a knight who had\nlong been the tenant of a hermitage. Guinevere speaks as follows:\n\n  \"So let me, _if you do not shudder at me_,\n   Nor shun to call me sister, dwell with you;\n   Wear black and white, and be a nun like you;\n   Fast with your fasts, _not feasting with your feasts_;\n   Grieve with your griefs, not grieving at your joys.\n   _Bid not rejoicing_; mingle with your rites;\n   Pray and be prayed for; _lie before your shrines_;\n   Do each low office of your holy house;\n   Walk your dim cloister, and distribute dole\n   To poor sick people, richer in his eyes\n   Who ransomed us, and haler, too, than I;\n   And treat their loathsome hurts, and heal mine own;\n   And so wear out in almsdeed and in prayer\n   The sombre close of that voluptuous day\n   Which wrought the ruin of my lord the king.\"\n\n                   _Idylls of the King_, p. 260.\n\nThe hermitage is thus described:\n\n               \"There lived a knight\n  Not far from Camelot, now for forty years\n  A hermit, _who had prayed, labored, and prayed_.\n  And ever laboring had scooped himself\n  In the white rock a chapel and a hall\n  On massive columns, like a shorecliff cave.\n  And cells and chambers: all were fair and dry.\"\n\n                     _Idylls of the King_, p. 168.\n\nAmong Tennyson's earlier poems, the picture of Isabel, \"the\nperfect wife,\" with her \"_hate of gossip parlance, and of\nsway_,\" her\n\n            \"locks not wide dispread.\n  Madonna-wise on either side her head;\n  Sweet lips whereon perpetually did reign\n    The summer calm of golden charity;\"\n\nand\n\n  \"Eyes not down-dropt nor over-bright, but fed\n     With the clear-pointed flame of chastity,\"\n\n                               _Poems_, pp. 7, 8,\n\nis worthy of a Catholic matron. The description of St. Stephen,\nin _The Two Voices_, has all the depth and pathos of the\npoet's happiest mood; and, though neither it, nor some other\npassages which have been quoted, contain anything distinctively\nCatholic as opposed to other forms of Christianity, it is\nstrongly marked with those orthodox instincts to which we are\ndrawing attention:\n\n  \"I cannot hide that some have striven,\n   _Achieving calm_, to whom was given\n   The joy that mixes man with heaven;\n   Who, rowing hard against the stream,\n   Saw distant gates of Eden gleam.\n   And did not dream it was a dream;\n   But heard, by secret transport led,\n   E'en in the charnels of the dead,\n   The murmur of the fountain-head--\n   Which did accomplish their desire,\n   Bore and forbore, and did not tire;\n   Like Stephen, an unquenched fire,\n   He heeded not reviling tones.\n   Nor sold his heart to idle moans.\n   Though cursed, and scorned, and bruised with stones;\n   But looking upward, full of grace.\n   He prayed, and from a happy place\n   God's glory smote him on the face.\"\n\n                        _Poems_, p. 299.\n\n{152}\n\nWe are anxious not to appear to lay undue stress on these\nextracts. Let them go for as much as they are worth, and no more.\nWe do not stretch them on any Procrustean bed to the measure of\northodox. Others might be adduced, of a latitudinarian tendency,\nbut they are few in number, and do not neutralize the force of\nthese. In view of many passages in Shakespeare of a Catholic\nbearing, and of several facts favorable to the belief that he was\na Catholic, M. Rio has come to the probably sound conclusion that\nhe really was what he himself wishes to prove him. We put no such\nforced interpretation on our extracts from Tennyson as M. Rio has\ncertainly put on many which he has brought forward from the\nElizabethan poet; but we think that they are sufficiently cast in\na Catholic mould to warrant us in applying to Tennyson the words\nwhich Carlyle has used in reference to his predecessor:\n\"Catholicism, with and against feudalism, but not against nature\nand her bounty, gave us English a Shakespeare and era of\nShakespeare, and so produced _a blossom of Catholicism_.\"\n(_French Revolution_, vol. i. 10.)\n\nBut religion, as we have said, does not occupy a prominent place\nin Tennyson's pages. He is, in the main, like the great\ndramatist--a poet of this world. Love and women are his favorite\nthemes, but love within the bounds of law, and woman strongly\nidealized. License finds in him no apologist, while he throws\naround purity and fidelity all the charms of song. The most rigid\nmoralist can find nothing to censure in his treatment of the\nguilty love of Lancelot and Guinevere, the wedded love of Enid\nand Geraint, the meretricious love of Vivien, and the unrequited\nlove of Elaine. If Milton had, as he intended, [Footnote 43]\nchosen King Arthur as the subject of his epic, he could not have\ntaken a higher moral tone than Tennyson has in the _Idylls of\nthe King_, and, considering how lax were his notions about\nmarriage, it is probable he would have taken a lower one.\n\n    [Footnote 43: See his _Mansas_, and Life, by Toland, p.\n    17.]\n\nKing Arthur's praise of honorable courtship and conjugal faith is\ntoo long to be quoted here, but it may be referred to as equally\neloquent and edifying. (_Idylls of the King_.)\n\nThe Laureate has learned at least one secret of making a great\nname--not to write too much. \"I hate many books,\" wrote P\u00e8re\nLacordaire. \"The capital point is, to have an aim in life, and\ndeeply to respect posterity by sending it but a small number of\nwell-meditated works.\" This has been Tennyson's rule. With six\nslender volumes he has built himself an everlasting name. He has,\ntill within the last few months, seldom contributed to\nperiodicals, and when he has done so, the price paid for his\nstanzas seems fabulous. The estimation in which he is held by\ncritics of a high order amounts, in many cases, to a passion and\na worship. The specimen he has given of a translation of the\n_Iliad_ promises for it, if completed, all that Longfellow\nhas wrought for the _Divina Commedia_. The attempts he has\nmade at _Alcaics, Hendecasyllabics_, and _Galliambics_\nin English have been thoroughly successful, and stamp him as an\naccomplished scholar. (_Bo\u00e4dicea_, etc., in _Enoch Arden\nand other Poems_.) As he does not write much, so neither does\nhe write fast. The impetuous oratory of Shakespeare's and Byron's\nverse is unknown to him. He never affects it. He reminds us\nrather of the operations of nature, who slowly and calmly, but\nwithout difficulty, produces her marvellous results.\n{153}\nDrop by drop his immortal poems are distilled, like the\nchalybeate droppings which leave at length on the cavern floor a\nperfect red and crystal stalagmite. \"Day by day,\" says the\n_National Review_, when speaking on this subject--\"day by\nday, as the hours pass, the delicate sand falls into beautiful\nforms, in stillness, in peace, in brooding.\" \"The particular\npower by which Mr. Tennyson surpasses all recent English poets,\"\nwrites the _Edinburgh Review_, \"is that of sustained\nperfection. ... We look in vain among his modern rivals for any\nwho can compete with him in the power of saying beautifully the\nthing he has to say.\"\n\n  O degli altri poeti onore e lume,\n  Vagliami 'l lungo studio e 'l grande amore\n  Che m' han fatto cercar lo tuo volume. [Footnote 44]\n\n    [Footnote 44: _L Inferno_, i. 82.]\n\nDuring a long period, the originality of Tennyson's verse was an\nobstacle to its fame, and indeed continues to be so in the minds\nof some readers. His use of obsolete words appears to many\npersons affected, while others applaud him for his vigorous\nSaxon, believing, with Dean Swift, that the Saxon element in our\ncompound tongue should be religiously preserved, and that the\nwriters and speakers who please us most are those whose style is\nmost Saxon in its character. If Tennyson has modelled his verse\nafter any author, it is undoubtedly Shakespeare, and the traces\nof this study may perhaps be found in his vocabulary. Yet no man\nis less of a plagiarist; not only his forms of thought but of\nlanguage also are original, and though he owes much to the early\ndramatists, to Wordsworth and to Shelley, he fuses all metals in\nthe alembic of his own mind, and turns them to gold. His love of\nnature is intense, and his observation of her works is\nmicroscopic. Yet he is never so occupied with details as to lose\nsight of broad outlines. In 1845, Wordsworth spoke of him as\n\"decidedly the first of our living poets;\" but since that time\nhis fame has been steadily on the increase. Many of his lines\nhave passed into proverbs, and a crowd of feebly fluttering\nimitators have vainly striven to rival him on the wing. What the\npeople once called a weed has grown into a tall flower, wearing a\ncrown of light, and flourishing far and wide. (_The Flower.\nEnoch Arden_, etc., p. 152.) A concordance to _In\nMemoriam_ has been published, and the several editions of the\nLaureate's volumes have been collated as carefully as if they\nwere works of antiquity. Every ardent lover of English poetry is\nfamiliar with Mariana, \"in the lonely moated grange;\" the good\nHaroun Alraschid among his obelisks and cedars; Oriana wailing\namid the Norland whirlwinds; the Lady Shalott in her \"four gray\nwalls and four gray towers;\" the proud Lady Clara Vere de Vere;\nthe drowsy Lotos-Eaters; the chaste and benevolent Godiva; Maud\nin her garden of \"woodbine spices;\" the true love of the Lord of\nBurleigh, and the reward of honest Lady Clare. The highest praise\nof these ballads is that they have sunk into the nation's heart.\nThey combine the chief excellences of other bards, and remind us\nof some delicious fruit which unites in itself a variety of the\nmost exquisite flavors. This richness and sweetness may be\nascribed in part to that remarkable condensation of thought which\nenriches one page of Tennyson with as many ideas and images as\nwould, in most other poets, be found scattered over two or three\npages. \"We must not expect,\" wrote Shenstone in one of his\nessays, \"to trace the flow of Waller, the landskip of Thomson,\nthe fire of Dryden, the imagery of Shakespeare, the simplicity of\nSpenser, the courtliness of Prior, the humor of Swift, the wit of\nCowley, the delicacy of Addison, the tenderness of Otway, and the\ninvention, the spirit, and sublimity of Milton, joined in any\nsingle writer.\" Perhaps not.\n{154}\nBut Shenstone had never read Tennyson, and there is no knowing\nwhat he might have thought if he had conned the calm majesty of\n_Ulysses_; the classical beauty of _Tithonus_ and the\n_Princess_; the luxuriant eloquence of _Locksley Hall_;\nthe deep lyrical flow of _The Letters_ and _The\nVoyage_; the _'cute_ drollery of the _Northern\nFarmer_; the idyllic sweetness of _OEnone_; the grandeur\nof _Morte d'Arthur_; the touching simplicity of _Enoch\nArden_; the power and pathos of _Aylmer's Field_; the\nperfect minstrelsy of the _Rivulet_, and the songs, _O\nSwallow, Swallow_, and _Tears, Idle Tears_; and the\nsharps and trebles of the _Brook_, more musical than\nMendelssohn.\n\nFar be it from us to carp at any poetry because it proceeds from\none who is not a Catholic. We believe, indeed, firmly that, if\nTennyson had been imbued with the ancient faith, it would have\ncleared some vagueness both from his mind and his verse. But in\nthese days, when Socinianism, positivism, and free-thinking in\nvarious shapes are taking such strong hold of educated men, we\nrejoice unfeignedly to find popular writings marked, even in an\nimperfect degree, with Christian doctrine and feeling. The\ninfluence exerted by the Laureate in the world of letters is\ngreat, and we have, therefore, endeavored at some length to show\nhow far it is favorable, and how far unfavorable, to the cause of\ntruth. Though unhappily not a Catholic, we recognize with delight\nthe fact that he is not an infidel, and we feel persuaded that\nsome at least of our readers will be pleased at our having placed\nin a prominent point of view the redeeming features in the\nreligious character of his poetry.\n\n-------------\n\n            Poland\n\n  When, fixed in righteous wrath, a nation's eye\n  Torments some crowned tormentor with just hate.\n  Nor threat nor flattery can that gaze abate;\n  Unshriven the unatoning years go by;\n  For as that starry archer in the sky\n  Unbends not his bright bow, though early and late\n  The syren sings, and folly weds with fate,\n  Even so that constellated destiny\n  Which keeps fire-vigil in a night-black heaven,\n  Upon the countenance of the doomed looks forth\n  Consentient with a nation's gaze on earth:\n  To the twinned powers a single gaze is given;\n  The earthly fate reveals the fate on high--\n  A brazen serpent raised, that says, not \"live,\" but \"die.\"\n\n                                  Aubrey de Vere.\n\n-------------\n\n{155}\n\n         Professor Draper's Books. [Footnote 45]\n\n    [Footnote 45:\n    1. _Human Physiology, Statical and Dynamical;\n       or, Conditions and Course of the Life of Man_.\n       By J. W. Draper, M.D., LL.D., Professor of Chemistry\n       and Physiology in the University of New York.\n       New York: Harper & Brothers. 1856. 8vo, pp. 649.\n\n    2. _History of the Intellectual Development of Europe_.\n       By the same. Fifth edition. 1867. 8vo, pp. 628\n\n    3. _Thoughts on the Civil Policy of America_.\n       By the same. Third edition. 1867. 8vo, pp. 323.\n\n    4. _History of the American Civil War_.\n       By the same. In three volumes.\n       Vol. I. 1867. 8vo, pp. 567.]\n\nProfessor Draper's works have had, and are having, a very rapid\nsale, and are evidently very highly esteemed by that class of\nreaders who take an interest, without being very profoundly\nversed, in the grave subjects which he treats. He is, we believe,\na good chemist and a respectable physiologist. His work on Human\nPhysiology, we have been assured by those whose judgment in such\nmatters we prefer to our own, is a work of real merit, and was,\nwhen first published, up to the level of the science to which it\nis devoted. We read it with care on its first appearance, and the\nimpression it left on our mind was, that the author yields too\nmuch to the theory of chemical action in physiology, and does not\nremember that man is the union of soul and body, and that the\nsoul modifies, even in the body, the action of the natural laws;\nor rather, that the physiological laws of brute matter, or even\nof animals, cannot be applied to man without many important\nreserves. The Professor, indeed, recognizes, or says he\nrecognizes, in man a rational soul, or an immaterial principle;\nbut the recognition seems to be only a verbal concession, made to\nthe prejudices of those who have some lingering belief in\nChristianity, for we find no use for it in his physiology. All\nthe physiological phenomena he dwells on he explains without it,\nthat is, as far as he explains them at all. Whatever his personal\nbelief may be, his doctrine is as purely materialistic as is Mr.\nHerbert Spencer's, which explains all the phenomena of life by\nthe mechanical, chemical, and electrical changes and combinations\nof matter.\n\nIt is due to Professor Draper to say, that in this respect he\nonly sins in common with the great body of modern physiologists.\nPhysiology--indeed, all the inductive sciences--have been for a\nlong time cast in a materialistic mould, and men of firm faith,\nand sincere and ardent piety, are materialists, and, therefore,\natheists, the moment they enter the field of physical science,\nand deny in their science what they resolutely affirm and would\ndie for in their faith. Hence the quarrel between the theologians\nand the _savans_. The _savans_ have not reconciled\ntheir so-called science with the great theological truths,\nwhether of reason or revelation, which only the fool doubts, or\nin his heart denies. This proves that our physicists have made\nfar less progress in the sciences than they are in the habit of\nboasting. That cannot be true in physiology which is false in\ntheology; and a physiology that denies all reality but matter, or\nfinds no place in it for God and the human soul, is no true\nphysiological science. The physiologist has far less evidence of\nthe existence of matter than I have of the existence of spirit;\nand it is only by spirit that the material is apprehensible, or\ncan be shown to exist. Matter only mimics or imitates spirit.\n{156}\nThe continual changes that take place from time to time in\nphysiology show--we say it with all deference to\nphysiologists--that it has not risen as yet to the dignity of a\nscience. It is of no use to speak of progress, for changes which\ntransform the whole body of a pretended science are not progress.\nWe may not have mastered all the facts of a science; we may be\ndiscovering new facts every day; but if we have, for instance,\nthe true physiological science, the discovery of new facts may\nthrow new light on the science--may enable us to see clearer its\nreach, and understand better its application, but cannot change\nor modify its principles. As long as your pretended science is\nliable to be changed in its principles, it is a theory, an\nhypothesis, not a science. Physiologists have accumulated a large\nstock of physiological facts, to which they are daily adding new\nfacts. We willingly admit these facts are not useless, and the\ntime spent in collecting them is not wasted; on the contrary, we\nhold them to be valuable, and appreciate very highly the labor,\nthe patient research, and the nice observation that has\ncollected, classified, and described them; but we dare assert,\nnotwithstanding, that the science of physiology is yet to be\ncreated; and created it will not be till physiologists have\nlearned and are able to set forth the dialectic relations of\nspirit and matter, soul and body, God and nature, free-will and\nnecessity. Till then there may be known facts, but there will be\nno physiological science. As far as what is called the science of\nhuman life, or human physiology, goes, Professor Draper's work is\nan able and commendable work; but he must permit us to say that\nthe real science of physiology he has not touched, has not\ndreamed of; nor have any of his brethren who see in the human\nsoul only a useless appendage to the body. The soul is the\n_forma corporis_, its informing, its vital principle, and\npervades, so to speak, and determines, or modifies, the whole\nlife and action of the human body, from the first instant of\nconception to the very moment of death. The human body does not\nexist, even in its embryonic state, first as a vegetable, then as\nan animal, and afterward as united to an immaterial soul. It is\nbody united to soul from the first instant of conception, and man\nlives, in any stage of his existence, but one and the same human\nlife. There is no moment after conception when the wilful\ndestruction of the foetus is not the murder of a human life.\n\nAs we said on a former occasion, or at least implied, man, though\nthe ancients called him a microcosm, the universe in little, and\ncontains in himself all the elements of nature, is neither a\nmineral nor a vegetable, nor simply an animal, and the analogies\nwhich the physiologist detects between him and the kingdoms below\nhim, form no scientific basis of human physiology, for like is\nnot same. There may be no difference that the microscope or the\ncrucible can detect between the blood of an ox and the blood of a\nman; for the microscope and chemical tests are in both cases\napplied to the dead subject, not the living, and the human blood\ntested is withdrawn from the living action of the soul, an action\nthat escapes the most powerful microscope, and the most subtile\nchemical agent. Comparative physiology may gratify the curiosity,\nand, when not pressed beyond its legitimate bounds, it may even\nbe useful, and help us to a better understanding of our own\nbodies; but it can never be the basis of a scientific induction,\nbecause between man and all animals there is the difference of\nspecies.\n{157}\nComparative physiology is, therefore, unlike comparative\nphilology; for, however diverse may be the dialects compared,\nthere is no difference of species among them, and nothing hinders\nphilological inductions from possessing, in the secondary order,\na true scientific character. Physiological inductions, resting on\nthe comparative study of different individuals, or different\nraces or families of men, may also be truly scientific; for all\nthese individuals, and all these races or families belong to one\nand the same species. But the comparative physiology that\ncompares men and animals, gives only analogies, not science.\n\nWe do not undervalue science; on the contrary, what we complain\nof is, that our physiologists do not give us science; they give\nus facts, theories, or hypotheses. Facts are not science till\nreferred to the principles that explain them, and these\nprinciples themselves are not science till integrated in the\nprinciples of that high and universal science called theology,\nand which is really the science of the sciences. The men who pass\nfor _savans_, and are the hierophants and lawgivers of the\nage, sin not by their science, but by their want of science.\nTheir ideal of science is too low and grovelling. Science is\nvastly more than they conceive it; is higher, deeper, broader\nthan they look; and the best of them are, as Newton said of\nhimself, mere boys picking up shells on the shores of the great\nocean of truth. They, at best, remain in the vestibule of the\ntemple of science; they have not entered the penetralia and knelt\nbefore the altar. We find no fault with Professor Draper's\nscience, where science he has; we only complain of him for\nattempting to palm off upon us his ignorance for science, and\naccepting, and laboring to make us accept as science what is\nreally no science. Yet he is not worse than others of his class.\n\nThe second work named in our list is the professor's attempt to\nextend the principles of his human physiology to the human race\nat large, and to apply them specially to the intellectual\ndevelopment of Europe; the third is an attempt to apply them to\nthe civil policy of America, and the fourth is an attempt to get\na counter-proof of his theories in the history of our late civil\nwar. Through the four works we detect one and the same purpose,\none and the same doctrine, of which the principal _data_ are\npresented in his work on human physiology, which is cast in a\npurely materialistic mould. They are all written to show that all\nphilosophy, all religion, all morality, and all history are to be\nphysiologically explained, that is, by fixed, inflexible, and\nirreversible natural laws. He admits, in words, that man has\nfree-will, but denies that it influences events or anything in\nthe life and conduct of men. He also admits, and claims credit\nfor admitting, a Supreme Being, as if there could be subordinate\nbeings, or any being but one who declares himself I AM THAT AM;\nbut a living and ever-present God, Creator, and upholder of the\nuniverse, finds no recognition in his physiological system. His\nGod, like the gods of the old Epicureans, has nothing to do, but,\nas Dr. Evarist de Gypendole, in his _Ointment for the Bite of\nthe Black Serpent_, happily expresses it, to \"sleep all night\nand to doze all day.\" He is a superfluity in science, like the\nimmaterial soul in the author's _Human Physiology_. All\nthings, in Professor Draper's system, originate, proceed from,\nand terminate in, natural development, with a most superb\ncontempt for the _ratio sufficiens_ of Leibnitz, and the\nfirst and final cause of the theologians and philosophers.\n{158}\nThe only God his system recognizes is natural law, the law of the\ngeneration and death of phenomena, and distinguishable from\nnature only as the _natura naturans_ is distinguishable from\nthe _natura naturata_ of Spinoza. His system is, therefore,\nnotwithstanding his concessions to the Christian prejudices which\nstill linger with the unscientific, a system of pure naturalism,\nand differs in no important respect from the _Religion\nPositive_ of M. Augusta Comte.\n\nThe Duke of Argyle, in his _Reign of Law_, which we reviewed\nlast February, a man well versed in the modern sciences, sought,\nwhile asserting the universal reign of law, to escape this system\nof pure naturalism, by defining law to be \"will enforcing itself\nwith power,\" or making what are called the laws of nature the\ndirect action of the divine Will. But this asserted activity only\nfor the divine Being, therefore denied second causes, and bound\nnot only nature, but the human will fast in fate, or rather,\nabsorbed man and nature in God; for man and nature do and can\nexist only in so far as active, or in some sense causative. The\npassive does not exist, and to place all activity in God alone is\nto deny the creation of active existences or second causes, which\nis the very essence of pantheism. Professor Draper and the\npositivists, whom he follows, reverse the shield, and absorb not\nman and nature in God, but both God and man in nature. John and\nJames are not Peter, but Peter is James and John. There is no\nreal difference between pantheism and atheism; both are absurd,\nbut the absurdity of atheism is more easily detected by the\ncommon mind than the absurdity of pantheism. The one loses God by\nlosing unity. and the other by losing diversity, or everything\ndistinguishable from God. The God of the atheist is not, and the\nGod of the pantheist is as if he were not, and it makes no\npractical difference whether you say God is all or all is God.\n\nTo undertake a critical review of these several works would\nexceed both our space and our patience, and, moreover, were a\ntask that does not seem to be called for. Professor Draper, we\nbelieve, ranks high among his scientific brethren. He writes in a\nclear, easy, graceful, and pleasing style, but we have found\nnothing new or profound in his works. His theories are almost as\nold as the hills, and even older, if the hills are no older than\nhe pretends. His work on the Intellectual Development of Europe,\nis in substance, taken from the positivists, and the positivist\nphilosophy is only a reproduction, with no scientific advance on\nthat of the old physiologers or hylozoists, as Cudworth calls\nthem. He agrees perfectly with the positivists in the recognition\nof three ages or epochs, we should rather say stages, in human\ndevelopment; the theological, the metaphysical, and the\nscientific or positivist. In the theological age, man is in his\nintellectual infancy, is filled with sentiments of fear and\nwonder; ignorant of natural causes and effects, of the natural\nlaws themselves, he sees the supernatural in every event that\nsurpasses his understanding or experience, and bows before a God\nin every natural force superior to his own. It is the age of\nignorance, wonder, credulity, and superstition. In the second the\nintellect has been, to a certain extent, developed, and the gross\nfetichism of the first age disappears, and men no longer worship\nthe visible apis, but the invisible apis, the spiritual or\nmetaphysical apis; not the bull, but, as the North American\nIndian says, \"the manitou of bulls;\" and instead of worshipping\nthe visible objects of the universe, as the sun, moon, and stars,\nthe ocean and rivers, groves and fountains, storms and tempests,\nas did polytheism in the outset, they worship certain\nmetaphysical abstractions into which they have refined them, and\nwhich they finally generalize into one grand abstraction, which\nthey call Zeus, Jupiter, Jehovah, Theus, Deus, or God, and thus\nassert the Hebrew and Christian monotheism.\n{159}\nIn the third and last age there is no longer fetichism,\npolytheism, or monotheism; men no longer divinize nature, or\ntheir own abstractions, no longer believe in the supernatural or\nthe metaphysical or anything supposed to be supramundane, but\nreject whatever is not sensible, material, positive as the object\nof positive science.\n\nThe professor develops this system with less science than its\ninventor or reviver, M. Auguste Comte and his European disciples;\nbut as well as he could be expected to do it, in respectable\nEnglish. He takes it as the basis of his _History of the\nIntellectual Development of Europe_, and attempts to reconcile\nwith it all the known and unknown facts of that development. We\nmake no quotations to prove that we state the professor's\ndoctrine correctly, for no one who has read him, with any\nattention, will question our statement; and, indeed, we might\nfind it difficult to quote passages which clearly and expressly\nconfirm it, for it is a grave complaint against him, as against\nnearly all writers of his school, that they do not deal in clear\nand express statements of doctrine. Had Professor Draper put\nforth what is evidently his doctrine in clear, simple, and\ndistinct propositions, so that his doctrine could at once be seen\nand understood, his works, instead of going through several\neditions, and being commended in reviews and journals, as\nscientific, learned, and profound, would have fallen dead from\nthe press, or been received with a universal burst of public\nindignation; for they attack everything dear to the heart of the\nChristian, the philosopher, and the citizen. Nothing worse is to\nbe found in the old French Encyclopedists, in the _Syst\u00e8me de\nla Nature_ of D'Holbach, or in _l'Homme-Plant_, and\n_l'Homme-Machine_ of Lamettrie. His doctrine is nothing in\nthe world but pure materialism and atheism, and we do not believe\nthe American people are as yet prepared to deny either God, or\ncreation and Providence. The success of these authors is in their\nvagueness, in their refusal to reduce their doctrine to distinct\npropositions, in hinting, rather than stating it, and in\npretending to speak always in the name of science, thus: \"Science\nshows this,\" or \"Science shows that;\" when, if they knew anything\nof the matter, they would know that science does no such thing.\nThen, how can you accuse Professor Draper of atheism or\nmaterialism; for does he not expressly declare his belief, as a\nman of science, in the existence of the Supreme Being, and in an\nimmaterial and immortal soul? What Dr. Draper believes or\ndisbelieves, is his affair, not ours; we only assert that the\ndoctrine he defends in his professedly scientific books, from\nbeginning to end, is purely physiological, and has no God or soul\nin it. As a man. Dr. Draper may believe much; as an author, he is\na materialist and an atheist, beyond all dispute: if he knows it,\nlittle can be said for his honesty; if he does not know it,\nlittle can be said for his science, or his competency to write on\nthe intellectual development of Europe, or of any other quarter\nof the globe.\n\n{160}\n\nBut to return to the theory the professor borrows from the\npositivists. As the professor excludes from his physiology the\nidea of creation, we cannot easily understand how he determines\nwhat is the infancy of the human race, or when the human race was\nin its infancy. If the race had no beginning, if, like Topsy, \"it\ndidn't come, but grow'd,\" it had no infancy; if it had a\nbeginning, and you assume its earliest stage was that of infancy,\nthen it is necessary to know which stage is the earliest, and\nwhat man really was in that stage. Hence, chronology becomes\nall-important, and, as the author's science rejects all received\nchronology, and speaks of changes and events which took place\nmillions and millions of ages ago, and of which there remains no\nrecord but that chronicled in the rocks; but, as in that record\nexact dates are not given, chronology, with him, whether of the\nearth or of man, must be very uncertain, and it seems to us that\nit must be very difficult for science to determine, with much\nprecision, when the race was, or what it was, in its infancy.\nThus he says:\n\n  \"In the intellectual infancy of the savage state, man transfers\n  to nature his conceptions of himself, and, considering that\n  everything he does is determined by his own pleasure, regards\n  all passing events as depending on the arbitrary volition of a\n  superior but invisible power. He gives to the world a\n  constitution like his own. The tendency is _necessarily_\n  to superstition. Whatever is strange, or powerful, or vast,\n  impresses his imagination with dread. Such objects are only the\n  outward manifestations of an indwelling spirit, and, therefore,\n  worthy of his veneration.\" (_Intellect. Devel_. p. 2.)\n\nWe beg the professor's pardon, but he has only imperfectly\nlearned his lesson. In this which he regards as the age of fetich\nworship, and the first stage of human development, he includes\nideas and conceptions which belong to the second, or metaphysical\nage of his masters. But let this pass for the present. The author\nevidently assumes that the savage state is the intellectual\ninfancy of the race. But how knows he that it is not the\nintellectual old age and decrepitude of the race? The author,\nwhile he holds, or appears to hold, like the positivists, to the\ncontinuous progress of the race, does not hold to the continuous\nprogress of any given nation.\n\n  \"A national type,\" he says, (ch. xi.,) \"pursues its way\n  physically and intellectually through changes and developments\n  answering to those of the individual represented by infancy,\n  youth, manhood, old age, and death respectively.\"\n\nHow, then, say scientifically that your fetich age, or the age of\nsuperstition, the theological age of the positivists, instead\nbeing the infancy of the nation, is not its last stage next\npreceding death? How determine physiologically or scientifically\nthat the savage is the infant man and not the worn-out man? Then\nhow determine that the superstition of which you have so much to\nsay, and which, with you, means religion, revelation, the church,\neverything that claims to be, or that asserts, anything\nsupernatural, is not characteristic of the last stage of human\ndevelopment, and not of the first?\n\nOur modern physiologists and anti-Christian speculators seem all\nto take it for granted that the savage gives us the type of the\nprimitive man. We refuted this absurd notion in our essay on\n_Faith and the Sciences_. There are no known historical\nfacts to support it. Consult the record chronicled in the rocks,\nas read by geologists. What does it prove?\n{161}\nWhy, in the lowest and most ancient strata in which human remains\nare found, along with those of extinct species of animals, you\nfind that the men of that epoch used stone implements, and were\nignorant of metals or unable to work them, and, therefore, must\nhave been savages. That is, the men who lived then, and in that\nlocality. Be it so. But does this prove that there did not,\ncontemporary with them, in other localities or in other quarters\nof the globe, live and flourish nations in the full vigor of the\nmanhood of the race, having all the arts and implements of\ncivilized life? Did the savages of New England, when first\ndiscovered, understand working in iron, and used they not stone\naxes, and stone knives, many of which we have ourselves picked\nup? And was it the same with Europeans? From the rudeness and\nuncivilized condition of a people in one locality, you can\nconclude nothing as to the primitive condition of the race.\n\nThe infancy of the race, if there is any justice in the analogy\nassumed, is the age of growth, of progress; but nothing is less\nprogressive, or more strictly stationary, in a moral and\nintellectual sense, than the savage state. Since history began,\nthere is not only no instance on record of a savage tribe rising\nby indigenous effort to civilization, but none of a purely savage\ntribe having ever, even by foreign assistance, become a civilized\nnation. The Greeks in the earliest historical or semi-historical\ntimes, were not savages, and we have no evidence that they ever\nwere. The Homeric poems were never the product of a savage\npeople, or of a people just emerging from the savage state into\ncivilization, and they are a proof that the Greeks, as a people,\nhad juster ideas of religion, and were less superstitious in the\nage of Homer than in the age of St. Paul. The Germans are a\ncivilized people, and if they were first revealed to us as what\nthe Greeks and Romans called _barbarians_, they were never,\nas far as known, savages. We all know how exceedingly difficult\nit is to civilize our North American Indians. Individuals now and\nthen take up the elements of our civilization, but rarely, if\nthey are of pure Indian blood. They recoil before the advance of\ncivilization. The native Mexicans and Peruvians have, indeed,\nreceived some elements of Christian civilization along with the\nChristian faith and worship; but they were not, on the discovery\nof this continent, pure savages, but had many of the elements of\na civilized people, and that they were of the same race with the\nsavages that roamed our northern forests, is not yet proved. The\nhistorical probabilities are not on the side of the hypothesis of\nthe modern progressivists, but are on the side of the contrary\ndoctrine, that the savage state belongs to the old age of the\nrace--is not that from which man rises, but that into which he\nfalls.\n\nNor is there any historical evidence that superstition is older\nthan religion, that men begin in the counterfeit and proceed to\nthe genuine,--in the false, and proceed by way of development to\nthe true. They do not abuse a thing before having it.\nSuperstition presupposes religion, as falsehood presupposes\ntruth; for falsehood being unable to stand by itself, it is only\nby the aid of truth that it can be asserted. \"Fear made the\ngods,\" sings Lucretius; but it can make none where belief in the\ngods, does not already exist. Men may transfer their own\nsentiments and passions to the divinity; but they must believe\nthat the divinity exists before they can do it.\n{162}\nThey must believe that God is, before they can hear him in the\nwind, see him in the sun and stars, or dread him in the storm and\nthe earthquake. It is not from dread of the strange, the\npowerful, or the vast, that men develop the idea of God, the\nspiritual, the supernatural; the dread presupposes the presence\nand activity of the idea. Men, again, who, like the professor's\nman in the infancy of the savage state, are able to conceive of\nspirit and to distinguish between the outward manifestation and\nthe indwelling spirit, are not fetich worshippers, and for them\nthe fetich is no longer a god, but if retained at all, it is as a\nsign or symbol of the invisible, Fetichism is the grossest form\nof superstition, and obtains only among tribes fallen into the\ngrossest ignorance, that lie at the lowest round of the scale of\nhuman beings; not among tribes in whom intelligence is\ncommencing, but in whom it is well-nigh extinguished.\n\nMonotheism is older than polytheism, for polytheism, as the\nauthor himself seems to hold, grows out of pantheism, and\npantheism evidently grows out of theism, out of the loss or\nperversion of the idea of creation, or of the relation between\nthe creator and the creature, or cause and effect, and is and can\nbe found only among a people who have once believed in one God,\ncreator of heaven and earth and all things visible and invisible.\nMoreover, the earliest forms of the heathen superstitions are, so\nfar as historical evidence goes, the least gross, the least\ncorrupt. The religion of the early Romans was pure in comparison\nwith what it subsequently became, especially after the Etruscan\ndomination or influence. The Homeric poems show a religion less\ncorrupt than that defended by Aristophanes. The earliest of the\nVedas, or sacred books of the Hindoos, are free from the grosser\nsuperstitions of the latest, and were written, the author very\njustly thinks, before those grosser forms were introduced. This\nis very remarkable, if we are to assume that the grossest forms\nof superstition are the earliest! But we have with Greeks,\nEgyptians, Indians, no books that are of earlier date than the\nbooks of Moses, at least none that can be proved to have been\nwritten earlier; and in the books of Moses, in whatever light or\ncharacter we take them, there is shown a religion older than any\nof the heathen mythologies, and absolutely free from every form\nof superstition, what is called the patriarchal religion, and\nwhich is substantially the Jewish and Christian religion. The\nearliest notices we have of idolatries and superstitions are\ntaken from these books, the oldest extant, at least none older\nare known. If these books are regarded as historical documents,\nthen what we Christians hold to be the true religion has obtained\nwith a portion of the race from the creation of man, and, for a\nlong series of years, from the creation to Nimrod, the mighty\nhunter or conqueror, was the only religion known; and your\nfetichisms, polytheisms, pantheisms, idolatries, and\nsuperstitions, which you note among the heathen, instead of being\nthe religion of the infancy of the race, are, comparatively\nspeaking, only recent innovations. If their authenticity as\nhistorical documents be denied, they still, since their antiquity\nis undeniable, prove the patriarchal religion obtained at an\nearlier date than it can be proved that any of the heathen\nmythologies existed. It is certain, then, that the patriarchal,\nwe may say, the Christian religion, is the earliest known\nreligion of the race, and therefore that fetichism, as contended\nby the positivists and the professor after them, cannot be\nasserted to have been the religion of the human race in the\nearliest stage of its existence, nor the germ from which all the\nvarious religions or superstitions of the world have been\ndeveloped.\n\n{163}\n\nBut we may go still farther. The attempt to explain the origin\nand course of religion by the study of the various heathen\nmythologies, and idolatries, and superstitions, is as absurd as\nto attempt to determine the origin and course of the Christian\nreligion by the study of the thousand and one sects that have\nbroken off from the church, and set up to be churches themselves.\nThey can teach us nothing except the gradual deterioration of\nreligious thought, and the development and growth of superstition\nor irreligion among those separated from the central religious\nlife of the race. In the ancient Indian, Egyptian, and Greek\nmythologies, on which the author dwells with so much emphasis, we\ntrace no gradual purification of the religious idea, but its\ncontinual corruption and debasement. As the sects all presuppose\nthe Christian church, and could neither exist nor be intelligible\nwithout her, so those various heathen mythologies presuppose the\npatriarchal religion, are unintelligible without it, and could\nnot have originated or exist without it. The professor having\nstudied these mythologies in the darkness of no-religion,\nunderstands nothing of them, and finds no sense in them--as\nlittle sense as a man ignorant of Catholicity would find in the\ncreeds, confessions, and religious observances of the several\nProtestant sects; but if he had studied them in the light of the\npatriarchal religion, which they mutilate, corrupt, or travesty,\nhe might have understood them, and have traced with a steady hand\ntheir origin and course, and their relation to the intellectual\ndevelopment of the race.\n\nWe have no space to enter at length into the question here\nsuggested. In all the civilized heathen nations, the gods are\ndivided into two classes, the Dii Majores and the Dii Minores.\nThe Dii Majores are only the result of a false effort to explain\nthe mysterious dogma of the Trinity, and the perversion of the\nChristian doctrine of the Eternal Generation of the Son, and the\nEternal Procession of the Holy Ghost. The type from which these\nmythologies depart, not which they realize, is undeniably the\nmystery of the Trinity asserted, more or less explicitly, by the\npatriarchal religion; and hence, we find them all, from the\nburning South to the frozen North, from the East to the West,\nfrom the Old World to the New, asserting, in some form, in the\nDivinity the sacred and mysterious Triad. The Dii Minores are a\ncorruption or perversion of the Catholic doctrine of saints and\nangels, or that doctrine is the type which has been perverted or\ncorrupted, by substituting heroes for saints, and the angels that\nfell for the angels that stood, and taking these for gods instead\nof creatures. The enemies of Christianity have sufficiently\nproved that the common type of both is given in the patriarchal\nreligion, hoping thereby to get a conclusive argument against\nChristianity; but they have forgotten to state that, while the\none conforms to the type, the other departs from it, perverts or\ncorrupts it, and that the one that conforms is prior in date to\nthe one that corrupts, perverts or departs from it. No man can\nstudy the patriarchal religion without seeing at a glance that it\nis the various forms of heathenism that are the corrupt forms, as\nno man can study both Catholicity and Protestantism without\nseeing that Protestantism is the corruption, or\nperversion--sometimes even the travesty of Catholicity.\n{164}\nThe same conclusion is warranted alike by Indian and Egyptian\ngloom and Greek gayety. The gloom speaks for itself. The gayety\nis that of despair--the gayety that says: \"Come, let us eat,\ndrink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die.\" Through all\nheathendom you hear the wail, sometimes loud and stormy,\nsometimes low and melodious, over some great and irreparable\nloss, over a broken and unrealized ideal, just as you do in the\nmodern sectarian and unbelieving world.\n\nBut why is it that the professor and others, when seeking to give\nthe origin and course of religion, as related to the intellectual\ndevelopment of the race, pass by the patriarchal, Jewish, or\nChristian religion, and fasten on the religions or superstitions\nof the Gentiles? It is their art, which consists in adroitly\navoiding all direct attacks on the faith of Christendom, and\nconfining themselves in their dissertations on the natural\nhistory of the pagan superstitions, to establishing principles\nwhich alike undermine both them and Christianity. It is evident\nto every intelligent reader of Professor Draper's _Intellectual\nDevelopment of Europe_, that he means the principles he\nasserts shall be applied to Christianity as well as to Indian,\nEgyptian, Greek, and Roman mythology, and he gives many broad\nhints to that effect. What then? Is he not giving the history of\nthe intellectual development of Europe? Can one give the history\nof that development without taking notice of religion? If, in\ngiving the natural history of religion, showing whence and how it\noriginates, what have been its developments, its course, its\nmodifications, changes, decay, and death, by the influence of\nnatural causes, science establishes principles which overthrow\nall religions, and render preposterous all claims of man to have\nreceived a supernatural revelation, to be in communion with the\nInvisible, or to be under any other providence than that of the\nfixed, invariable, and irresistible laws of nature, or purely\nphysiological laws, whose fault is it? Would you condemn science,\nor subordinate it to the needs of a crafty and unscrupulous\npriesthood, fearful of losing their influence, and having the\nhuman mind emancipated from their despotism? That is, you lay\ndown certain false principles, repudiated by reason and common\nsense, and which all real science rejects with contempt, call\nthese false principles science, and when we protest, you cry out\nwith all your lungs, aided by all the simpletons of the age, that\nwe are hostile to science, would prevent free scientific\ninvestigation, restrain free manly thought, and would keep the\npeople from getting a glimpse of the truth that would emancipate\nthem, and place them on the same line with the baboon or the\ngorilla! A wonderful thing, is this modern science; and always\nplaces, whatever it asserts or denies, its adepts in the right,\nas against the theologians and the anointed priests of God!\n\nThe mystery is not difficult to explain. The physiologists, of\ncourse, are good Sadducees, and really, unless going through a\nchurchyard after dark, or caught in a storm at sea, and in danger\nof shipwreck, believe in neither angel nor spirit. They wish to\nreduce all events, all phenomena, intellectual, moral, and\nreligious, to fixed, invariable, inflexible, irreversible, and\nnecessary laws of nature. They exclude in doctrine, if not in\nwords, the supernatural, creation, providence, and all\ncontingency. Every thing in man and in the universe is generated\nor developed by physiological or natural laws, and follows them\nin all their variations and changes.\n{165}\nReligion, then, must be a natural production, generated by man,\nin conjunction with nature, and modified, changed, or destroyed,\naccording to the physical causes to which he is subjected in time\nand place. This is partially true, or, at least, not manifestly\nfalse in all respects of the various pagan superstitions, and\nmany facts may be cited that seem to prove it; but it is\nmanifestly not true of the patriarchal, Jewish, and Christian\nreligion, and the only way to make it appear true, is to not\ndistinguish that religion from the others, to include all\nreligions in one and the same category, and conclude that what\nthey prove to be partially true of a part, is and must be true of\nthe whole. That this is fair or logical, is not a matter that the\nphysiologists, who, where they detect an analogy, conclude\nidentity, trouble themselves at all about; besides, nothing in\ntheir view is illogical or unfair that tends to discredit priests\nand theologians. Very likely, also, such is their disdain or\ncontempt of religion, that they really do not know that there is\nany radical difference between Christianity and Gentooism. We\nhave never encountered a physiologist, in the sense we use the\nterm here, that is, one who maintains that all in the history of\nman and the universe proceeds from nature alone, who had much\nknowledge of Christian theology, or knowledge enough to be aware\nthat in substance it is not identical with the pagan\nsuperstitions. Their ignorance of our religion is sublime.\n\nWe have thus far proceeded on the supposition that the professor\nmeans by the infancy of the savage state the infancy of the race;\nwe are not sure, after all, that this is precisely his thought,\nor that he means anything more than the infancy of a particular\nnation or family of nations is the savage state. He, however,\nsums up his doctrine in his table of contents, chapter i., of his\n_Intellectual Development_, in the proposition: \"Individual\nman is an emblem of communities, nations, and universal humanity.\nThey exhibit epochs of life like his, and like him are under the\ncontrol of physical conditions, and therefore of law;\" that is,\nphysical or physiological law, for \"human physiology\" is only a\nspecial department of universal physiology, as we have already\nindicated. It would seem from this that the author makes the\nsavage state, as we have supposed, correspond, in the race, in\nuniversal humanity, as well as in communities, to the epoch of\ninfancy in the individual. But does he mean to teach that the\nrace itself has its epoch of infancy, youth, manhood, old age,\nand death? He can, perhaps, in a loose sense, predicate these\nseveral epochs of nations and of political or civil communities;\nbut how can he predicate them all of the race? \"Individuals die,\nhumanity survives,\" says Seneca; and are we to understand that\nthe professor means to assert that the race is born like the\nindividual, passes through childhood, youth, manhood, to old age,\nand then dies? Who knows what he means?\n\nBut suppose that he has not settled in his own mind his meaning\non this point, as is most likely the case; that he has not asked\nhimself whether man on the earth has a beginning or an end, and\nthat he regards the race as a natural evolution, revolving always\nin the same circle, and takes, therefore, the infancy he speaks\nof as the infancy of a nation or a given community. Then his\ndoctrine is, that the earliest stage of every civilized nation or\ncommunity is the savage state, that the ancestors of the\ncivilized in every age are savages, and that all civilization has\nbeen developed under the control of physical conditions from the\nsavage state.\n{166}\nThe germ of all civilization then must be in the savage, and\ncivilization then must be evolved from the savage as the chicken\nfrom the egg, or the egg from the sperm. But of this there is no\nevidence; for, as we have seen, there is no nation known that has\nsprung from exclusively savage ancestors, no known instance of a\nsavage people developing, if we may so speak, into a civilized\npeople. The theory rests on no historical or scientific basis,\nand is perfectly gratuitous. In the savage state we detect\nreminiscences of a past civilization, not the germs of a future\ncivilization, or if germs--germs that are dead, and that never do\nor can germinate. There are degrees of civilization; people may\nbe more or less civilized; but we have no evidence, historical or\nscientific, of a time when there was no civilized people extant.\nThere are civilized nations now, and contemporary with them are\nvarious savage tribes, and the same may be said of every epoch\nsince history began. The civilized nations whose origin we know\nhave all sprung from races more or less civilized, never from\npurely savage tribes. The physiologists overlook history, and\nmistake the evening twilight for the dawn.\n\nBut pass over this. Let us come to the doctrine for which the\nprofessor writes his book, namely, individuals, communities,\nnations, universal humanity, are under the control of physical\nconditions, therefore of physical law, or law in the sense of the\nphysiologists or the physicists. If this means anything, it means\nthat the religion, the morality, the intellectual development,\nthe growth and decay, the littleness and the grandeur of men and\nnations depend solely on physical causes, not at all on moral\ncauses--a doctrine not true throughout even in human physiology,\nand supported by no facts, except in a very restricted degree,\nwhen applied to nations and communities. In the corporeal\nphenomena of the individual the soul counts for much, and in\nmorbid physiology the moral often counts for more than the\nphysical; perhaps it always does, for we know from revelation\nthat the morbidity of nature is the penalty or effect of man's\ntransgression. It is proved to be false as applied to nations and\ncommunities by the fact that the Christian religion, which is\nsubstantially that of the ancient patriarchs, is, at least as far\nas science can go, older than any of the false religions, has\nmaintained itself the same in all essential respects, unvaried\nand invariable, in every variety of physical change, and in every\ndiversity of physical condition, and absolutely unaffected by any\nnatural causes whatever.\n\nThe chief physical conditions on which the professor relies are\nclimate and geographical position. Yet what we hold to be the\ntrue religion, the primitive religion of mankind, has prevailed\nin all climates, and been found the same in all geographical\npositions. Nay, even the false pagan religions have varied only\nin their accidents with climatic and geographical positions. We\nfind them in substance the same in India, Central Asia, on the\nbanks of the Danube, in the heart of Europe, in the ancient\nScania, the Northern Isles, in Mexico and Peru. The substance of\nGreek and Roman or Etrurian mythology is the same with that of\nIndia and Egypt. M. R\u00e9nan tells us that the monotheism so firmly\nheld by the Arabic branch of the Semitic family, is due to the\nvast deserts over which the Arab tribes wander, which suggest the\nideas of unity and universality; and yet for centuries before\nMohammed, these same Arabs, wandering over the same deserts, were\npolytheists and idolaters; and not from contemplating those\ndeserts, but by recalling the primitive traditions of mankind,\npreserved by Jews and Christians, did the founder of Islamism\nattain to the monotheism of the Koran. The professor is misled by\ntaking, in the heathen mythology he has studied, the poetic\nimagery and embellishments, which indeed vary according to the\nnatural aspects, objects, and productions of the locality, for\ntheir substance, thought, or doctrine.\n{167}\nThe poetic illustrations, imagery, and embellishments of Judaism\nare all oriental; but the Jew in all climates and in all\ngeographical positions holds one and the same religious faith\neven to this day; and his only real difference from us is, that\nhe is still looking for a Christ to come, while we believe the\nChrist he is looking for has come, and is the same Jesus of\nNazareth who was crucified at Jerusalem, under Pontius Pilate.\n\nWe know the author contends that there has been from the\nbeginning a radical difference between the Christianity of the\nEast and that of the West; but we know that such is not and never\nhas been the fact. The great Eastern fathers and theologians are\nheld in as high honor in Western Christendom as they ever were in\nEastern Christendom. Nearly all the great councils that defined\nthe dogmas held by the Catholic Church throughout the whole world\nwere held in the East. The Greeks were more speculative and more\naddicted to philosophical subtleties and refinements than the\nLatins, and therefore more liable to originate heresies; but\nnowhere was heresy more vigorously combated, or the one faith of\nthe universal church more ably, more intelligently, or more\nfervently defended than in the East, before the Emperors and the\nBishop of Constantinople drew the Eastern Church, or the larger\npart of it, into schism. But the united Greek Church, the real\nEastern Church, the church of St. Athanasius, of the Basils, and\nthe Gregories, is one in spirit, one in faith, one in communion\nwith the Church of the West.\n\nThe author gravely tells us that Christianity had three primitive\nforms, the Judaical, which has ended; the Gnostic, which has also\nended; the African, which still continues. But he has no\nauthority for what he says. Some Jewish observances were retained\nfor a time by Christians of Jewish origin, till the synagogue\ncould be buried with honor; but there never was a Jewish form of\nChristianity, except among heretics, different from the\nChristianity still held by the church. There are some phrases in\nthe Gospel of St. John, and in the Epistles of St. Paul that have\nbeen thought to be directed against the gnostics; and Clemens of\nAlexandria writes a work in which he uses the terms\n_gnosis_, knowledge, and _gnostic_, a man possessing\nknowledge or spiritual science, in a good sense; but, we suspect,\nwith a design of rescuing these from the bad sense in which they\nwere beginning to be used, as some of our European friends are\ntrying to do with the terms _liberal_ and _liberalist_.\nNevertheless, what Clemens defends under these terms is held by\nCatholics to-day in the same sense in which he defends it. There\nnever was an African form of Christianity distinct from the\nChristianity either of Europe or Asia. The two great theologians\nof Africa are St. Cyprian and St. Augustine, both probably of\nRoman, or, at least, of Italian extraction.\n{168}\nThe doctrine which St. Cyprian is said to have maintained on\nbaptism administered by heretics, the only matter on which he\ndiffered from Rome, has never been, and is not now, the doctrine\nof the church. St. Augustine was converted in Milan, and had St.\nAmbrose, a Roman, for his master, and differed from the\ntheologians either of the East or the West only in the unmatched\nability and science with which he defended the faith common to\nall. He may have had some peculiar notions on some points, but if\nso, these have never been received as Catholic doctrine.\n\nThe professor might as well assert the distinction, asserted in\nGermany a few years since, which attracted some attention at the\ntime, but now forgotten, between the Petrine gospel, the Pauline\ngospel, and the Joannine gospel, as the distinction of the three\nprimitive forms of Christianity which he asserts. We were told by\nsome learned German, we forget his name, that Peter, Paul, and\nJohn represent three different phases or successive forms of\nChristianity. The Petrine gospel represents religion, based on\nauthority; the Pauline, religion as based on intelligence; and\nthe Joannine, religion as based on love. The first was the\nso-called Catholic or Roman Church. The reformation made an end\nof that, and ushered in the Pauline form, or Protestantism, the\nreligion of the intellect. Philosophy, science. Biblical\ncriticism, and exegesis, the growth of liberal ideas, and the\ndevelopment of the sentiments and affections of the heart, have\nmade an end of Protestantism, and are ushering in the Joannine\ngospel, the religion of love, which is never to be superseded or\nto pass away. The advocate of this theory had got beyond\nauthority and intelligence, whether he had attained to the\nreligion of love or not; yet the theory was only the revival of\nthe well-known heresy of the Eternal Evangel of the thirteenth\ncentury. So hard is it to invent a new heresy. It were a waste of\nwords to attempt to show that this theory has not the slightest\nfoundation in fact. Paul and John assert authority as strenuously\nas Peter; Peter and John give as free scope to the intellect as\nPaul; and Peter and Paul agree with John in regard to love or\ncharity. There is nothing in the Gospel or Epistles of John to\nsurpass the burning love revealed, we might almost say concealed,\nso unostentatious is it, by the inflamed Epistles of Paul. As for\nProtestantism, silence best becomes it, when there is speech of\nintelligence, so remarkable is it for its illogical and\nunintellectual character. Protestants have their share of native\nintellect, and the ordinary degree of intelligence on many\nsubjects; but in the science of theology, the basis of all the\nsciences, and without which there is, and can be, no real\nscience, they have never yet excelled.\n\nNor did the reformation put an end to the so-called Petrine\ngospel, the religion of authority, the church founded on Peter,\nprince of the apostles. It may be that Protestantism is losing\nwhat little intellectual character it once had, and developing in\na vague philanthropy, a watery sentimentality, or a blind\nfanaticism, sometimes called Methodism, sometimes Evangelicalism;\nbut Peter still teaches and governs in his successor. The\nCatholic Church has survived the attacks of the reformation and\nthe later revolution, as she survived the attacks of the\npersecuting Jews and pagans, and the power and craft of civil\ntyrants who sought to destroy or to enslave her, and is to-day\nthe only religion that advances by personal conviction and\nconversion.\n{169}\nMohammedanism can no longer propagate itself even by the sword;\nthe various pagan superstitions have reached their limits, and\nare recoiling on themselves; and Protestantism has gained no\naccession of territory or numbers since the death of Luther,\nexcept by colonization and the natural increase of the population\nthen Protestant. The Catholic Church is not only a living\nreligion, but the only living religion, the only religion that\ndoes, or can, command the homage of science, reason, free\nthought, and the uncorrupted affections of the heart. The\nCatholic religion is at once light, freedom, and love--the\nreligion of authority, of the intellect, and of the heart,\nembracing in its indissoluble unity Peter, Paul, and John.\n\nThe professor's work on the intellectual development of Europe\nproves that religion in some form has constituted a chief element\nin that development. It always has been, and still is, the chief\nelement in the life of communities and nations, the spring and\ncentre of intellectual activity and progress. Even the works\nbefore us revolve around it, or owe their existence to their\nrelation to it, and would have no intelligible purpose without\nit. The author has written them to divest religion of its\nsupernatural character, to reduce it to a physiological law, and\nto prove that it originates in the ignorance of men and nations,\nand depends solely on physical conditions, chiefly on climate and\ngeographical position. But in this patriarchal, Jewish, Christian\nreligion there is something, and that of no slight influence on\nthe life of individuals and nations, on universal humanity, that\nflatly contradicts him, that is essentially one and the same from\nfirst to last, superior to climate and geographical position,\nunaffected by natural causes, independent of physical conditions,\nand in no sense subject to physiological laws. This suffices to\nrefute his theory, and that of the positivists, of whom he is a\ndistinguished disciple; for it proves the uniform presence and\nactivity in the life and development of men and nations, ever\nsince history began, of a power, a being, or cause above nature\nand independent of nature, and therefore supernatural.\n\nThe theory that the rise, growth, decay, and death of nations\ndepend on physical conditions alone, chiefly on climate and\ngeographical position, seems to us attended with some grave\ndifficulties. Have the climate and geographical positions of\nIndia, Persia, Assyria, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, essentially\nchanged from what they were at the epoch of their greatness? Did\nnot all the great and renowned nations of antiquity rise, grow,\nprosper, decline, and die, in substantially the same physical\nconditions, under the same climate, and in the same geographical\nposition? Like causes produce like effects. How could the same\nphysical causes cause alike the rise and growth, and the decay\nand death of one and the same people, in one and the same\nclimate, and in one and the same geographical position? Do you\nsay, climate and even physical geography change with the lapse of\ntime? Be it so. Be it as the author maintains, that formerly\nthere was no variation of climate on this continent, from the\nequator to either pole; but was there for Rome any appreciable\nchange in the climate and geography from the time of the third\nPunic war to that of Honorius, or even of Augustulus, the last of\nthe Emperors? Or what change in the physical conditions of the\nnation was there when it was falling from what there was when it\nwas rising?\n\n{170}\n\nNations, like individuals, have, according to the professor,\ntheir infancy, youth, manhood, old age, and death. But why do\nnations grow old and die? The individual grows old and dies,\nbecause his interior physical machinery wears out, and because he\nmust die in order to attain the end for which he lives. But why\nshould this be the case with nations? They have no future life to\nwhich death is the passage. The nation does not rise or fall with\nthe individuals that found it. One generation of individuals\npasses away, and another comes, but the nation survives; and why,\nif not destroyed by external violence, should it not continue to\nsurvive and thrive to the end of time? There are no physical\ncauses, no known physiological laws, that prevent it. Why was not\nRome as able to withstand the barbarians, or to drive them back\nfrom her frontiers, in the fourth century, as she was in the\nfirst? Why was England so much weaker under the Stuarts than she\nhad been under the Tudors, or was again under the Protector? Or\nwhy have we seen her so grand under Pitt and Wellington, and so\nlittle and feeble under Palmerston and Lord Russell? Can you\nexplain this by a change of climate and geographical position, or\nany change in the physical conditions of the nation, that is, any\nphysical changes not due to moral causes?\n\nWe see in several of the States of the Union a decrease, a\nrelative, if not a positive decrease, of the native population,\nand the physical man actually degenerating, and to an extent that\nshould alarm the statesman and the patriot. Do you explain this\nfact by the change in the climate and the geographical position?\nThe geographical position remains unchanged, and if the climate\nhas changed at all, it has been by way of amelioration. Do you\nattribute it to a change in the physical condition of the\ncountry? Not at all. There is no mystery as to the matter, and\nthough the effects may be physical or physiological, the causes\nare well known to be moral, and chief among them is the immoral\ninfluence of the doctrine the professor and his brother\nphysiologists are doing their best to diffuse among the people.\nThe cause is in the loss of religious faith, in the lack of moral\nand religious instruction, in the spread of naturalism, and the\nrejection of supernatural grace--without which the natural cannot\nbe sustained in its integrity--in the growth of luxury, and the\nassertion of material goods or sensible pleasures, as the end and\naim of life. There is always something morally wrong where prizes\nneed to be offered to induce the young to marry, and to induce\nthe married to suffer their children to be born and reared.\n\nSo, also, do we know the secret of the rise, prosperity, decline,\nand death of the renowned nations of antiquity. The Romans owed\nthe empire of the world to their temperance, prudence, fortitude,\nand respect for religious principle, all of them moral causes;\nand they owed their decline and fall to the loss of these\nvirtues, to their moral corruption. The same may be said of all\nthe ancient nations. Their religion, pure, or comparatively pure,\nin the origin, becomes gradually corrupt, degenerates into a\ncorrupt and corrupting superstition, which hangs as a frightful\nnightmare on the breasts of the people, destroying their moral\nlife and vigor.\n{171}\nTo this follows, with a class, scepticism, the denial of God or\nthe gods, an Epicurean morality, and the worship of the senses;\nthe loss of all public spirit--public as well as private virtue,\nand the nation falls of its own internal moral imbecility and\nrottenness, as our own nation, not yet a century old, is in a\nfair way of doing, and most assuredly will do, if the atheistic\nphilosophy and morality of the physiologists or positivists\nbecome much more widely diffused than they are. The church will\nbe as unable, with all her supernatural truth, grace, life, and\nstrength, to save it, as she was to save the ancient Graeco-Roman\nEmpire, for to save it would require a resurrection of the dead.\n\nThe common sense of mankind, in all ages of the world, has\nuniformly attributed the downfall of nations, states, and\nempires, to moral causes, not to physiological laws, climatic\ninfluences, or geographical position. The wicked shall be turned\ninto hell, and all the nations that forget God. Righteousness\nexalteth a nation, and sin is a reproach to any people. This is\nalike the voice of inspiration and of universal experience. The\ntraveller who visits the sites of nations renowned in story, now\nburied in ruins, of cities once thronged with a teeming\npopulation, the marts of the world, in which were heard, from\nmorning till night--till far into night--the din of industry, and\nmarks the solitude that now reigns there; the barren waste that\nhas succeeded to once fruitful fields and vineyards, and observes\nthe poor shepherd that feeds a petty flock on the scanty\npasturage, or the armed robber that watches for a victim to\nplunder, receives a far less vivid impression of the dependence\nof nations on physical causes and conditions, than of the\ninfluence of the moral world on the natural, and reads in legible\ncharacters the meaning of that fearful penalty which God\npronounced, when he said to the man: \"And the earth for thy sake\nshall be cursed.\" The physical changes that have come over\nAssyria, Syria, Lybia, Egypt, and Palestine, are the effects of\nthe moral deterioration of man, not the cause of that\ndeterioration.\n\nThe professor, after dilating almost eloquently, and as a sage,\non the changeability, the transitoriness, the evanescent nature\nof all the visible forms of things, says: \"If from visible forms\nwe turn to directing law, how vast the difference! We pass from\nthe finite, the momentary, the incidental, the conditional, to\nthe illimitable, the eternal, the necessary, the unshackled. It\nis of law I am to speak in this book. In a world composed of\nvanishing forms, I am to vindicate the imperishability, the\nmajesty of law, and to show how man proceeds in his social march\nin obedience to it,\" (_Ibid_. p, 16.) This sounds well; but,\nunhappily, he has told us that communities and nations, like\nindividuals, are under the control of physical conditions, and\n_therefore_ of law. If _therefore_ of law, then under\nthe law of physical conditions, and consequently of a physical or\nphysiological law. He dwells on the grandeur of this conception,\nand challenges for it our deepest admiration. But we see not much\nto admire in a purely physical law manifesting itself in\nceaseless instability, metamorphosis, and death. Will the author\nforgive us, if we hint that he possibly does not very well\nunderstand himself, or know precisely what it is that he says?\nHear him. \"I am to lead my reader, perhaps in a reluctant path,\nfrom the outward phantasmagorial illusions which surround us and\nso ostentatiously obtrude themselves on our attention, to\nsomething that lies in silence and strength behind.\n{172}\nI am to draw his thoughts from the tangible to the invisible,\nfrom the limited to the universal, from the changeable to the\ninvariable, from the transitory to the eternal; from the\nexpedients and volitions so largely _amusing_ in the life of\nman, to the predestined and resistless issuing of law from the\nfiat of God.\" (_Ibid_. p. 16, 17.) Very respectable\nrhetoric, but what does it mean? If it means anything, it means\nthat the visible universe is unreal, an illusion, a\nphantasmagoria; that nothing is real, stable, permanent, but law,\nwhich lies in silence and strength behind the phantasmagoria, and\nthat this law producing the illusion, dazzling us with mere\nsense-shows, is identically God, from whose fiat the\nphantasmagorial world issues. Is not this grand? is it not\nsublime? The scientific professor forgets that he may find\nreaders, who can perceive through his rhetoric that he makes law\nor God the reality of things, instead of their creator or maker,\nsimply their _causa essentialis_, the _causa immanens_\nof Spinoza, and therefore asserts nothing but a very vulgar form\nof pantheism, material pantheism, indistinguishable from naked\natheism; for his doctrine recognizes only the material, the\nsensible, and by law he can mean only a physiological law like\nthat by which the liver secretes bile, the blood circulates\nthrough the heart, seeds germinate, or plants bear fruit--a law\nwhich has and can have no indivisible unity.\n\nIf the professor means simply that in the universe all proceeds\naccording to the law of cause and effect, he should bear in mind\nthat there are moral causes and effects as well as physical, and\nsupernatural as well as natural; but then he might find himself\nin accord with theologians, some of whom, perhaps, in his own\nfavorite sciences are able to be his masters. It is not always\nsafe to measure the ignorance of others by our own. No theologian\ndenies, but every one asserts the law of cause and effect,\nprecisely what no atheist, pantheist, or naturalist does do, for\nnone of them ever rise above what the schools call _causa\nessentialis_, the thing itself, that which, as we say,\n_makes_ the thing, makes it itself and not another, or\nconstitutes its identity. Every theologian believes that God is\nlogical, logic in itself, and that all his works are dialectical\nand realize a divine plan, which as a whole and in all its parts\nis strictly and rigidly logical. If the professor means simply to\nassert not only that all creatures and all events are under the\ncontrol of the law of cause and effect, but also under the law of\ndialectics, there need be no quarrel between him and us; but in\nsuch case, if he had known a little theology, he might have\nspared himself and us a great deal of trouble, for we believe as\nfirmly in the universal reign of law as he or his Grace of\nArgyle. But he would have gained little credit for original\ngenius, depth of thought, profound science, or rare learning, and\nmost likely would not have lived to see any one of his volumes\nreach a fifth edition.\n\nBut we must not be understood to deny in the development of\nnations or individuals all dependence on physical conditions, or\neven of climate and geographical position. Man is neither pure\nspirit, nor pure matter; he is the union of soul and body, and\ncan no more live without communion with nature, than he can\nwithout communion with his like and with God. Hence he requires\nthe three great institutions of religion, society, and property,\nwhich, in some form, are found in all tribes, nations, or civil\ncommunities, and without which no people ever does or can\nsubsist.\n{173}\nClimate and geographical influences, no doubt, count for\nsomething, for how much, science has not yet determined. There is\na difference in character between the inhabitants of mountains\nand the inhabitants of plains, the dwellers on the sea-coast and\nthe dwellers inland, and the people of the north and the people\nof the south; yet the Bas Bretons and the Irish have not lost\nperceptibly anything, in three thousand years, of their original\ncharacter as a southern people, though dwelling for that space of\ntime, we know not how many centuries longer, far to the north.\nAmong the Irish you may find types of northern races, some of\nwhom have overrun the Island as conquerors; but amid all their\npolitical and social vicissitudes, the Irish have retained, and\nstill retain, their southern character. The English have received\nmany accessions from Ireland and from the south, but they remain,\nthe great body of them, as they originally were, essentially a\nnorthern people, and hence the marked difference between the\nIrish character and the English, though inhabiting very nearly\nthe same parallels of latitude, and subject to much the same\nclimatic and geographical influences. The character of both the\nEnglish and the Irish is modified on this continent, but more by\namalgamation, and by political and social influences, than by\nclimate or geography. The Irish type is the most tenacious, and\nis not unlikely in time to eliminate the Anglo-Saxon. It has a\ngreat power of absorption, and the American people may ultimately\nlose their northern type, and assume the characteristics of a\nsouthern race, in spite of the constant influx of the Teutonic\nelement. What we object to is not giving something to physical\ncauses and conditions, but making them exclusive, and thus\nrejecting moral causes, and reducing man and nature to an\ninexorable fatalism.\n\nIn the several volumes of the professor, except the first named,\nwe are able to detect neither the philosophical historian nor the\nman of real science. The respectable author has neither logic nor\nexact, or even extensive, learning, and the only thing to be\nadmired in him, except his style, is the sublime confidence in\nhimself with which he undertakes to discuss and settle questions,\nof which, for the most part, he knows nothing, and perhaps the\nsublimer confidence with which he follows masters that know as\nlittle as himself.\n\nWe own we have treated Professor Draper's work with very little\nrespect, for we have felt very little. His _Intellectual\nDevelopment of Europe_ is full of crudities from beginning to\nend, and for the most part below criticism, or would be were it\nnot that it is levelled at all the principles of individual and\nsocial life and progress. The book belongs to the age of\nLeucippus and Democritus, and _ignores_, if we may use an\nexpressive term, though hardly English, Christian civilization\nand all the progress men and nations have effected since the\nopening of the Christian era. It is a monument not of science,\nbut of gross ignorance.\n\nYet in our remarks we have criticised the class to which the\nauthor belongs, rather than the author himself. Men of real\nscience are modest, reverential, and we honor them, whatever the\ndepartment of nature to which they devote their studies. We\ndelight to sit at their feet and drink in instruction from their\nlips; but when men, because they are passable chemists, know\nsomething of human physiology, or the natural history of fishes,\nundertake to propagate theories on God, man, and nature, that\nviolate the most sacred traditions of the race, deny the Gospel,\nreduce the universe to matter, and place man on a level with the\nbrute, theories, too, which are utterly baseless, we cannot\nreverence them, or listen to them with patience, however graceful\ntheir elocution or charming their rhetoric.\n\n----------\n\n{174}\n\n         Morning At Spring Park.\n\n  Along the upland swell and wooded lawn\n  The aged farmer's voice is heard at dawn:\n  That well-known call across the dewy vale\n  Calls Spark and Daisy to the milking-pail.\n\n  The robin chirps; from farm to farm I hear\n  The bugle-note of wakeful chanticleer;\n  And far, far off, through grove and bosky dell,\n  The dreamy tinkle of sleek Snowflake's bell.\n\n  The huddling sheep, just loose from kindly fold,\n  Their nibbling way along the hill-side hold;\n  And timid squirrels and shy quails are seen\n  Flitting, unscared, across the shaded green.\n\n  The low horizon's dusky, violet blue\n  Is tinged with coming daylight's rosy hue,\n  Till o'er the golden fields of tasselled corn\n  Breaks all the rapture of the summer morn.\n\n  Through forest rifts the level sunbeams dart,\n  And gloomy nooks to sudden beauty start;\n  Those long, still lines which through rank foliage steal,\n  Undreamed-of charms among the woods reveal.\n\n  The yellow wheat-stooks catch the early light;\n  Far-nested homesteads gleam at once to sight;\n  While, from yon glimmering height, one spire serene\n  Points duly heavenward this terrestrial scene.\n\n  Long may the aged farmer's call be heard.\n  At dewy dawn, with song of matin bird.\n  Among his loving flocks and herds of kine,\n  A guileless master, watchful and benign.\n\n  And, when no more his agile footstep roves\n  These flowery pastures and these pleasant groves,\n  Good Shepherd, may thy call to fields more fair\n  Wean every thought from earth, make heaven his care!\n\n----------\n\n{175}\n\n  Nellie Netterville; Or, One Of The Transplanted.\n\n\n      CHAPTER III.\n\n  \"Set is the sun of the Netterville's glory!\n     Down in the dust its bright banners are trailing!\n   Hoarse in our anguish we whisper the story,\n     And men, as they listen, like women are wailing.\n\n  \"Woe! woe to us--woe! we shall see him no more;\n     Our tears like the rains of November are flowing;\n   Woe! woe to us--woe! for the chief we deplore\n     Alone to his exile of sorrow is going.\n\n  \"Alone?--not alone! for our dastardly foemen--\n     As cruel as base in the day of their power--\n   Have lifted their hands against maidens and women;\n     Uprooted the tree, and then trampled the flower.\n\n  \"And so they have sent her to weep by strange waters--\n     The joy of our hearts and the light of our eyes--\n   The latest and fairest of Netterville's daughters,\n     In whom the last link of their destiny lies.\n\n  \"Sad will be, mother, thy waking to-morrow!\n     Waking to weep o'er thy dove-rifled nest;\n   Widowed and childless--two-fold is thy sorrow.\n     And two-edged the sword that is lodged in thy breast.\n\n  \"Well may we mourn her--when we too deplore her--\n     The vassals and serfs of thy conquering race;\n   If blood could but do it, our blood should restore her--\n     Restore her to thee and thy loving embrace.\n\n  \"Yet not for her only, or thee, are we weeping;\n     We weep for our country, fast bound in that chain\n   Which in blood from her wrung heart the foeman is steeping,\n     Till it looks as if reddened and rusted by rain.\n\n  \"Oh! when shall a leader to true hearts be given.\n     To fall on the stranger and force him to flee?\n   And when shall the shackles that bind her be riven?\n     And Erin stand up in her strength, and be free!\"\n\nSo sung Hamish, the son of the last of the long line of minstrels\nwho, with harp and voice, had recorded the triumphs of the house\nof Netterville, or mourned over the death or sorrow of its\nchieftains. For, in spite of the law by which it was strictly\nforbidden, the English of the Pale had persisted in the national\ncustom of keeping a bard or minstrel--whose office was always, or\nalmost always, hereditary--attached to their households; and in\nits palmy days of power the family of Netterville was far too\njealous of its own importance not to have been always provided\nwith a similar appendage. Its last recognized minstrel had\nfallen, however, in the same battle which had deprived Nellie of\nher father, and, Hamish being then too young to take up his\nfather's office, the harp had ever since, literally as well as\nfiguratively, hung mute and unstrung in the halls of Netterville.\nBut grief and indignation over its utter ruin had unlocked at\nlast the tide of poetry and song, ever ready to flow over in the\nCeltic breast, and Hamish felt himself changed into a bard upon\nthe spot. Forgetting the presence of the English soldiers, or,\nmore probably, exulting in the knowledge that they did not\nunderstand the language in which he gave expression to his\nfeelings, he stepped out into the midst of the people, pouring\nforth his lamentations, stanza after stanza, with all the\nreadiness and fire of a born _improvisatore_; and when at\nlast he paused, more for want of breath than want of matter, the\nkeeners took up the tale, and told, in their wild, wailing chant,\nof the goodness and greatness, the glory and honour of their\ndeparted chieftain and his heiress, precisely as they would have\ndone had the twain over whom they were lamenting been that very\nday deposited in their graves. Up to this moment Mrs. Netterville\nhad preserved in a marvellous degree that statue-like calmness of\noutward bearing which hid, and even at times belied, the workings\nof a heart full of generous emotions; but the wild wailing of the\nkeeners broke down the artificial restraint she had put upon her\nconduct, and, unable to listen quietly to what seemed to her ears\na positive prophecy of death to her beloved ones, she hastily\nre\u00ebntered the house and retreated to her own apartment.\n{176}\nThis was a small, dark chamber, which in happier times had been\nset apart as a quiet retreat for prayer and household purposes,\nbut which now was the only one the mistress of the mansion could\ncall her own--the soldiers having that very morning taken\npossession of all the others, devoting some of them to their own\nparticular accommodation and locking up the others. It was, in\nfact, as a very singular and especial favour, and as some return\nfor the kindness she had shown in nursing one of their number who\nhad been taken suddenly ill on the night of their arrival, that\nthe use even of this small chamber had been allowed her; for it\nwas not the custom of Cromwell's army to deal too gently by the\nvanquished, and many of the \"transplanted,\" as high-born and\nwell-educated as she was, had been compelled, in similar\ncircumstances, to retire to the outer offices of their own abode,\nwhile the rough soldiery who displaced them installed themselves\nin the luxurious apartments of the interior.\n\nHidden from all curious eyes in this dark retreat, Mrs.\nNetterville yielded at last to the cry of her weak human heart,\nand, flinging herself face downward on the floor, gave way to a\npassion of grief which was all the more terrible that it was\nabsolutely tearless. One or two of the few remaining women of the\nhousehold, knowing how fearfully her soul, in spite of all\noutward show of calmness, must be wrung, tapped occasionally at\nthe door; but either she did not hear or did not choose to\nanswer, and they dared not enter without permission.\n\nAt last one of them went to Hamish, feeling instinctively that,\nif any one could venture to intrude unbidden, it would be the\nfoster-brother of Nellie, and said:\n\n\"The mistress, God help her! is just drowned with the sorrow, and\nwon't even answer when we call. Hamish, a-bouchal, couldn't you\nmanage to go in, just by accident like, and say something or\nother to give a turn to her thoughts?\"\n\n\"Give a turn to her thoughts?\" said Hamish crustily; \"give a turn\nto her thoughts, do you say? My certie, but you take it easy!\nHasn't the woman lost husband and child, to say nothing of the\nold lord, who was all as one to her as her own father? and isn't\nshe going, moreover, to be turned out of house and home, and sent\nadrift upon the wide world? and you talk of giving a turn to her\nthoughts, as if it was the toothache she was troubled with or a\nwasp that had stung her?\"\n\n\"As you please, Mr. Hoity-toity,\" said the girl angrily; \"I only\nthought that, as you were a bit of a pet like, on account of our\nyoung mistress, you might have ventured on the liberty. Not\nhaving set up in that line myself, I cannot, of course, attempt\nto meddle in the matter.\"\n\nBut though Hamish had spoken roughly, his heart was very sore,\nfor all that, over the sorrows of his lonely mistress.\n\nHe waited until Cathleen had vanished in a huff, and then, going\nquietly to the study-door, knocked softly for admission.\n\nBut Mrs. Netterville gave no sign, and, after knocking two or\nthree times in vain, he opened the door gently and looked in. The\nroom was naturally a gloomy one, being panelled in black oak; but\nHamish felt as if it never _could_ have looked before so\ngloomy as it did that moment.\n{177}\nHalf study, half oratory as it was, Mrs. Netterville had spent\nhere many a long hour of lonely and impassioned prayer, what time\nher husband and her father-in-law were fighting the battles of\ntheir royal and most ungrateful master. A tall crucifix, carved,\nlike the rest of the furniture, in black oak, stood, therefore,\non a sort of _prie-dieu_ at the farther end of the room, and\nnear it was a table arranged in desk-fashion, at which she had\nbeen in the habit of transacting the business of her household.\n\nRoom and _prie-dieu_, crucifix and table, Hamish had them\nall by heart already.\n\nHere in his baby days he had been used to come, when he and his\nlittle foster-sister were wearied with their own play, to sit at\nthe feet of Mrs. Netterville and listen to the tales which she\ninvented for their amusement. Here, as time went on, separating\nNellie outwardly from his society, yet leaving her as near to him\nin heart as ever, he had been wont to bring his morning offerings\nof fish from the running stream, or bunches of purple heather\nfrom the rocks. Here he had come for news of the war, and of the\nmaster, on that very day which brought tidings of his death; and\nhere, too, even while he tried to comfort Nellie, who had flung\nherself down in her childish misery just on the spot where her\nmother lay prostrate now, he had wondered, and, young as he was,\nhad in part, at least, comprehended the marvellous\nself-forgetfulness of Mrs. Netterville, who, in the midst of her\nown bereavement, had yet found heart and voice to comfort her\naged father-in-law and her child, as if the blow which had struck\nthem down had not fallen with three-fold force on her own head.\nIn the darkness of the room and the confusion of his own\nthoughts, he did not, however, at first perceive Mrs. Netterville\nin her lowly posture, and glanced instinctively toward the\n_prie-dieu_, where he had so often before seen her take\nrefuge in the hour of trial.\n\nBut she was not there, and a thrill of terror ran through his\nframe when he at last discovered her, face downward, on the\nfloor, her widow's coif flung far away, and her long locks,\nstreaked--by the hand of grief, not time--abundantly with gray,\nstreaming round her in a disorder which struck Hamish all the\nmore forcibly, that it was in such direct contrast to the natural\nhabits of order and propriety she had brought with her from her\nEnglish home. There she lay, not weeping--such misery as hers\nknows nothing of the relief of tears--not weeping, but crushed\nand powerless, as if her very body had proved unequal to the\nweight of sorrow put upon it, and had fallen beneath the burthen.\nShe seemed, indeed, not in a swoon, but stunned and stupefied,\nand quite unconscious that she was not alone. Hamish trembled for\nher intellect; but young as he was, he was used to sorrow, and\nunderstood both the danger and the remedy.\n\nHis lady must be roused at any cost, even at that the very\nthought of which made him tremble, the recalling her to a full\nknowledge of her misery. He advanced farther into the room,\nmoving softly, in his great reverence for her desolation, as we\nmove, almost unconsciously to ourselves, in the presence of the\ndead, and occupied himself for a few minutes in arranging the\nloose papers on her desk, and the flowers which Nellie had placed\nupon the _prie dieu_ only a day or two before. They were\nfaded now--faded as the poor child's fortunes--but instead of\nthrowing them away, he poured fresh water into the vase which\nheld them, as if that could have restored their beauty.\n{178}\nYet he sighed heavily as he did so for the thought would flash\nacross his mind that, whether he sought to give, back life to a\nwithered flower, or joy to the heart of a bereaved mother, in\neither case his task was hopeless. Mrs. Netterville took no\nnotice of his proceedings, though, as he began to get used to the\nsituation, he purposely made rather more bustle than was needed,\nin hopes of arousing her. At last, in despair of succeeding by\nmilder methods, he let fall a heavy inkstand, smashing it into a\nthousand pieces, and scattering the ink in all directions, an\nevent that in happier times would certainly not have passed\nunreproved. But now she lay within a few inches of the inky\nstream, as heedless as though she were dead in earnest; and,\nhopeless of recalling her to consciousness by anything short of a\npersonal appeal, he knelt down beside her and tapped her sharply\non the shoulder, half wondering at his own temerity as he did so.\nShe shuddered as if, light as the touch had been, it yet had hurt\nher, and muttered impatiently, and like one half asleep:\n\n\"Not now, Hamish! not now!--leave me for the present, I entreat\nyou!\"\n\n\"And why not now?\" Hamish answered almost roughly. \"Do you think\n_you_ only have a cause for grieving? Tell me, my mistress,\nif we, humble as we are, and not to be thought of in comparison\nwith your ladyship's honor, if we have not lost--are losing\nnothing? Ah! if you could but hear the weeping and wailing that\nis going on among the creatures down-stairs, you would never do\nus such a wrong as to suppose that _your_ heart is the only\none sore and bleeding to-day!\"\n\n\"Sore and bleeding! Yes! yes! I doubt it not,\" moaned the lady\nsadly. \"Sore and bleeding; but not widowed--not childless; they\nhave still husbands and children--they have not lost as I have\nlost!\"\n\n\"They have lost--not, may be, quite so much, but yet enough, and\nmore than enough, to set them wailing,\" answered Hamish firmly--\n\"they have lost a master, who was more like a father than a\nmaster, and a young mistress, who was all as one as a daughter to\nevery one of them; and moreover,\" he added mournfully--\"and\nmoreover, instead of the kind hand and generous heart that has\nreigned over them till now, they are going to be handed over, (as\nif they were so many stocks or stones encumbering the land,)\nwhether they like it or whether they don't, to the tender mercies\nof those very men who thought it neither sin nor shame to make\nthe child a shield against the soldier's sword, when they fought\nknee-deep in blood at the siege of Tredagh!\"\n\n\"Why do you say these things, Hamish?\" she almost shrieked in her\nanguish. \"Is it my fault? Could I help it? or why do you reproach\nme with it?\"\n\n\"_Your_ fault! No, indeed, it is not. More's the pity; for\nif you could have helped it, to a dead certainty it never would\nhave happened,\" said Hamish, glad that he had roused her, even if\nonly to a fit of anger. \"But though you cannot prevent these\nthings, my mistress, you can at all events comfort the creatures\nthat have to bear them, by showing that you have feelings for\ntheir sorrows as well as for your own.\"\n\n\"I give comfort! God help me, I give comfort!\" she answered, with\na sort of passionate irony in her manner; adding, however,\nimmediately afterward, in a softer tone, \"How can I give comfort,\nHamish--I who need it so entirely myself?\"\n\n{179}\n\n\"That is the very thing,\" cried Hamish eagerly. \"God love you,\nmadam! Do you not see that the only real comfort you could give\nthem would be the allowing them to try at least and comfort you?\"\n\n\"Bid them pray, then, for the safe journey of my loved ones,\" she\nanswered hoarsely--\"that is the only real comfort they can give\nme.\"\n\n\"And why, then, couldn't we pray all together?\" cried Hamish,\nstruck suddenly by a bright idea. \"Why wouldn't you let them come\nup here, madam? I warrant you they would pray as the best of them\nnever prayed before, if they only seen your ladyship's honor\nkneeling and praying in the midst of them.\"\n\n\"I--I cannot pray--I cannot even think,\" she answered, laying her\nhead once more on her folded arms, like a weary or a chidden\nchild. \"Go you, good Hamish, and pray yourself with them\ndown-stairs.\"\n\n\"In the kitchen, is it?\" said Hamish, with a considerable portion\nof irony in his voice. \"Faix, my lady, and it's queer thoughts\nwe'd have, and queer prayers we would be saying there, with the\npot forenent us, boiling on the fire, and Cromwell's black rogues\nof troopers coming and going, and flinging curses and scraps of\nScriptures (according to their usual custom) in equal measure at\nour heads. No! no! my lady,\" he continued vehemently, \"if you\nwould have us pray at all, it must be here--here where the cross\nwill mind us of a Mother who once stood at its foot, and who was\neven more desolate than you are; a Mother silent and\nheart-broken--not because her Child had gone before her into\nexile, from whence He might any day return, but because she saw\nHim dying--dying in the midst of tortures--and forsaken so\nentirely that it might well have seemed to her (only she knew\n_that_ never could be) as if God as well as man had utterly\nabandoned Him.\"\n\n\"You are right, Hamish; you are right,\" cried Mrs. Netterville\nsuddenly, touched to the quick by his voice and eloquence. \"Go\nyou down at once, good Hamish, and bid them come here directly. I\nshall be ready by the time they are assembled.\"\n\nAs Mrs. Netterville spoke thus, she rose from the floor, and\nthen, all at once perceiving the strange disorder of her attire,\nshe began hastily to gather up her tresses, previous to placing\nher widow's coif upon them.\n\nHamish waited to hear no more, but instantly left the room to do\nher bidding. As he walked rapidly toward the lower part of the\nmansion, he drew a long sigh of relief, like one who has just got\nrid of a heavy burden, as in truth he had; for he felt that he\nhad gained his point, and that whatever his mistress might have\nyet to suffer, she was safe, at all events, from the effects of\nthat first great shock of sorrow which had threatened to overturn\nher intellect.\n\nWhen he returned to announce that the household was assembled and\nwaiting for her further orders he found her kneeling at the\n_prie-dieu_, in all the grave composure of her usual manner.\nShe did not trust herself, however, to look round, but merely\nsigned to him that they should come in; and the instant the noise\nand bustle of their first entrance had subsided, she commenced\nreading from her open missal.\n\nBut the very sound of her own voice in supplicatory accents\nseemed to break the spell which had hitherto been laid upon her\nfaculties. She fairly broke down and burst into a flood of tears.\nThis was more than enough for the excitable hearts around her,\nand the room was filled in a moment with the wailing of her\npeople.\n{180}\nHamish was in despair; and yet, perhaps, no other mode of\nproceeding could have done so much toward calming her as did this\nsudden outburst; for Mrs. Netterville had a true Englishwoman's\naversion to \"scenes,\" however real and natural to the\ncircumstances of the case they might be. She instantly checked\nher tears, and waiting quietly until the storm of grief had in\nsome degree died out, she collected all her energies, and read in\na low, steady voice the prayer or collect for those travelling by\nland or sea, as she found it in her missal. A few other short but\nearnest prayers succeeded, and then she paused once more. Her\naudience took the hint and quietly retired. Hamish was about to\nfollow, but she rose from the _prie-dieu_, and signed to him\nto remain.\n\n\"Hamish,\" she said, gently but decidedly, \"I have done your\nbidding, and now I expect that you will do mine. I wish to be\nalone for the rest of the day--do you understand? alone with God\nand my great sorrow! To-morrow I will begin the work for which I\nhave been left here, but to-day must be my own. Come not here\nyourself, and look to it that no one else disturbs me. Keep a\nheedful watch upon the soldiers, and see that no mischance occurs\nbetween them and any of our people, I trust to you for this and\nall things. Now leave me. If I have need of anything, I will let\nyou know.\"\n\nThere was that in Mrs. Netterville's tone and manner which made\nHamish feel he had gone quite far enough already; so, without\nanother word of remonstrance or expostulation, he made his\nreverence and retired.\n\n\n    Chapter IV.\n\nMrs. Netterville waited until the echo of his retreating\nfootsteps had died away in the corridor, and then fastening the\ndoor so as to secure herself from any further interruption from\nthe outside, she once more fell on her knees before the crucifix,\nand buried her face in both her hands. How long she remained thus\nshe never knew exactly; but the shades of a short January evening\nwere already gathering in the room, when, with a start and a look\nas if her conscience smote her, she rose suddenly from her knees.\n\"Christ pardon me!\" she muttered half aloud, \"that, in my own\nselfish sorrows, I have forgotten others! Poor wretch! By this\ntime he must be well-nigh famished, if, indeed, (though I trust\nit will not,) the delay has not worked him deeper mischief.\"\n\nAs these thoughts passed rapidly through her mind, she opened a\ncupboard close at hand, and drew from thence a bottle of wine,\nwith some other articles of delicate food, packed carefully in a\nwicker-basket, and evidently left there for some especial\npurpose. She then sought through the gloom for a cloak, which she\nthrew upon her shoulders, and, drawing the hood down over her\nface, and taking the basket on her arm, she hastily left the\nroom. Not, however, by the door through which Hamish and the\nservants had retreated, but by another at the opposite end, and\nwhich was almost invisible, in consequence of its forming one of\nthe panels in the black oak wainscoting of the chamber. It led\nher directly by a short stone passage to another door or low\nwicket, on opening which she found herself in the private grounds\nof the castle. Before her at no great distance, stood an old\nivy-covered church, half hidden in a group of tall Irish trees,\nwhich sheltered its little cemetery.\n{181}\nThis was not the parish church, but a private chapel, built by\nthe Netterville family for their own particular use; and here\ntheir infants had been baptized, their daughters married, and\ntheir old men and women laid reverently to their last slumbers,\never since they had established their existence in the land.\n\nMrs. Netterville could not resist a sigh as she glanced toward\nits venerable walls. It seemed as if it were only yesterday that\nshe had gone there to lay down her husband in his lowly grave,\nhoping and praying, out of the depths of her own great grief,\nthat she might soon be permitted to sleep quietly beside him. And\nnow, even this sad hope was to be hers no longer; this poor\npossession of six feet of earth was to be wrested from her;\nstrangers would lay her in a distant grave, and even in death she\nwould be separated from her husband. The thought was too painful\nto bear much lingering upon it, and turning her back upon the\nchurch, Mrs. Netterville followed a path which lay close under\nthe castle walls, and led to a court-yard at a considerable\ndistance. Round this court-yard were grouped stables and other\noffices, which, having been built at different periods and\nwithout any consecutive idea as a whole, presented rather the\nappearance of a collection of stunted farm-houses, than of the\nregular out-buildings of an important mansion.\n\nEach of these houses had a private entrance of its own; and\nopening the door of one of them, Mrs. Netterville looked in\nquietly and entered. The interior was a room, poorly but yet\ndecently furnished, and on a low settle-bed at the farther end\nlay a young man, who, with his sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, had\nall the look of a person just rescued from the jaws of death. A\nknapsack on the floor, a pike and musket in one corner of the\nroom, and a steel cap and buff coat in another, seemed to\nannounce him as one of the band of successful soldiers who were\neven then in possession of the castle.\n\nPoor fellow! he lay, with closed eyes, wan and weary, on his bed,\nlooking, at that moment, like anything rather than like a\nsuccessful soldier; but he lifted his head as he caught the noise\nof the door creaking on its hinges, and his face brightened into\nan expression of joy and gratitude pleasant to behold when he\ndiscovered Mrs. Netterville standing on the threshold.\n\n\"Can you ever forgive me?\" she said, going up to him at once. \"I\ncannot easily forgive myself for having left you so long alone.\nIn the grief and anguish in which I have been plunged all day, I\nhad well-nigh forgotten your existence, and you must be faint, I\nfear me, for want of nourishment.\"\n\n\"Nay, madam,\" he answered, gently, indeed, but yet with a good\ndeal of that comfortable self-assurance in spiritual matters\nwhich seems to have been an especial inheritance of \"Cromwell's\nsaints.\" \"If _you_ have forgotten, the Lord at least hath\nbeen mindful of his servant, and hath cast so deep a slumber on\nmy senses, that I have been altogether unconscious of the lapse\nof time, or of the absence of those carnal comforts which,\nhowever the spirit may rebel against them, are nevertheless not\naltogether to be despised, as being the means by which we receive\nstrength to do the bidding of our Master.\"\n\nMrs. Netterville could not help thinking that the posset-cup and\nsoothing draught, which she had administered the night before,\nmight have had as much as any especial interposition of\nProvidence to say to his seasonable slumbers; but the times were\ntoo much out of joint to permit of her making, however\nreverently, such an observation, so she merely touched his brow\nand hand, and said:\n\n{182}\n\n\"I am right glad, at all events, that you seem in nowise to have\nsuffered from my neglect. Eat now and drink, I pray you; for I\nperceive by this refreshing moisture on your skin that all danger\nhas passed away, and that you need at present no worse physic\nthan good food and wine to restore you to your former strength.\"\n\n\"Nay, madam,\" said the soldier, with great and hardly repressed\nfeeling in his voice and manner. \"Eat or drink I cannot, or in\nany way refresh myself, until I have poured forth my song of\ngratitude, first to the Lord of hosts, who hath delivered me from\nthis great danger, and then to you, who have tended me (even as\nthe widow of Sarepta might have waited on Elias) through the\nperils of a sickness from which my very comrades and\nfellow-laborers in the vineyard fled, trembling and afraid.\"\n\n\"You must pardon them, good Jackson,\" said Mrs. Netterville, \"and\nall the more readily, because this disease, from which you have\nso marvellously recovered, is, men say, in its rapid progress and\nalmost sure mortality, akin, if not indeed wholly similar, to\nthat terrible malady the plague, which is the scourge of the\nEastern nations, and leaves crowded cities, once it has entered\nin, as silent and deserted as the sepulchres of the dead. You\ncannot therefore wonder, and you need not feel aggrieved, if men\nwho would have risked their lives for you on the battle-field,\nyet shrunk from its unseen, and therefore, to poor human nature,\nits more awful dangers.\"\n\n\"Nay, madam, I blame them not; perhaps even in their place I\nshould have done the same. Nevertheless--and though I have no\nill feeling toward them--I cannot forget that you, a Popish woman\nand an enemy, have done that for me which the very children of my\nown household have shrunk from doing, and I would fain show my\ngratitude if I could.\"\n\n\"You can show it, and that right easily, if you will,\" she\nanswered kindly, \"by eating and drinking heartily of the\nprovisions I have brought, and so regaining strength to wait all\nthe sooner on yourself. For I shall soon, as you doubtless know\nalready, have work in hand which will compel me to make my visits\nfewer; and yet I shall not like to risk other lives by sending\nany of the household to wait on you in my stead.\"\n\n\"Alas! madam, I fear I have been but a troublesome and\nunprofitable, though not altogether, I do assure you, a thankless\nguest,\" the man answered, in a somewhat sad and deprecatory\nmanner.\n\n\"Nay; but now you mistake me altogether,\" she answered earnestly.\n\"You have been a most patient sufferer, and that trouble--which\nis altogether unavoidable in any sickness--has been, you may\nbelieve me, a pleasure rather than an uneasiness to me. I only\nmeant to say that, though I shall still continue to visit you\nmorning and evening, I shall not be able to come so often in the\ndaytime as I have been used to do; for all matters in this sad\naffair of the transplantation having fallen into my hands, you\nmay well imagine it is as much or more than one poor woman can\nwell accomplish by her own unaided efforts.\"\n\n\"Would that I could aid you,\" he answered fervently--\"would that\nI could comfort you! But, alas! in this matter of the\ntransplantation, I can do naught, seeing that it is the Lord\nhimself who hath girded on our swords, bidding us to smite and\nspare not.\n{183}\nNevertheless, lady, I am not ungrateful, and in the long,\nsleepless nights of my weary malady I have wrestled for you in\nprayer, striving exceedingly and being much exercised on your\naccount; nor gave I over until I had received the comfortable\nassurance that, as the Lord sent angels to Lot to deliver him out\nof Sodom, so he would some day make of me a shield and a defence,\nwhereby you might be snatched from the woes that he is about to\nrain down on this land, because 'the cry of its idolatry is waxen\ngreat before his face,' and he hath sworn to destroy it.\"\n\n\"Well, well!\" she answered a little impatiently, \"I thank you for\nyour good-will, at all events; but for the present we will\ndiscourse no further on this matter. God will one day judge\nbetween us, and by his fiat I am content to stand or fall, in all\nthose matters of religion on which, unhappily, we differ. See, I\nhave trimmed the lamp so that it will burn brightly until\nmorning, and there is food and wine on this little table. I will\nput it close to the bed, so that when you need nourishment, you\nwill have but to put forth your hand to take it. And now I must\nsay good-night--to-morrow I will be with you by the early dawn.\"\n\nHaving thus done all that either charity or hospitality could ask\nat her hands, Mrs. Netterville retired from the room, sooner,\nprobably, than she would have done if the soldier's last words\nhad not grated on her ear, and roused more angry passions than\nshe wished to yield to in her breast.\n\n\"He has a good heart, poor wretch,\" she thought, as she took her\nway back to the castle; \"but strange and fearful is it to see how\npride, in him, as in all his comrades, usurps the place of true\nhumility and religion.\"\n\nThe sudden sound of a pistol going off disturbed her in the midst\nof her cogitations; and with a pang of indescribable fear and\npresentiment of evil at her heart, she stood still. It seemed to\ncome from the grove of yew-trees round the church, and was not\nrepeated. Having ascertained this fact, she walked rapidly\nforward in the direction of the sound, her mind in a perfect\nwhirl of fear, and only able to shape itself into the one\nthought, pregnant of future evil, that, either by some of her own\npeople, or by one of the English soldiers, a murder had been\ncommitted. Just as she entered the grove of yew-trees, she\nperceived something like the loose garb of a woman fluttering\ndown the path before her, and then suddenly disappearing behind\nthe tower of the little church. She did not dare to call out; but\nfeeling certain that this person must either have fired the shot\nherself, or have seen it fired by some one else, she quickened\nher pace in order to overtake her. Twilight was already deepening\namong the yew-trees; the path, moreover, was overgrown with weeds\nand brambles, and as she ran with her eyes fixed on the spot\nwhere the figure had disappeared, she felt herself suddenly\ntripped up by some object lying right before her, and fell\nheavily against it. At the first touch of that unseen something,\na sense of terror, such as animals are said to be conscious of in\nthe presence of their own dead, seized upon her senses, and all\nthe blood was curdling in her veins as slowly and with difficulty\nshe removed herself from its contact. Gradually, as she recovered\nfrom the stunning effects of her fall, and her eyes grew\naccustomed to the gloom around her, the \"thing\" on the ground\nshaped itself into the form of a human being--but of a human\nbeing so still and motionless, that it seemed probable it was a\ncorpse already.\n{184}\nVery reluctantly she put forth her hand to try if life were\nreally extinct; but suddenly discovering that she was dabbling it\nin a pool of yet warm blood, she withdrew it with a shudder.\n\n\"My God! my God!\" she moaned, \"what enemy hath done this? Surely\nit is one of the soldiers from the castle, and they will accuse\nour people of the murder! Grant Heaven, indeed, that they are\ninnocent! Would that Hamish were here to help me. Yet no! they\nwould certainly in that case try to fix the guilt on him. I will\ngo hence and let them discover it as they can. Yet what if I\nshould meet them? I am all dabbled in his gore!\"\n\nWith a new and sharp terror in her heart, as this thought took\npossession of it, she began hastily to rub her hands in the moss\nand dry leaves around her, in order to free them from the blood\nwhich clung to them; and she was still engaged in this rather\nequivocal occupation when a sudden stream of light was cast on\nher from behind, and, rising suddenly, she found herself face to\nface with the officer who had been left in command of the\ngarrison of the castle.\n\nHalf-a-dozen of his men were at his back, and by the light of the\nlantern, which he carried, she read in their faces their\nconviction of her guilt. At a sign from their chief they\nsurrounded her in awful silence, and he himself laid his hand\nheavily on her shoulder:\n\n\"Murderess!\" he said, \"thou art taken in thy sin!\"\n\n\"I did it not,\" cried Mrs. Netterville, so utterly confounded by\nthis terrible accusation that she hardly knew what she said. \"So\nhelp me Heaven! I am innocent of this deed!\"\n\n\"Innocent! sayest thou?\" the officer answered firmly. \"Innocent!\nthou with his blood red upon thy hands! Yea, and thy very\ngarments clotted in his gore! If then thou art innocent, as thou\nwouldst have us to believe, say what wert thou doing in this\nlonely spot at an hour when none but the murderer or the wanton\nwould care to be abroad?\"\n\n\"I was returning from a visit to the soldier Jackson--a visit\nwhich, as thou knowest, Master Rippel, I pay him every evening at\nthe hour of dusk; and I had well-nigh reached the castle, when\nhearing a shot in this direction, and fearing mischief either for\nmy own people or for thine, I came hither if possible to prevent\nit.\"\n\n\"A likely story, truly!\" replied the officer, who, unluckily for\nher, was one of the fiercest, if not the saintliest, of the band\nof warriors then domiciled at the castle. \"Nay, woman, and for\nthine own sake hold thy peace, or out of thine own mouth thou\nshalt stand presently condemned. For tell me, my masters,\" he\nadded, addressing the other men, \"where will you find a woman,\nwho, hearing a shot, and dreading mischief, would not have fled\nfrom the danger, instead of incontinently rushing, as she would\nhave us to believe she did, into its very jaws?\"\n\n\"Yet have I rushed into the jaws of danger more than once already\nwithin this fortnight, and that not for the sake of my own people\nbut of thine; as none ought to know better than thou, Master\nRippel, and thy comrades,\" Mrs. Netterville, now fairly put upon\nher mettle, retorted bravely.\n\n\"Nay, and that is naught but the very truth, though the father of\nlies (which is Beelzebub) himself had said it,\" one of the men\nhere ventured to remark. \"For surely, Captain Rippel, you cannot\nhave forgotten that we should have had a soldier the less in the\ncamp of Israel, if she had not nursed the good youth Jackson\nthrough this black business of the plague, when we, even we, men\nanointed and girded to the fight, did hesitate to go near him.\"\n\n{185}\n\n\"Ha! Dost thou also venture to defend her?\" cried the officer\nangrily. \"Nay, then, let that woman which is called Deborah be\nbrought forward and confronted with the prisoner. Her testimony\nmust decide between us.\"\n\nOne or two of the soldiers who had been lingering at a little\ndistance in the dusky twilight now advanced, half pushing before\nthem, half leading, the very woman who had addressed Nellie so\nimpudently in the morning. She came forward with a strange\nmixture of eagerness and reluctance in her manner; willing\nenough, it might be, to bear false testimony against her\nneighbor, but very unwilling to be confronted with its object.\n\nThey placed her face to face with Mrs. Netterville, and the\ncaptain turned his lantern so that the light fell full on the\nfeatures of the latter. They were cold and calm, and almost\ndisdainful in their expression, now that she knew who was her\naccuser; and Deborah, spite of all her efforts to brazen out the\ninterview, cowered beneath her glance of scorn.\n\n\"Nay, but look well upon her, Deborah,\" said the captain, seeing\nthat her eyes fell beneath those of the woman she had accused.\n\"Look well upon her, and say if this be not that Moabitish woman\nwhom thou sawest, as thou wert lingering (for no good purpose, I\ndo fear me greatly) in the shadow of the trees--whom thou sawest,\nsay I, steal hither between light and darkness, and treacherously\ndo to death our brother Tomkins, who, being--as methinks you\nrevealed to me just now--wearied overmuch with prayer and holding\nforth, (he was, as I myself can testify, a man of most precious\ndoctrine, and greatly favored in the gift of preaching,) had come\nhither to repose himself.\"\n\n\"Nay,\" said the woman, speaking in very tolerable English, an\naccomplishment she had picked up when in service in Dublin; \"of\nthat great weariness caused by too much prayer and preaching.\nMaster Rippel, I said naught--my own impression being,\" she\nadded, unable even before such an audience to repress the gibe,\n\"that the slumberous inclinations of worthy Master Tomkins had\nbeen caused by a somewhat too ardent devotion lately tendered to\nthe wine-cask.\"\n\n\"Peace, scoffer! peace!\" cried the captain. \"And if thou wouldst\nhave thy blasphemy against the Lord and against his saints\nforgiven, in this world or the next, look once more on the face\nof the prisoner, and be not shamefaced or afraid, but say out\nboldly whether you can swear to her in a court of justice as\nbeing the person whom you espied just now in the act--yea, the\nvery act of murder.\"\n\n\"I can,\" said the woman shortly, and avoiding the eye of Mrs.\nNetterville as she spoke.\n\n\"Thou canst?\" the latter said in a tone of indignant\nastonishment. \"And pray, if thou wert watching me so narrowly,\nwhy didst thou not endeavor to prevent me?--why not strike up my\nweapon?--why not cry out, at least, so as to rouse up the\nsleeping soldier?\"\n\n\"I did what I could,\" the woman sullenly responded. \"I sought out\nhis comrades. It was their look-out, not mine, and to them\naccordingly I left it.\"\n\n{186}\n\n\"She speaks the truth, as we who so lately heard her tale can\ntestify,\" the captain answered quickly. \"You see, my men,\" he\nadded, addressing the other soldiers, \"Beelzebub is divided\nagainst himself, and the very children of his kingdom bear\nwitness against each other. Surely the woman Netterville is\nguilty. Take her, therefore, some of you, a prisoner to the\ncastle, while the rest prepare a decent burial for our murdered\nbrother. I myself must speak apart with the witness Deborah, in\norder to put her testimony into a fitting shape to be laid before\nthe court of my lords, the high commissioners of justice.\"\n\n\n  Chapter V.\n\nThe sun had climbed well-nigh midway in the heavens, lighting up\nClew Bay and its hundred isles until they glinted like emeralds\nin the blue setting of the sea, as an old, white-haired man and a\nyoung girl--the latter carrying a small bundle in one hand, while\nwith the other she supported the failing strength of her\ncompanion, made their way, slowly and painfully, along the valley\nthrough which runs the bright \"Eriff\" river on its way to the\nocean. Following the up course of the stream, they had passed,\nalmost without knowing it, through some of the finest of the\nmountain scenery of the west, up hill and down hill, by pretty\ncascades, in which the river seemed to be playing with the\nobstacles which opposed it; round huge bare shoulders of rifted\nand out-jutting rock; through dark, deep purple gorges, which\nlooked as if the mountains had been wrenched violently asunder in\norder to produce them; and now, at last, they found themselves in\na quiet, dreary-looking glen, where cushions of soft moss and\nyielding heather seemed to woo them to repose. Nevertheless,\nfootsore and worn out as they evidently were, they continued to\npress bravely forward until they had nearly arrived at the\nfarther end of the valley; but by that time the old man's head\nhad begun to droop wearily on his breast, and his steps had\nbecome so languid and uncertain that it was evident it would be\nperilous to proceed farther without giving him the rest he so\nabsolutely required. Choosing, therefore, a little nook, where\nthe turf grew soft and dry, and where clusters of tall fern and\nheather, rising nearly six feet from the root, seemed to promise\nat least partial shelter from the midday sun, the girl quietly\ndisposed of her bundle as a pillow for his head, and invited him\nwith a smile to a siesta. He obeyed as readily as if he had been\na child, and she then sat down beside him, crooning an old\nnursery lullaby to hush him into slumber. But she sought no such\nsalutary oblivion for herself; and no sooner had his eyes begun\nto close in sleep than she rose, and, as if anxiety had rendered\nher incapable of remaining quiet, wandered restlessly on until\nshe reached the top of a hill which shut in the valley from the\nland beyond. There she paused, fear and foreboding, weariness and\nsorrow, all forgotten or swallowed up in the breathless\nadmiration which took instant possession of her soul. Around her,\ncrumbled and tumbled in all directions, were hills bare indeed of\ntrees, but green to the very summit, and strangely picturesque in\nthe fantastic variety of their forms. There were quiet glens and\nsolemn, rock-strewn passes, with streamlets swelled into\ncataracts by the rains of spring, yet looking in the distance\nlike mere threads of liquid silver spirting from their rugged\nsides. There were long brown tracts of peat land, brightened and\nrelieved by patches of golden, flowering gorse, or of that thin\nherbage which, in its perfectly emerald green, is only to be seen\nin such like boggy places; and over and above all this, there\nwere the shadowy outlines of more than one far-off range of\nmountains melting into the delicate blue background of the sky,\nand changing color, as rapidly as the young cheek of beauty,\nbeneath the ever-shifting lights and shadows of that \"cloud\nscenery\" which is nowhere more\nbeautiful or varied than in Ireland.\n{187}\nTo the left, and looking, in the clear atmosphere, so close that\nshe almost felt she could have touched it with her outstretched\nhand, rose \"Croagh Patrick,\" sacred to the memory of Ireland's\ngreat apostle; and Clew Bay lay, or seemed to lie, bright and\nshining at her feet--Clew Bay, with its gracefully winding shore,\nand its archipelago of islets; some bold, beetling rocks, ready\nand able to do battle with the storm, others mere baskets of\nverdure floating on the tide; while the largest and most\npicturesque of them all, the sea, girt kingdom of Grana-Uaile,\nClare Island, stood bravely up, cliff over cliff, at the very\nmouth of the harbor, guarding it against the winter encroachments\nof the Atlantic, which, green as liquid jasper, and calm, in that\nsummer weather, as a giant sleeping in the sunshine, unrolled\nitself beyond. Long and wistfully Nellie fixed her gaze upon that\nfair prospect; and it was with a strange reluctance and\nforeboding of future sorrow, that she at last withdrew in order\nto examine attentively that portion of the country which lay more\nimmediately around her, and with which she believed herself about\nto be more intimately connected. As she did so, a building,\nperched half-way up a hill, rather more inland than that upon\nwhich she herself was standing, attracted her eye, and she\ngasped, with a sudden mingling of hope and fear, like a person\nchoking; for she felt a sudden conviction that in the wild,\nuncultivated lands beneath her she beheld the portion assigned to\nher grandfather by the commissioners at Loughrea, and in that\nedifice, which seemed to have been built for the express purpose\nof commanding and overawing the entire district, the house in\nwhich they had told her she was to establish her new home.\n_House_, indeed, it could scarcely be called in anything\nlike the modern acceptation of the term, though it was probably\nperfectly well suited to the wants and wishes of the wild\nchieftains by whom it had been erected. The original building had\nconsisted of a single tower, of which the rough, rude walls,\nformed of huge stones, put unhammered and uncemented together,\nbetrayed its origin in times so far remote as to have no history\neven in the oldest annals of the land. Added on to this gray\nrelic of the past, however, a new building was now evidently in\nprocess of erection. It was far from finished yet, as Nellie knew\nby the poles and scaffoldings around it; but even in its embryo\nstate it bore a terribly suspicious resemblance to that square,\nsimple fortalice type of building which seems to have been the\none architectural idea of Cromwell's Irish drafted soldiers, and\nwhich still remains in many places, the silent but\nuncontrovertible witness--the seal which they themselves have set\nupon their forcible and unjust possession of the land. The very\nlook of that half-finished building seemed an answer to Nellie's\nlate foreboding, and with a sinking heart she turned her back\nupon it and retraced her steps to the place where she had left\nLord Netterville. The old man had already shaken off his fitful\nslumbers, and was toiling feebly up the hill.\n\n{188}\n\nNellie ran back to fetch her bundle, which he had been unable to\nbring with him; but overtaking him in an instant, she gave him\nher arm, led him to the spot from whence she had just been taking\nher bird's-eye view of the country, and, pointing to the\nfortalice in process of erection, watched anxiously to discover\nwhat sort of impression it would make on his mind. But either he\ndid not observe it, or did not take in the peculiar significance\nof its presence in those wilds; and finding that he remained\nsilent and apparently unmoved, she collected all her remaining\nenergy to say cheerfully:\n\n\"Look at that old gray tower to the right. If the man whom we met\nthis morning among the hills spoke truth, we have reached the end\nof our weary journey, and yonder is our future home. It is not\nlike our own dear Netterville, indeed, and yet it seems a goodly\nenough mansion. So goodly,\" she added, stealing a glance beneath\nher long lashes to see how he took the insinuation, \"that I\nalmost wonder they should have dealt thus kindly by us; for I\nknow that many of the first of the 'transplanted' have had their\nlots assigned them in places where there was not even the hut of\na peasant to shelter them from the weather.\"\n\n\"Tush, child! talk not to me of houses,\" the old man answered\nquerulously, too much occupied with the actual disadvantages of\nhis position to catch the hidden drift of Nellie's observation.\n\"What boots a goodly mansion, if starvation be at its portal? And\nwhat, I pray you, but starvation are they condemned to, who have\nbeen sent to make themselves a home among these barren\nmountains?\"\n\nNellie suffered her eyes to roam once more over the bright waters\nof the bay, and then, with a quick sense of beauty kindling up in\nher soul, she turned them hopefully upon Lord Netterville.\n\n\"Nay, dear grandfather, it is, after all, a country fair and\npleasant to the eye, and once my dear mother rejoins us with the\ncows and 'garrans,' there can be no lack of plenty, even in these\nwilds.\"\n\n\"Cows and garrans! And where are we to feed them, girl? Do you\nexpect to find the pleasant grazing-lands of Meath on the tops of\nthese barren hills? or are we to fatten our flocks on the\nsea-drift, which, I have heard say, the natives of these wilds\nare in the habit of gathering on the shore and boiling down into\nfood, not for their cattle, (they have none, poor wretches!) but\nthemselves?\"\n\n\"Some of these hills certainly look black and bare enough, but\nstill I doubt not that among their glens and hollow places we\nshall find many a good acre of green grass for the grazing of our\ncattle,\" the girl answered patiently, and with an evident\ndetermination to look, for the present at least, only on the\nbright side of the question. \"And now, dear sir,\" she added\ngently, \"had we not best move onward? for if yonder tower is\nreally to be our home, the sooner we are there the better.\"\n\nShe glanced toward the castle as she spoke, and the old man saw\nthat she started violently as she did so. She said not another\nword, however; but he fancied that her cheek grew a shade\npaler--if that were possible--than it had been before, as she\ncontinued to gaze silently in that direction.\n\n\"What is it, Nellie?\" he cried at last, frightened by her strange\nlooks and silence. \"What do you see, child, that you look so\nwhite and scared?\"\n\n\"See!\" she answered slowly and reluctantly, \"there seems to be a\nparty of many people gathering in the court-yard; the house,\ntherefore, must be inhabited already!\"\n\n{189}\n\n\"People in the court-yard!\" cried the old man, now fairly aroused\nto that same fear which had been haunting Nellie for the last\nhalf-hour. \"What people, Nellie? Tell me, child, if you can\ndistinguish whether they seem to be natives or strangers to the\nplace. Our fate, alas! may be dependent on that fact.\"\n\nThe girl walked forward, and shading her eyes with her hand from\nthe blinding sunshine, looked again, and yet again, in the\ndirection of the tower.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said at last; \"I was not mistaken. There is a party in\nthe court-yard, and some of them are even standing in the\ngate-way, as if they had but this instant stept forth from the\nmansion. Surely, grandfather, we cannot have misunderstood or\nmistaken our instructions? There is no other building to be\nseen--even in the distance--and this one answers in all respects\nto the description. The man, too, from whom we inquired our way\nthis morning, assured us that it was called 'The Rath'--the very\nname set down in our certificate. We cannot have been mistaken,\nand yet--and yet--if there be persons already in possession,\ntheir claim must needs be superior to our own.\"\n\nShe spoke hesitatingly, and in broken sentences, as if she were\nfollowing out a train of thought in her own mind, rather than\naddressing her companion. He listened anxiously, and a cloud\ngathered on his brow as he gradually took in her meaning.\n\n\"It may be only some of the natives,\" he said at last, in a low\nvoice. \"The original owners, perhaps, of the tower, who have\nwaited our arrival before giving up possession.\"\n\n\"Owners!\" said Nellie quickly. \"They told us at Loughrea that the\nowner had perished in the war, and that therefore we should find\nit empty.\"\n\n\"They may have been mistaken, Nellie. They know little enough, I\nthink, those high and mighty commissioners at Loughrea, of the\nland of which they are so liberally disposing; and still less, I\ndoubt me, of its original possessors.\"\n\n\"And if they are mistaken, we shall take the place of the\nrightful owners, and so deal out to others the very measure which\nour enemies have dealt to us. Grandfather, if we are guilty of\nthis thing, we shall have a twofold sin upon our souls--their\niniquity and our own.\"\n\n\"What would you have, child?\" he answered pettishly; for, truth\nto say, he had yet quite enough of the Englishman about him, not\nto be over-particular as to the rights of the native Irish. \"What\nwould you have? Did you not know already that, in the acceptation\nof these lands, we were taking that which it was neither in the\nCromwellians' right to give or in ours to receive? And what if an\nold tumble-down tower be thrown into the bargain? Trust me,\nNellie, the business is so black already that, like the face of\nhis Satanic majesty, who is the author of it, a little more or\nless of smutch will hardly make it blacker or uglier than it is.\"\n\n\"I never thought of this before,\" said Nellie sadly; \"I thought\nonly--fool that I was, so selfishly intent on my own\nmisfortunes--I thought only of tracts of land left barren for\nwant of inhabitants to till them, and of houses emptied by the\nfate of war. I never dreamed of men and women and little children\nturned out of their pleasant homes to make room for us--us who\nhave as little right to their possessions as the English soldiers\nhave to ours!\"\n\n{190}\n\n\"Nevertheless it has been done in almost every other case of\ntransplantation which I have heard of,\" the old man answered\nrestlessly. \"And the iniquity--for it _is_ an iniquity--is\ntheirs who have driven us to such spoliation, not ours who have\nbeen compelled in our own despite to do it.\"\n\nBut Nellie was far too noble, and too clear-sighted in her\nnobleness, to shelter her actions behind such a subterfuge, and\nshe answered vehemently:\n\n\"But it must not be in ours, sir--it must not be in ours! We\nwill go down at once, and if the persons whom we see yonder be\nthe rightful owners of that tower, we will merely crave rest and\nhospitality at their hands, until such a time as we have found a\nplace, however humble, in which, without injury to honor or\nconscience, we can make ourselves a home.\"\n\n\"As you will, Nellie--as you will,\" he answered, too weary,\nperhaps, to be able longer to dispute the point. \"But after all,\nwe may be mistaken as to the ownership of these people. Look\nagain, and tell me, if you can, whether they are clad like\nEnglishmen, or in the native weeds?\"\n\n\"Not in the native weeds, I think, my father. Rather I should\nsay, if it were not impossible, that the men whom I see down\nyonder belonged to the army of the oppressor. Ha! Now a lady is\ncoming forth, and now they are mounting her, and a tall, stately\npersonage in--yes--certainly in military attire, is mounting\nalso, and takes his place at her side. Now half a dozen servants,\nI suppose, or friends, are on their horses likewise, and now they\nare moving forward. Father, they must come this way, there is\nnone other that I can see by which horses can pass with safety.\nLet us wait for them behind the bank, and then, when they are\nnear enough, we will accost them, and if they be of the\nconquering army, show them our certificate. They will, of course,\nbow to its authority, and help us to take possession of that\nhouse which the document assigns us. I am glad a woman is among\nthem; it will make it easier, I think, to speak.\"\n\nAs Nellie ran on thus, she drew her grandfather with her behind a\nbank which dipt down suddenly upon the path, narrowing it until\nit was all but impassable to riders. There, with pale face and\ntightened breath, she nervously awaited the advent of the party\nupon whose favorable or unfavorable disposition toward them she\nfelt her own fate and Lord Netterville's to be so painfully\ndependent.\n\n\n      To Be Continued.\n\n--------\n\n{191}\n\n\n      The Roman Gathering. [Footnote 46]\n\n      By W. G. Dix.\n\n    [Footnote 46: We give place to the above article in our\n    columns, though from a non-Catholic pen, thinking that it\n    will be read with interest by our readers, while it\n    indicates, at the same time, the religious tendencies which\n    are becoming more and more prevalent among not a small class\n    of minds in our country.--Editor C. W.]\n\n\n\nA man of many years, without vast temporal resources, despoiled\nof a part of his possessions, having many and vigorous enemies\nabout him, and regarded by many even of those who profess the\nChristian faith as about to fall from his high place in\nChristendom, such a man invites his brethren of the apostolical\nministry throughout the world to honor by their personal presence\nat Rome the anniversary of the martyrdom, eighteen hundred years\nago, of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and to join with him in the\nexaltation of martyrs who, like them, though in far distant\nlands, were \"faithful unto death.\" They respond with eager joy\nand haste to the call, and those who cannot go send on the wings\nof the wind their words of loving veneration.\n\nTo say not a word of the spiritual claims of the man who sent\nforth the invitation, so eagerly and widely accepted, there is in\nthe fact just stated a glowing evidence that, even in these days\nof triumphant and insolent materialism, moral power has not\nentirely lost ascendency. Though millions of knees are bent in\nhonor of the Dagon of materialism, in some one or other of its\nmyriad forms of degrading idolatry, yet millions of hearts also\nrecognize the gift of God as present evermore in his holy church.\nNever before has the Catholic Church beheld so great a multitude,\nfrom so distant places, assembled at her call at the central city\nof the faith.\n\nThe enemies of catholicity have again and again referred to the\ngreat inventions of modern times as sure destroyers of the claims\nof the Catholic Church and of her hold upon her millions of\nmembers; but lo! these very inventions are brought into the\nservice of the church. The printing-press, which was going to\nannihilate the Catholic Church, has proved one of her most\neffectual bulwarks; millions of printed pages inspire the\ndevotion of her children, and make known her claims to reading\nmen, until many who were even her enemies and revilers, from\nignorance and prejudice, acknowledge their error, and make haste\nto go to \"their father's house.\" Steam, in the view of many, was\nabout so to change the structure of society that the old and\ndecrepid Church of Rome, the great obstacle on the railroad of\nmaterialism, was about to be run over and cast to the roadside, a\nweak and useless wreck; but lo! the power of steam enables\nhundreds and thousands more to go up to the sacred city, as the\ntribes of Israel were wont to visit Jerusalem, than could\notherwise attend the festivals of the faith in St. Peter's\nChurch. Of the manifold uses of steam, a large proportion is in\nthe service of catholic truth. And then the telegraph; that,\nsurely, was to show an advanced state of civilization which could\nnot tolerate the slow and ancient ways of catholicity; but lo!\nhere, again, the event has contradicted the prophecy; for, by\nmeans of the telegraph, the assemblage of the vast host at Rome\nwas known throughout the world on the very day of its occurrence;\nand almost literally, in all parts of Christendom, thousands of\ndevout worshippers could turn their faces reverently toward the\naltar of God in Rome at the very instant when those in its\nimmediate presence were bending before it, and could join in the\nsame prayers and anthems, as though the world itself were one\nvast St. Peter's Church, and the strains of penitence and hymns\nof joy could reverberate across oceans and mountains, among\ndistant nations and islands of the sea, as among the corridors\nand arches of one great temple sacred to the triune God.\n\n{192}\n\nAs in these instances, so in many others, the church has extended\nher sway and deepened her power by the very forces which many\nsupposed would work her ruin. The history of the church has shown\nin the domain of natural science, so often applied in the service\nof infidelity and disorder, as in the field of human passion,\nthat God will make the wrath of man to praise him, and turn\nweapons designed to attack his holy Church into her consecrated\narmor of defence. The grace of God so overrules the inventions of\nman and the powers of nature, that even the terrible lightning\nbecomes the vivid messenger to convey to the ends of the earth\nthe benediction of the Vicar of Christ.\n\nWhat is the chief lesson of the recent gathering at Rome? It is\nthis, that the church of God, so often, in the view of her\nenemies, destroyed, will not stay destroyed; that after every\n\"destruction\" she renews her invincible youth, and rises to\npursue her career of conquest over sin, prejudice, and wrong;\nthat, though she may bend awhile to the storm that beats upon her\nsacred head, she has never been wholly overcome; that,\nnotwithstanding all that mortal enmity, defection, outrage, have\ndone or can do, she yet lifts her forehead to the sky to be anew\nbaptized with light from the sun of truth above; and, strong in\nthe faith and promise of the Eternal God, she falters not in her\nendeavors, patient and persistent, to subdue the world to Christ.\n\nThe history of the Catholic Church abounds with instances like\nthe Roman gathering in June, which prove that her hours of\naffliction are those very ones when her faithful children gather\nto her side, to assure her of their prayers and support, and to\ndiscern upon her saintly face those \"smiles through tears,\"\nwhich, in times of trial, are the warmest and most touching\nacknowledgments of filial veneration.\n\nThe commemorative assemblage at the capital of Christendom,\nsignifies that the church of God is indestructible by any forces\nthat earth or hell, singly or united, can bring against her. She\nmay be at times like the bird in the snare of the fowler; but she\nis sure of being released at length, and then she plumes her\nwings afresh, and soars heavenward, filling the air with the\ndivine, exultant music of her voice. The powerful of the earth\nhave sometimes loaded the church with fetters; but by the\nstrength of Christ that dwells evermore in her, she has broken\nthe bonds asunder, or, by his transforming grace, they have\nbecome the wreaths and garlands of new victory, even as the cross\nof humiliation has become, by the sacrifice of our Lord, the\nemblem of unfading glory.\n\nThe church of Christ, bearing on her brow his holy seal, and in\nher hands his gifts of power, knelt in sorrow at his grave; but\nshe hailed his resurrection with joy, and was endowed anew with\ntreasures of immortal life.\n{193}\nAfterward, the might of heathendom arose against her, and she\ndescended from the wrath of man into the catacombs; but she\nreascended, to wear upon her brow the diadem of a spiritual\nempire that shall never fall until the elements shall melt with\nfervent heat; and even then, true to all her history in deriving\nnew glory from every apparent defeat, she will rise again from\nthe great grave of nature to enjoy for ever the vision of God.\nKings of the earth have denied her right to invest the pastors of\nher children with their due prerogatives, and have even dared her\nto mortal combat; but though distressed and thwarted, she has\nnever relinquished her inherent rights, and she never will. As\nmany times as the head of the church on earth has been driven\nfrom Rome by armed, ungrateful violence, so many times exactly\nhas he been welcomed back with tears of penitence and shouts of\nrapture.\n\nDespoiled of treasures committed to her care by faithful stewards\nof God's bounty, she has labored with her own hands to feed her\nneedy children. At one time, persecuted in the wilderness, she\nhas found a refuge and a welcome in the courts of princes; at\nanother, driven from the courts of princes, because she would not\ndeny her Lord or her divine commission, she has found a humble\nsanctuary in the wilderness, and knelt upon the bare earth to\nadore the Lord of life and light, once the child in the manger,\nand to invoke all the saints in glory to plead her cause in the\near of infinite justice and goodness.\n\nShe has spurned the anointed king from the temple of God, until\nhe repented of his crime; and on the head of the lowly monk who\nwas spending his days in labor and prayer, she has placed the\ntriple crown. With one hand she has bathed with \"baptismal dew\"\nthe brow of the day-laborer's child, while the other she has\nraised in defiance of imperial might, which dared to assail her\nholy altar.\n\nOne of the most violent objections to the Catholic Church has\nbeen urged for the very reason that she has so faithfully held\nthe balance between the contending forces of society. She has\nbeen accused of favoring the claims of absolutism or popular\ndemands, as the triumph of either at the time would favor her own\nends, irrespective of right. The charge is unjust, is urged by\nmany who know better, yet it springs from an honest\nmisapprehension in many minds. It would have been utterly\nimpossible for an institution, designed to enlighten and guide\nmankind in its higher relations, not to touch human interests of\nevery kind, and human institutions generally in many ways; yet\nthe challenge may safely be given to any thoughtful student of\nhistory, to acknowledge with candor, whatever may be his\necclesiastical position, that the Catholic Church, having often\nbeen chosen to be, and having an inherent right to be, the umpire\nbetween the rights of authority and the rights of individuals,\nhas faithfully labored to sustain lawful authority when assailed\nby the wild fury of misguided multitudes, and that she has\ninterposed her powerful shield, often with the most triumphant\nsuccess, to protect men whose rights as men were assailed by\nauthority changed by ambition into arrogant and exacting tyranny.\nWhat inconsistency and insincerity have been charged against the\nCatholic Church for this remarkable and noble fact in her\nhistory! In this respect the Catholic Church has followed\nstrictly in the steps of her Divine Author, who, when on earth,\ninvariably upheld the rights of authority, while vehemently\ndenouncing those who unjustly exercised it; and while going about\ndoing good, the friend of the friendless and the helper of the\nhelpless, pleading with divine eloquence, and laboring with\ndivine power for the outcast and the poor, never and nowhere\nsanctioned the spirit of insurrection, but enjoined obedience as\none of the main duties of life.\n{194}\nHence, it has come about, by one of those sublime mysteries,\nwhich prove the divine origin of Christianity, that the greatest\nrevolution which has ever taken place in religious belief and in\ncivil society in all their bearings, has been effected by the\nteachings, by the life and death of one who by no word or deed\never assailed authority itself or incited resistance to it.\n\nBeauty and order being the same thing, and religious truth being\nthe beauty of holiness, Christ, who was truth in person, must\nhave made his church the friend and upholder of all beauty and\norder; and so it has proved for eighteen hundred years. The\nchurch has been the celestial crucible in which whatever of human\nart or invention had within it the essential attributes of higher\nand spiritual goodness has been purified and adapted to the\nservice of religion. Has poetry sought to please the imaginations\nof men? the church of Christ unfolded before her the annals of\nChristianity, with her grand central sacrifice of infinite love,\nand all her demonstrations of heroic suffering and courageous\nfaith; and poetry drew holier inspiration from the view, and\nincited men by higher motives to a higher life. Have painting and\nsculpture sought to represent objects of refining grace and\nsublimity? the church of Christ persuaded them to look into the\nrecords of the Christian past, and there they found treasures of\nbeauty and splendor, devotion and martyrdom, whose wealth of\nillustration as examples; incentives, and memorials, art has not\nexhausted for centuries, and will never exhaust. Christian\nhistory is the inexhaustible quarry of whatever is most noble and\nheroic in man, purified by the grace of God. Has architecture\nsought to invest stone with the attributes of spiritual and\nintellectual grace? the church of God has so portrayed before her\nthe sublimities of the Christian faith, that she knelt at her\nfeet in veneration, and thenceforth consecrated herself to build\nenduring structures, which, the more they show of human power and\nskill, the more they persuade men to the worship of God. Has\neloquence sought to nerve men for the grand conflicts of life?\nthe church of Christ has touched the lips of eloquence with\nliving fire from her altar, until have sprung forth words that\nflamed with love to man and love to God. Has music sought to\nweave her entrancing spells around the ear and heart and soul?\nthe church of Christ has breathed into music her own divine\nbeing, until the music of the church seems like beatific worship,\nand worship on earth like beatific music.\n\nAs in these respects, so in others, the church has made a holy\nconquest of whatever is noblest among the endowments of men. In\nspeaking of Catholic history, even from the secular point of\nview, it may be justly said, that nowhere else has there been\nsuch wonderful discernment of the various capacities of the human\nmind, and of their various adaptations. Tenacious of the truth\nand of all its prerogatives, the Catholic Church has,\nnevertheless, allowed a wide liberty of thought. That the\nCatholic Church has narrowed the understandings of men, is a\nsingular charge to make in the face of the schools of Catholic\nphilosophy, in which men of varying mental structure, training,\nor habits of thought, have had full, free play of their\nfaculties.\n{195}\nAnd where else have there been so many free and varying\nactivities as in the Catholic Church? The false charge that the\nchurch fetters the minds and movements of men, may be traced to\nthe fact that all Catholic diversities of thought have converged,\nlike different rays of light, in the elucidation of truth, and\nthat varying modes of Catholic action have had one object--the\nadvancement of truth.\n\nHere is the intended force of all these illustrations, for they\nhave had a logical purpose. The world will never outgrow the\nchurch. All the boasted improvements in science, in art, in\ncivilization, so far from impeding the church of Christ, and\nmaking her existence no longer needed, will, at the same time,\nadvance her power, and make her more needed than ever. If in the\nmiddle ages, when society was in the process of transition from\nthe old to the new, the church was pre-eminently needed to keep\nwhat was just and right and true in the older forms of\ncivilization, and gradually to adapt to them what was just and\nright and true in the newer developments of society, most truly\nis the church needed now, when there exists a perfect chaos of\nopinions, and when a part of the civilized world is in another\ntransition, from the aimless, rudderless vagaries of\nProtestantism to the solid rock of Catholicity. If ever the voice\nof authority was needed, like the voice of the angel of God,\nheard amid and above the howlings of the storm, it is needed now.\n\nMuch false reasoning has been uttered about the \"unchangeable\nchurch,\" as though, because \"unchangeable,\" it was not adapted to\na changing and striving world, when, in truth, for the very\nreason that the church of Christ is unchangeably true, she is\nrequired and adapted for all the changes and emergencies of time.\nWho ever heard a sailor complain of the mariner's compass,\nbecause, on account of its unchangeable obstinacy, it would not\nconform to his private judgments and caprices about the right\ncourse? No one. It is for the very reason that the mariner's\ncompass is unchangeably true to the eternal law of magnetic\nattraction, under all circumstances and in all places, that it is\nthe unerring guide among the whirlwinds and heavings of the great\ndeep. Catholicity is the mariner's compass upon a greater\ndeep--even that of the wild and rolling, beating ocean of\nhumanity, pointing, amid sunny calms, or gentle winds, or raging\ngales, unerringly to the cross of Jesus Christ, as the needle of\nthe mariner's compass points to the north--guiding, age after\nage, the precious freights of immortal souls to the harbor of\ninfinite and unending joy.\n\nThe force of this illustration is all the stronger that the\nmariner's compass is a human adaptation of an immutable law of\nnature to navigation, while the church of the living God is\ndivine alike in origin and application, and has existed from the\nbeginning, unchangeable, like God himself, yet adapting herself\nto the wants of every age. The church of God is like his own\ninfinite providence, in which unchangeable truth meets in the\nharmony of mercy the innumerable changes of human need.\n\nMuch has been written and more said about \"the church of the\nfuture,\" as though it were to be some millennial manifestation\naltogether different from the historic church; but the church of\nthe future, which is not also the church of the past and of the\npresent, can be no church; for a true church must reach to the\nages back as well as to those before.\n{196}\nIf the continuity is broken, truth is broken, and cannot be\nrestored. As for eighteen centuries there have been no forms of\ncivil society, no calms or tempests in the moral, political,\nsocial, or religious world, in which the Catholic Church has not\nbeen true to the organic principles of her divine life, even the\nenemy of catholicity should admit--that fact being granted--that\nthe presumption is on her side that she will be equally true to\nthose principles during the centuries that are to come. He may\ndeny that the church has been true, and, consequently, that she\nwill be true, but he will not admit one proposition and deny the\nother; he will admit both or deny both. In other words, he will\nadmit, equally with the friend of catholicity, the identity of\nthe church, past, present, and to come. Now, it will be\nimpossible for a friend or enemy of the Catholic Church, from her\nbeginning to this very day, to point to an hour when she was not\na living church; it is, then, probable, that she will continue to\nbe a living church. But where, since the promulgation of\nChristianity to this time, has existed a body of Christian\nbelievers, which, for the quality of continual existence, has so\ngood a right to be called the church of Christ as the Catholic\nChurch? Considering her numbers, extent, and duration, that\nchurch has been preeminently the church of the past; considering\nnumbers, extent, and duration, that church is pre-eminently the\nchurch of the present; considering all analogies and\nprobabilities, then the Catholic Church will be preeminently the\nchurch of the future. In truth, the vindictive anger of the\nenemies of the Catholic Church, in whatever form of opposition it\nmay be shown, proceeds from the fact, not that she is the dead\nchurch of the past, as she is sometimes called, for there would\nbe no reason to war with the dead, but because she is, as she has\nbeen and will be, the living church. The Catholic Church is hated\nnot for being too dead, but for being too living. She has seen\nthe birth and death of countless \"improvements\" of her\nprinciples, and she has received with gladness into her fold many\nan eager and conscientious inquirer for the \"new church,\" who has\nat length reached an end of his wanderings and a solution of his\ndoubts in finding, with tears of rapturous submission, that the\nnew church, for which he was seeking, is the same church which\nhas stood for ages, ever old, yet ever new, because representing\nHim who is alike the Living God and the Ancient of Days.\n\nThe Catholic Church, so frequently and unjustly denounced as ever\nbehind the age, or even as facing the past, has been foremost in\nall parts of the world. She has sent her faithful soldiers of the\ncross where the spirit of commerce dared not go; she was the\nfirst in the east and the first in the West; it was her lamp of\ndivine light which dispelled the gloomy terrors of the barbarous\nnorth of Europe; it was her sceptre of celestial beauty, which,\nunder the guidance of Heaven, transformed the political and\nsocial wreck of southern Europe into order. In what part of the\nworld which man could reach has she not planted the cross? Where\non the face of the earth is the mountain whose craggy sides have\nnot, at one time or another, sent back into the sounding air the\nechoes of Catholic worship?\n\n{197}\n\nDaniel Webster gave a vivid picture of the extent of the power of\nEngland, in what I think to be the grandest sentence which\nAmerica has contributed to the common treasure of English\nliterature. He said: \"The morning drum-beat, following the sun,\nand keeping company with the hours, circles the earth daily with\none unbroken strain of the martial airs of England.\" That grand\nfigure of speech may be applied to the extent of the Catholic\nChurch. Yet it is not by martial airs, but by hymns of praise and\npenitential orisons and the continuous sacrifice that the\nCatholic Church daily celebrates, \"from the rising of the sun\nunto the going down of the same,\" the triumphant march of the\nPrince of Peace. How like \"the sound of many waters\" rolls hourly\nheavenward the anthems of catholic worship throughout the world!\nNot only is every moment of every day consecrated by catholic\nhymns sung somewhere on earth; but how majestically roll down\nthrough eighteen hundred years the unbroken anthems of catholic\ndevotion! Minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day,\nnight after night, month after month, year after year, century\nafter century, the holy strains go on unending. To the mind's ear\nseem blended in one almost overpowering flood of holy harmony the\nunnumbered voices which have sounded from the very hour when the\nshepherds of Bethlehem heard the angelic song to this very\nmoment, when, somewhere, catholic voices are chanting praise to\nthe Lord and Saviour of men.\n\nAnd, in this view, how literally has been fulfilled that\nconsoling prophecy, \"Henceforth all generations shall call me\nblessed.\" Wherever the Divine Son has been duly honored, there\nalso she, who was remembered with filial love even amid his dying\nagonies for a world's salvation, has been remembered and called\nblessed; called blessed from that lowly home and from that mount\nof sorrow in the distant east, in millions of lowly homes, and\nunder the shadow of mountains to the farthest west; called\nblessed by millions of loving and imploring voices through all\nthe ages since; called blessed in all the languages that have\nbeen spoken since that time in all the world; called blessed in\nthe rudest forms of human speech and in the most ecstatic music\nof voice and skill; called blessed by the lips of the little\nchild that can hardly speak the name of mother, and by the lips\nthat tremble with age and sorrow; called blessed by the sailor on\nthe deep, by the ploughman on the land, by the scholar at his\nbooks, by the soldier drawing his sword for right upon the\nbattle-field; called blessed by the voices of peasant-girls\nsinging in sunny vineyards, and by the voices of those from whose\nbrows have flashed the gems of royal diadems; called blessed in\ncottages and palaces, at wayside shrines, and under the golden\nroofs of grand cathedrals; called blessed in the hour of joy and\nin the hour of anguish--in the strength and beauty of life, and\nat the gates of death. How long, how ardently, how faithfully has\nall this loving honor been paid for so many generations, and will\ncontinue to be paid for all generations to come, to that\nsorrowing yet benignant one, who bore him who bore our woe!\n\nThe recent gathering at Rome indicates that there is no demand\nwhich civilization can rightfully make of the Christian Church\nwhich she will not eagerly, fully, and faithfully meet. The\nlargest assemblage of professed ministers of Christ which this\nage has known--leaving here out of view the claims of the\nCatholic Church to an apostolical priesthood--has been held in\nRome by the church, so extensively proclaimed and derided as\nbeing behind the age. If there is life, deep, full, pervading\nlife anywhere on earth, it is in the Catholic Church and in all\nher movements.\n{198}\nShe will continue to draw to herself all the qualities and\ncapacities of life which are in harmony with her spirit; and this\naccumulated spiritual force will constantly weaken the barriers\nthat divide her from the sympathies of a large part of\nChristendom, until at length she will be acknowledged by all as\nthe only living and true church of Christ.\n\n\"The restoration of the unity of the church\" has been the subject\nof many thoughts, of many words, of earnest and devout prayer, of\nmuch and noble effort, and, when understood as referring to the\nreconciliation of those who have left the Catholic Church, or who\nare now out of it because their fathers left it, the phrase may\npass without objection; but the phrase is greatly objectionable,\neven to the extent of expressing an untruth, when it is used to\nconvey the idea that the unity of the church has ever been\nbroken. This has not been, and could not be. The church, intended\nto be one, and to endure until the end of time, could not, in its\norganic structure, be really broken at any period of its history,\nwithout destroying its title as the one church of Christ.\nIndividuals, communities, even nations, as such, have been broken\noff from it; but the essential church herself has remained one\nand unbroken through all vicissitudes. The theory that the Church\nof Rome, the Greek Church, and the Church of England are equal\nand co-ordinate branches of the one church of Christ has no\nfoundation as an historical fact, and is as destructive of all\ntrue ideas of the unity of the church as the wildest vagaries of\nProtestantism. Is there on earth an institution which schism,\nheresy, and political ambition have tried to destroy and have\ntried in vain? There is; it is the Catholic Church. Is there an\ninstitution on earth which, leaving out of regard all its claims,\nhas had the quality of historical continuity for eighteen\ncenturies? There is; it is the Catholic Church.\n\nThe charge, if not of bigotry, yet of most unreasonable\narrogance, has been more or less directly made against the\nCatholic Church, because she has not received overtures of\nreconciliation from enthusiastic and earnest individuals claiming\nto represent national churches, as cordially as was expected. But\nhow can she accept, or even consider, any such overtures,\nproceeding as they do from the assumption of equal position and\nauthority, without disowning herself, without denying even those\nclaims and prerogatives, the existence of which alone makes union\nwith her desirable? If there is no institution on earth which has\na valid title to be the continuous church of Christ, all efforts\nwill be vain to supply the gap of centuries by an establishment\nnow. A union of churches will not satisfy the design or promise\nof our Lord, when he founded the unity of his church. If the\nChristian church has really been broken into pieces, it will be\nin vain to gather up the fragments; for, on that supposition, the\ndivine principle has long since departed, and the gates of hell\nhave prevailed. Those men of strong Catholic predilections, who,\nnevertheless, have clung to the theory that the church of Christ\nhas been really broken, and must be repaired by management, will\nyet thank God from their inmost souls for the immovable firmness\nwith which that theory has been denied at Rome.\n\nThe Catholic Church has never condemned a heresy more false or\ndestructive than the proposition that she is herself but one of\nthe divisions of the Christian church, having no authority to\nspeak or to rule in the name of her Lord.\n{199}\nTo deny that the one church of Christ is now existing, and that\nshe has existed for ages, is to deny not merely a fact in\nhistory, but it is to deny the word of our Lord; and to do that,\nis to deny alike his holiness and his divinity. How can the\nCatholic Church treat with those who wish to make terms before\nsubmitting to her authority, on the basis of a positive untruth?\nCatholicity is not an inheritance, to be decided among many\nclaimants, no one of whom has any right to be or to be regarded\nas the sole heir of the homestead; but it is an estate left by\nthe divine Lord of the manor, in charge of the Prince of the\nApostles and his successors, on the express injunction that it is\nto be kept one and undivided, in trust for the benefit of the\nfaithful for all time. The estate has been kept one and\nundivided, according to the title-deed; the injunction has never\nbeen broken; notwithstanding all defections from the household,\nthe homestead of the Christian world remains in the hands of the\nsame faithful succession to which it was committed by our Lord\nhimself. May God grant that all the younger sons who have gone\nastray, may return with penitential alacrity to their Father's\nhouse!\n\nThe Catholic Church will not stop in her progress, until she has\nconverted the world to Christ; but she has not denied, and will\nnot deny, her sacred trust and prerogative of catholicity for the\nsake even of adding whole nations to her fold. Whoever enters her\nfold must admit by that act her claim to be the one, undivided,\nindivisible Church of Christ. There can be no \"branches of the\nCatholic Church\" which are not directly joined to the root and\ntrunk of catholicity. A severed branch is no branch.\n\nIt is not the fault of the Catholic Church that multitudes \"who\nprofess and call themselves Christians\" are not members of her\ncommunion. She affords the very largest liberty for individual or\nassociated action that can be yielded without denying her faith\nor her commission. The highest poetry and the severest logic may\nkneel in brotherly harmony at her altar. Gifts and talents the\nmost diverse have been consecrated to her service. The Catholic\nChurch advancing, century after century, under the banner of the\ncross and dove, to the spiritual conquest of the world! how far\nmore sublime a spectacle it is than that of some parts of\nChristendom, which are broken into little independent bands of\nsectarian skirmishers, keeping up a kind of guerrilla warfare\nagainst \"the world, the flesh, and the devil,\" and each other.\n\nThere are inspiring tokens which show the depth and breadth of\nthe conviction, that the great schism of three centuries ago has\nproved a terrible mistake. Multitudes outside of the Catholic\nChurch are inquiring with earnest solicitude about the meaning of\ncatholic unity. The main course of intellectual inquiry is, in\nboth hemispheres, respecting the claims of the Catholic Church.\nThere are evident signs that the chaos of Protestantism is about\nto be broken up, and the wild, and dreary waste to bloom and glow\nwith Catholic beauty and order. God grant that it may be so, and\nthat not only thousands of individuals may know how precious a\nprize it is to kneel devoutly and sincerely before, the altar of\nGod; but that even, mighty nations may be convinced, what\npriceless gifts they have forfeited by three centuries of\nseparation from the source of all they have that has been or is\nworth keeping.\n\n{200}\n\nIn view of the fact that the revival of catholic feeling\nenkindles also the enmity of those who scan it, the gathering at\nRome is not only an assurance before the world that the Catholic\nChurch will continue to be the guide of life and the empire of\ncivilization, but it is also a sublime challenge against all the\nagencies of every kind that have been, or may be tried, to\neliminate Catholicity from the age. The Catholic Church has a\nwork to do, and she will do it. She can no more forego it, than\nshe can die by her own will. She has never flinched yet; she\nnever will. It is the very necessity as well as the reason of her\nbeing that she shall fulfil her charge without wavering or\ndiminution; and this she will do. If the \"gates of hell\" cannot\nprevail against the church of God, she may safely defy all mortal\nmight. The sun might more easily have refused to come forth at\nthe bidding of the Creator, than the church can refuse to do his\nwill in conquering the world for Christ. God speed the day when\nthe divisions of Christendom shall end; when all who profess to\nbe the disciples of Jesus Christ shall seek and find consolation\nin his one, true, enduring fold; and when the sceptre of God,\nmanifest in the church, shall be extended in benignant power over\nan obedient and rejoicing world.\n\n--------\n\n\n    \"The United Churches Of England And Ireland, In Ireland.\"\n    [Footnote 47]\n\n    [Footnote 47: _Ireland and her Churches_. By James\n    Godkin. London, Chapman & Hall. 1867. 1 vol. pp. 623.]\n\n\nIt is well to be accurate in the bestowal of titles, and we give,\ntherefore, the institution whose latest history lies before us\nthe exact definition by which, these sixty years past, it\nrejoices to be known. Under this designation of its own choice\nthis institution is open to the reflection of being one of the\nmost modern of all the churches pretending to be national; the\njunior of even our own American Episcopal Church, which is not\nitself very far stricken in years; the junior, indeed, of all the\nother churches we can at this moment recall to memory, unless we\nwere to include \"the Church of the Latter-Day Saints,\" whose\nMecca stands upon Salt Lake.\n\nOn the first day of January, in the first year of this century,\nthe ecclesiastical system, establishment, or organization which\ndesignates itself as \"the United Church of England and Ireland,\nin Ireland,\" came, with sound of many trumpets, into the world.\nOn that auspicious day, the legislative union of Ireland and\nGreat Britain was proclaimed; a new national flag, \"the Union\nJack,\" was run up from the royal towers of London, Dublin, and\nEdinburgh; a new royal title was assumed for the coinage of the\nnew realm, and in all great public transactions; a new \"great\nseal\" was struck for the sovereign of the newly modelled state;\nnew peers and new commoners were added to the two houses of\nParliament, and, to complete the revolution, by the 5th clause of\nthe same act, the matters previously mentioned having been first\ndisposed of, this new church was, on that same day and hour, by\nthe same authority, called into existence. His majesty's\nproclamation, announced at Paul's Cross in London, at the Cross\nin Edinburgh, and where the Cross of _le Dame_ street ought\nto have been, in Dublin, that \"the doctrine, worship, discipline,\nand government of the said United Church shall be and shall\nremain in full force for ever, as the same are now by law\nestablished for the Church of England.\"\n\n{201}\n\nThe two national churches, thus by act of parliament and royal\nproclamation, united into, so to speak, one imperial church, with\nan identical \"doctrine, worship, and discipline,\" had a good many\nantecedents in common, and a good many others that were peculiar\nto each side of the channel. Irish Protestantism had never been a\nservile or even a close copy of its English senior. Whether, as\nSwift sarcastically maintained, the sermons of Dublin pulpits\nwere flavored by the soil, or whether the cause of difference lay\nin the atmosphere, the Irish variety of \"the churches of the\nReformation,\" was as full of self-complacency and self-assertion,\nas any of the sisterhood. It imbibed at the start, chiefly from\nUsher, a larger draught of Genevan theology than was quite\nreconcilable with the Thirty-nine Articles; it has been almost\ninvariably toryish in its relations to the state; while the\nEnglish establishment, at least since 1668, has been pretty\nequally divided between the two great political parties. But the\nmost singular peculiarity of this very modern church of Ireland\nwas the persuasion it arrived at, and endeavored to impress upon\nthe world, that it was the veritable primitive Christianity of\nthe Green Isle; that instead of tracing its origin to quite\nrecent acts of parliament, its pedigree ran up nearly to the Acts\nof the Apostles; that Saint Patrick and Saint Columba were its\ntrue founders, and not such saints of yesterday as George Browne\nand James Usher. Whenever it was necessary to enforce the\ncollection of tithes, or to protect the monopoly of university\neducation, the statutes at large were resorted to as the true\ncharter of its institution; but whenever it became requisite to\ndefend its anomalous position, by writing or speaking, the\nProtestantism of Saint Patrick--his independence of Rome more\nespecially--was the favorite argument of its defenders.\n\nNo \"reformed\" community has ever made such desperate and\npersistent efforts, with such flimsy or wholly imaginary\nmaterials, to bridge over the long space of the middle ages, in\norder to make some show of historical connection with the first\nfounders of Christianity. But the recent revival of genuine\necclesiastical learning has utterly dissipated the last fond\nefforts of these spiritual genealogists; and the very first acts\nof its existence as a separated body, are now as well understood\nas the 41st of George III., by which it became a copartner in\n\"the United Church of England and Ireland,\" no longer ago than\nthe first day of the year of our Lord, 1801.\n\nThe history of the Irish member of this curious ecclesiastical\nfirm may best be traced through the statutes at large. As its\nparentage was parliamentary, so its life has been legislative.\nThere is one advantage in having this description of authority to\nrefer to, that it cannot be disputed. The \"Journals of\nParliament\" in England and Ireland, from the reformation to the\ncivil emancipation of the Catholics in 1829, are good Protestant\nauthority. The peers and commoners of the old religion were\nexcluded from the English houses, from the 10th of Elizabeth\n(1567) to the 9th of George IV., (1829,) a period of 262 years;\nand in Ireland, the last parliament in which Catholics sat was\nthat of 4th James II., (1689,) followed by a period of exclusion,\nbefore the union, of 111 years.\n{202}\nIt was not found possible, so early as the time of the two first\nStuarts and Elizabeth, to wholly exclude Catholics, or, as they\nwere then called, \"recusants,\" from membership in either house in\nIreland; and accordingly we find them a formidable minority in\nthose rarely occurring assemblies, such as the Irish parliaments\nheld in the 11th and 25th of Elizabeth, the 11th James I., the\n14th Charles I., and the 12th of Charles II, In the second\nJames's short-lived parliament of one session, hastily adjourned\nto allow his lords and gentlemen to follow their master to the\nbanks of the \"ill-fated river,\" they were a majority; but with\nthat evanescent exception, the statutes of Ireland are quite as\nexclusively Protestant authority on all church matters as those\nof England previous to the union of the legislatures and the\nchurches, and subsequently down to 1829.\n\nThe history of Protestantism in Ireland, from first to last, is a\npolitical history. Its best record is to be found in the\nparliamentary journals as well in the reign of Henry VIII. as of\nGeorge III. And though we do not propose to dwell, in the present\npaper, in anything like detail on the annals of that\nestablishment previous to the present century, we must condense\ninto a short space the main facts of its first appearance on the\nscene, and its early parliamentary nurture and education, to\naccount for the facility with which it ceased to be, even in\npretence, a national church at the time of the legislative union.\nPolitical in its origin, its organization, and its government,\nfrom the first hour of its existence, it had neither will, nor\nwish, nor ability, if it had either, to resist the designs of the\nstate, which included its incorporation into the imperial system.\nAs the lay representation of Ireland was recast, as the seal and\nthe standard were changed, so the institution started by statute\nand royal orders in council in the sixteenth century came\nnaturally to have its individuality extinguished by other\nstatutes and orders in council in the nineteenth. If this\nso-called \"Church of Ireland\" had really believed itself to be\nwhat its champions had so often asserted, the true and ancient\nnational church of the kingdom, it would at all events have made\nsome show of patriotic resistance before making its surrender.\n\nNot only, however, was it not really national in its origin, but\nit was then, and always, an eminently anti-popular institution.\nThere was not, as in other countries during the reformation, even\nthe pretext of what is called a popular \"movement against Rome.\"\nNo Luther had arisen among the Celtic or the Anglo-Irish\nCatholics in that age of perturbation. The ancient faith was\nreceived as implicitly by the burgesses of Dublin as by the\nclansmen of Connaught, and the spiritual supremacy of the pope\nseemed a doctrine as impossible of contradiction to the\ndescendants of Strongbow as to the children of Milesius. No\ninternal revolt against Roman discipline or Roman doctrine had\nshown itself within the western island. There was no spiritual\ninsurrection attempted from within to justify the resort to\nexternal intervention. The annalists of Donegal, who are commonly\ncalled \"The Four Masters,\" and who were old enough to remember\nthe first mention of Protestantism in their own province, thus\nunconsciously express the amazement of the educated Irish mind of\nthose days at the new doctors and doctrines:\n\n{203}\n\n  \"A.D. 1537. A heresy and a new error broke out in England, the\n  effects of pride, vainglory, avarice, sensual desire, and the\n  prevalence of a variety of scientific and philosophical\n  speculations, so that the people of England went into\n  opposition to the pope and to Rome. At the same time they\n  followed a variety of opinions, and the old law of Moses, after\n  the manner of the Jewish people, and they gave the title of\n  Head of the Church of God to the king. There were enacted by\n  the king and council new laws and statutes after their own\n  will.\"\n\nBut the laws and statutes enacted by the king and council in\nEngland, for changing the national religion, were not immediately\neither extended to, or proposed for imitation in, Ireland. The\nzeal of the crowned apostle was tempered by the exigencies of the\npolitician. Before this king's time, the English power in Ireland\nhad been essentially a colonial power; \"a pale\" or enclosure, or\ngarrison. Whoever will not mark the point, will miss the very\npivot of all the operations of the new religion in Ireland. Henry\nVIII. had inherited from his father, the first king of united\nEngland for a century, the ambition of making himself equally\nmaster of the neighboring nation. During the twenty years of the\nsway of his great cardinal-chancellor, this object never was for\na moment lost sight of. When Wolsey went down to the grave in\ndisgrace without seeing it fulfilled, his royal pupil continued\nto prosecute the plan to its entire accomplishment. This result,\nhowever, he only reached in the thirty-second year of his reign,\n(1541,) some six years before his miserable end. Ten years\npreviously, (1531,) he may be said to have established the new\nreligion in England by compelling the majority of the clergy to\nsubscribe to his supremacy in spirituals; within two years\nfollowed his marriage with Anne Boleyn; and in 1535, his order\nappeared commanding the omission \"of the name of the Bishop of\nRome from every liturgical book,\" which may be said to have\ncompleted the severance of England from Rome.\n\nNot only did not Henry, in obedience to his political design of\nadding another crown to his dominions, not press his reformed\ndoctrines immediately upon the Irish of either race, but he\nexpressly reprehended his deputies at Dublin for having\nprematurely attempted the national conversion. In the same year\nin which he struck the pope's name from every liturgical book, he\nsharply rebuked George Browne, an English ex-Augustinian whom he\nhad appointed Archbishop of Dublin, for destroying certain relics\nof saints in the churches of that city. Again in the same year.\nSecretary Cromwell writes officially to contradict \"a common\nrumor,\" that he intended to pluck down the statue of \"our Lady of\nTrim,\" which was as famous on the west, as our \"Lady of\nWalsingham\" on the east of the channel. Four years later, we find\nthe Lord Deputy Grey, after a victory over O'Neill at Bellahoe,\nhalting with the whole court and army at this celebrated place of\npilgrimage, and visiting this same shrine of our Lady--\"very\ndevoutly kneeling before her, he heard three or four masses.\" At\nthat moment, in the thirtieth year of Henry VIII., and the sixth\nof his open rupture with Rome, any Celtic-Irish or Anglo-Irish\nCatholic, in the ranks of Lord Grey, not particularly well\ninformed as to the affairs of the neighboring kingdom, might have\nrested honestly in the belief that he was serving a Catholic\nprince in full communion with the rest of Christendom.\n\n{204}\n\nBut as soon as the election to the kingship, which it is not in\nour way here to dwell upon, was successfully over, and the new\nroyal title proclaimed, confirmed, and acknowledged abroad,\nespecially in Scotland and France, and by the emperor, then there\ncame a change. The politician being satisfied, the apostle awoke.\nA commission of reformation, at the head of which sat Archbishop\nBrowne, undertook the purgation of the Dublin and neighboring\nchurches, producing as their warrant the royal authority, \"dated\nyears before.\" A sufficient guard of horse and foot accompanied\nthese commissioners, and were much needed to protect them from\nthe populace. The statues and relics in the cathedrals of\nLeighlin, Ferns, and Kildare; the Lady statue at Trim, and a\nfamous crucifixion in Ballyhogan Abbey, were forthwith destroyed.\nSo far and so soon as they could venture into the interior, this\n\"work, of reformation,\" under the royal warrant, was pushed on\nvigorously, in order, as Henry's commission expressed it, \"that\nno fooleries of this kind might henceforth for ever be in use in\nsaid land.\" This royal order (1539) sounded the key-note of\nspoliation, and little more than this was attempted during the\nremainder of this reign. The first serious effort at national\nconversion was made under the orders in council of the 4th of\nEdward VI., (1551,) when on Easter day the English liturgy was\nfor the first time publicly recited in Christ Church Cathedral,\nthe ex-Augustinian archbishop preaching from the text, \"Open mine\neyes, that I may see the wonders of the laws,\" (Ps. 119.) The\nliturgy was printed the same year at Dublin, in English, and the\nlord deputy was instructed to take measures to have it\n\"translated into Irish in those places that need it.\" The\nfollowing year the work of spoliation was resumed with new vigor\nat the famous seven churches of Clonmacnoise, and other points\nupon the Shannon. Within twelve months thereafter, young Edward\ndied, and the five years' reign of Queen Mary gave a respite to\nthe Irish church. It was a period too short for restoration, but\nlong remembered with regretful affection for the temporary\nexemption from persecution it had afforded.\n\nAnti-national and anti-popular in its conception, the reformation\npresented itself in Ireland as the enemy at once of the useful\nand all the fine arts; of all that amused and ennobled and\nentertained the people. Among both races, war was a business, and\nthe layman's hand was always within reach of his weapon. The arts\nof peace--agriculture, architecture, botany, medicine, music,\nwere all inmates of the convent and the monastery. The civil\nglories and treasures of the country were hoarded up where alone\nthey could be secured, in the chancel and the cloister. It was,\nhowever, the first duty of the new reformers to strike down and\ndemolish these venerated remains of the piety of former\ngenerations. Pictures brought from abroad, or the work of native\nartists, were defaced; stained windows were brutally broken;\nshrines smashed; beautiful missals thrown into the fire; croziers\nbroken to bits; chalices and ciboriums melted into bullion; bells\nblessed to the offices of peace and forgiveness melted down to be\ncast into ordnance; and all the endearing, civilizing, and solemn\nassociations interwoven from childhood with these consecrated\nobjects of art, were rudely torn out of the bleeding hearts of\nthe people. In the six remaining years of Henry, and the six of\nEdward VI., nearly six hundred religious houses were thus\nstripped, desecrated, and dismantled.\n{205}\n\"They sold their roofs and bells,\" say the Four Masters, in the\nannal already quoted, \"so there was not a monastery left from the\nArran of the Saints to the Iccian Sea, which was not broken and\nshattered, except a few only\" in the remoter corners of the\nkingdom. Of the regular religious orders then established in that\nsmall kingdom, the rule of St. Augustine was followed by 256\nhouses, male and female; that of St. Bernard by 44; of St.\nFrancis by 114; of St. Dominick by 41; of St. Benedict by 14; of\nMount Carmel by 29. Besides these, it is a pathetic and\ninstructive circumstance to remember, that there were then, even\nin that far western island, not less than 22 houses of Knights of\nSaint John of Jerusalem, vowed to the redemption of the Holy\nSepulchre, and 14 of the Trinitarian Order for the redemption of\nChristian captives from African slavery. All these, with their\ninterior furniture and external possessions, were with ruthless\nhand transferred to the new clergy, or converted to worldly\npurposes, in order to prepare the way of the new religion as set\nforth by the king's order.\n\nIt is but fair to point out, that the preachers of this religious\nrevolution were only in part, though in a very considerable part,\nthe receivers of the spoils. A new aristocracy arose on the ruins\nof the monasteries and churches. Some Irish houses may claim to\nhave ancestors who came in with Strongbow; but many more founders\nof families came in penniless adventurers at the reformation. The\nBagnals and Chichesters, in the north; the St. Legers, Boyles,\nand Kings in the south; and the Burkes and Croftons in the west,\nwere formerly, and some of their descendants still are, the\nlargest inheritors of ecclesiastical plunder. The chartered\nminorities of townsmen, whose consciences consented to take the\noath of supremacy, were not without their recompense even in this\nworld. The neighboring church and convent property was frequently\nassigned to these corporators, no matter how few in number, for\nthe use indeed of the corporation; but as they generally\ncontrived to become in their individual capacity tenants under\nthemselves as a corporation, there was at least one description\nof occupants in the country, who held their lands on easy\nconditions. These corporate bodies, which continued exclusively\nProtestant down to the passage of the Irish Municipal Reform Bill\nin 1834, were often reduced to a ludicrously small number; but\neven in such Catholic cities as Limerick, Cashel, Clonmel, and\nWaterford and Drogheda, they continued to possess and dispose of,\nand often to alienate, the former endowments of pious chiefs and\nbarons to the suppressed convents and colleges of the vicinity.\n\nThe new proprietory and clerical interests thus created at the\nexpense of the confiscated church, were placed in a position to\nrequire the constant protection and superintendence of the\ncreative power. And this again required, most unhappily both for\nchurch and state in that country, the continuous proscription and\nsuppression of those who represented the important interests so\ndispossessed and disinherited. From thence arose the deadly feud\nbetween law and nature, which has disfigured and degraded\nhumanity in Ireland; which has so effectually separated the very\nideas of law and justice in the modern Irishman's mind that his\nfirst presumption in all conflicting cases is (to his own loss\nfrequently) against the law, rather than in its favor. The body\nof legislation of which we speak had long ago swelled to the\ndimensions of a code, and since the early years of George III.\nhas been known exclusively by the name of _The Penal Code_.\n{206}\nThe principal collections of this code are by Sir Henry Parnell,\n(afterward Lord Congleton,) Mr. Bedford, an English barrister,\nMr. Mathew O'Conor, of the Irish bar, and the late indefatigable\nDr. R. R. Madden. The commentators on the code, from Edmund Burke\nto Bishop Doyle, or rather the advocates for its amelioration in\nthe first place, and afterward for its total repeal, included\nalmost every name distinguished for liberality in the British\nannals of the last hundred years.\n\nThe first of these proscriptive enactments dates from the 2d year\nof Elizabeth, when a parliament representing ten counties was\nheld at Dublin. By this assembly the acts enforcing uniformity of\nworship, and the queen's supremacy in spirituals as well as\ntemporals, are said to have been passed; though others say this\nparliament adjourned without regularly adopting those measures.\nIn the 3d year of the same reign a further act is found on the\nIrish Statute-Book, obliging, under forfeiture of office and\ncivil disfranchisement for life, \"ecclesiastical persons and\nofficers, judges, justices, mayors, temporal officers, and every\nother person who hath the queen's wages, to take the oath of\nsupremacy.\" Commissioners of ecclesiastical causes were created\nby an act of the same session, \"to adjudge heresy\" according to\nthe canonical scriptures, the first four general councils, and\nthe laws of parliament. By this commission, five years later,\n(1564,) the English _Book of Articles_ was declared of full\nforce in Ireland. These articles were twelve in number.\n\n \"1. The Trinity in Unity;\n  2. The Sufficiency of the Scriptures to Salvation;\n  3. The Orthodoxy of Particular Churches;\n  4. The Necessity of Holy Orders;\n  5. The Queen's Supremacy;\n  6. Denial of the Pope's authority 'to be more than other Bishops have;'\n  7. The Conformity of the Book of Common Prayer to the Scriptures;\n  8. The Ministration of Baptism does not depend on the Ceremonial;\n  9. Condemns 'Private Masses,' and denies that the Mass can\n     be a propitiatory Sacrifice for the Dead;\n  10. Asserts the Propriety of Communion in Both Kinds;\n  11. Utterly disallows Images, Relics, and Pilgrimages;\n  12. Requires a General Subscription to the foregoing Articles.\"\n\nThe subsequent legislation of Elizabeth in Ireland was chiefly\npolitical, if we except (in the 11th and 12th of her reign) the\nact respecting vacant benefices, and the act establishing\n[Protestant] free schools.\n\nParliaments in those days assembled at long and uncertain\nintervals. The only one held during the first James's reign in\nIreland--twenty-seven years after Elizabeth's last, and\ntwenty-one before Charles I. convened another--was purely\npolitical. This parliament was opened and managed by the Lord\nDeputy, Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, whose avowed and almost\nonly object in using such an agency was to make his royal master\n\"as absolute as any king in Christendom.\" Four years later,\n(1639) was held the second and last Irish parliament of this\nreign, and simultaneously, (at the instance, and under the advice\nof Laud), the able, iron-nerved, and most unscrupulous deputy\nsummoned a convocation of the bishops and clergy of the\nestablished religion, which forms a very curious picture of the\nstate of that establishment at the end of the first century of\nthe reformation. Strafford himself shall be our authority at this\npoint, and as abbreviated in Mr. Godkin's\nbook, pp. 64 and 65.\n\n{207}\n\n  \"He had ordered a convocation of the clergy to meet\n  simultaneously with the parliament for the purpose of adopting\n  the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, so that the\n  Irish articles might become a dead letter. The convocation went\n  to work conscientiously, digesting the canons, etc., to the\n  best of their judgment; but Wentworth found that they were not\n  doing what he wanted, and resolved to bring them to their\n  senses. In a letter to Laud he chuckled over his victory,\n  apparently quite unconscious that he had been playing the\n  tyrant, _circa sacra_, in a style worthy of Henry VIII.\n  Having learned what the committee of convocation had done, he\n  instantly sent for Dean Andrews, its chairman, requiring him to\n  bring the Book of Canons noted in the margin, together with the\n  draught he was to present that afternoon to the house. This\n  order he obeyed; 'but,' says the lord deputy, 'when I came to\n  open the book, and run over the _deliberandums_ in the\n  margin, I confess I was not so much moved since I came into\n  Ireland. I told him, certainly not a Dean of Limerick, but an\n  Ananias, had sat in the chair of that committee; however, sure\n  I was an Ananias had been there in spirit, if not in body, with\n  all the fraternities and conventicles of Amsterdam, that I was\n  ashamed and scandalized with it above measure.' He gave the\n  dean imperative orders not to report anything until he heard\n  from him again. He also issued orders to the primate, the\n  Bishops of Meath, Kilmore, Raphoe, and Derry, together with\n  Dean Leslie, the prolucutor, and the whole committee, to wait\n  upon him next morning. He then publicly rebuked them for acting\n  so unlike churchmen; told them that a few petty clerks had\n  presumed to make articles of faith, without the privity or\n  consent of state or bishop, as if they purposed at once 'to\n  take away all government and order forth of the church. But\n  those heady and arrogant courses he would not endure, nor would\n  he suffer them either to be mad in the convocation nor in their\n  pulpits.' He next gave them strict injunctions as to what the\n  convocation should do. They were to say content, or not\n  content, to the Articles of England, for he would not endure\n  that they should be disputed. He ordered the primate to frame a\n  canon on the subject; but it did not meet his approval, and so\n  the lord deputy framed one himself, whereupon his grace came to\n  him instantly and said he feared the canon would never pass in\n  such a form as his lordship had made, but he was hopeful it\n  might pass as he had drawn it himself. He therefore besought\n  the lord deputy to think a little better of it. The sequel is\n  best told in Strafford's own vigorous language--'But I confess,\n  having taken a little jealousy that his proceedings were not\n  open and free to those ends I had my eye upon, it was too late\n  now either to persuade or to affright me. I told his lordship I\n  was resolved to put it to them in those very words, and was\n  most confident there were not six in the house that would\n  refuse them, telling him, by the sequel, we should see whether\n  his lordship or myself better understood their minds in that\n  point, and by that I would be content to be judged, only for\n  order's sake I desired his lordship would vote this canon first\n  in the upper house of convocation, and so voted, then to pass\n  the question beneath also.' He adds that he enclosed the canon\n  [Footnote 48] to Dean Leslie, 'which, accordingly, that\n  afternoon was unanimously voted, first with the bishops, and\n  then by the rest of the clergy, excepting one man, who simply\n  did deliberate upon the receiving of the Articles of England.'\"\n\n    [Footnote 48: The first Irish canon.]\n\nWe pause and draw a hard breath, after this dictatorial\ndescription of how to rule a church and have a church, to observe\nthat the Irish Protestant prelates of those days were no mean\nmen; Bramhall was Bishop of Derry, and Bedell of Kilmore, and the\nprimate so hectored and overawed by this Cavalier-Cromwell was no\nless a personage than James Usher. But being as they were, as\nthey well knew they were, the creatures of the state, what could\nthey do when brought into conflict with the author and finisher\nof their law?\n\nOmitting the period of the civil wars and the Cromwellian\nProtectorate as a period phenomenal and exceptional, deserving\nstudy apart, we pass to the first parliament of Charles II.,\n(1662,) in which one of the first contributions to the statutes\nwhich we find, is the renewal of the Elizabethan act of\nuniformity. In the same session was passed the acts of settlement\nand explanation, which have been called \"the Magna Charta of\nIrish Protestantism.\" These acts confirmed to their Puritan\npossessors the properties of the Catholic gentry confiscated by\nCromwell for their attachment to both Charleses, and extending\ninto almost every county. Of 6000 proprietors, so confiscated,\nbut 60--one per cent--were restored, in part or whole, to their\nhereditary estates.\n\n{208}\n\nThirty years later, after William's victory over James II., 4000\nremaining Catholic proprietors were subjected to a similar\nproscription--so that in that half-century 10,000 owners of\nestates forfeited them for their fidelity to their ancient, and\ntheir hostility to what Mr. Froude correctly calls \"the intrusive\nreligion.\"\n\nNo parliament sat again in Ireland, till that short one of a\nsingle session before mentioned, (the 4th James II.,) summoned in\n1689. This parliament repealed the acts of settlement and\nexplanation, Poyning's law, and other coercive and intolerant\nstatutes; but the issue of battle went against King James, and\nthe two succeeding reigns became fruitful beyond precedent of\npenal legislation. Although the 9th of the \"Articles of\nLimerick\"--at the close of the war--had simply imposed one\nunobjectionable sentence as an oath of allegiance on the defeated\nparty, the act (2d and 3d William and Mary) prescribed an\nelaborate form of abjuration of the doctrines of\ntransubstantiation and of the invocation of saints, and declaring\nthe holy sacrifice of the Mass \"superstitious and idolatrous.\"'\nThe oath of abjuration concluded by the denial to any foreign\nprince or prelate (namely, the pope) of \"any jurisdiction, power,\nsuperiority, preeminence, or authority, _ecclesiastical_ or\n_spiritual_, within the realm.\" There never was a more\nshameful breach of public faith than this statute. The treaty of\nLimerick had simply prescribed this form of oath for the\nrestoration to their former _status_ of all who chose to\ntake it: \"I, A. B., do solemnly promise and swear that I will be\nfaithful and bear true allegiance to their majesties King William\nand Queen Mary; so help me God.\"\n\nAnd the 10th article of the same treaty had provided: \"The oath\nto be administered to such Roman Catholics as submit to their\nmajesties' government, shall be the oath aforesaid and no other.\"\nYet within the same twelvemonths in which William's generals and\nlord-justices signed this latter compact, the new penal law was\npassed, and the new oath of abjuration was imposed. In 1691, the\ntolerant treaty was signed; in 1692, when the few Catholic peers\nand commoners who ventured to present themselves appeared to be\nsworn in of the new Irish parliament, they were met by this\ninfamous oath of abjuration, driven out and disqualified. Above a\nmillion of their broad acres were forfeited, as a further penalty\non those who refused the oath, and we need not be surprised to\nfind, at King William's death, (1702,) that but \"one sixth part\"\nof the property of the kingdom remained in Catholic hands.\n\nThe 7th and 8th William and Mary re-enacted, with additions, the\nElizabethan penal laws. Of these additions the principal were:\n\n  1. Authorizing the Protestant chancellor to name guardians for\n     Catholic minors.\n  2. Act to prevent recusants (Catholics) from becoming tutors in\n     private families, unless by license of the Protestant\n     ordinaries of their several dioceses.\n  3. An act to prevent Roman Catholics acting as\n     guardians to minor children.\n  4. An act to disarm Roman Catholics.\n  5. An act for the banishment of popish priests and prelates.\n\nDuring the reign of Queen Anne, however, the code received its\nlast finishing contributions. In the 1st and 2d of this queen was\npassed \"the act for discouraging the further growth of popery,\"\nof which the following were the principal provisions:\n\n{209}\n\n  \"The third clause provides that if the son of an estated Papist\n  shall conform to the established religion, the father shall be\n  incapacitated from selling or mortgaging his estate, or\n  disposing of any portion of it by will. The fourth clause\n  prohibits a Papist from being the guardian of his own child;\n  and orders that, if at any time the child, though ever so\n  young, pretends to be a Protestant, it shall be taken from its\n  own father, and placed under the guardianship of the nearest\n  Protestant relation. The sixth clause renders Papists incapable\n  of purchasing any manors, tenements, hereditaments, or any\n  rents or profits arising out of the same, or of holding any\n  lease of lives, or other lease whatever, for any term exceeding\n  thirty-one years. And with respect even to such limited leases,\n  it further enacts that, if a Papist should hold a farm\n  producing a profit greater than one third of the amount of the\n  rent, his right to such should immediately cease, and pass over\n  entirely to the first Protestant who should discover the rate\n  of profit. The seventh clause prohibits Papists from succeeding\n  to the properties or estates of their Protestant relations. By\n  the tenth clause, the estate of a Papist, not having a\n  Protestant heir, is ordered to be gavelled, or divided in equal\n  shares between all his children. The sixteenth and\n  twenty-fourth clauses impose the oath of abjuration, and the\n  sacramental test, as a qualification for office, and for voting\n  at elections. The twenty-third clause deprives the Catholics of\n  Limerick and Galway of the protection secured to them by the\n  articles of the treaty of Limerick. The twenty-fifth clause\n  vests in her majesty all advowsons possessed by Papists.\n\n  \"A further act was passed, in 1709, imposing additional\n  penalties. The first clause declares that no Papist shall be\n  capable of holding an annuity for life. The third provides that\n  the child of a Papist, on conforming, shall at once receive an\n  annuity from his father; and that the chancellor shall compel\n  the father to discover, upon oath, the full value of his\n  estate, real and personal, and thereupon make an order for the\n  support of such conforming child or children, and for securing\n  such a share of the property, after the father's death, as the\n  court shall think fit. The fourteenth and fifteenth clauses\n  secure jointures to Popish wives who shall conform. The\n  sixteenth prohibits a Papist from teaching, even as assistant\n  to a Protestant master. The eighteenth gives a salary of \u00a330\n  per annum to Popish priests who shall conform. The twentieth\n  provides rewards for the discovery of Popish prelates, priests,\n  and teachers, according to the following whimsical scale: For\n  discovering an archbishop, bishop, vicar-general, or other\n  person, exercising any foreign ecclesiastical jurisdiction,\n  \u00a350; for discovering each regular clergyman, and each secular\n  clergyman not registered, \u00a320, and for discovering each Popish\n  schoolmaster or usher, \u00a310. The twenty-first clause empowers\n  two justices to summon before them any Papist over eighteen\n  years of age, and interrogate him when and where he last heard\n  Mass said, and the names of the persons present, and likewise\n  touching the residence of any Popish priest or schoolmaster;\n  and if he refuses to give testimony, subjects him to a fine of\n  \u00a320, or imprisonment for twelve months.\n\n  \"Several other penal laws were enacted by the same parliament,\n  of which we can only notice one; it excludes Catholics from the\n  office of sheriff, and from grand juries, and enacts that, in\n  trials upon any statute for strengthening the Protestant\n  interest, the plaintiff might challenge a juror for being a\n  Papist, which challenge the judge was to allow.\"--_McGee's\n  Ireland_, vol. ii. pp. 605, 608.\n\nWe may here turn from this repulsive record of tyrannous\nlegislation to inquire into the consequences of it all at the end\nof the second, and once again at the end of the third century,\nfrom the reformation.\n\nGeorge II. came to the throne in 1727, and bequeathed it to his\nsuccessor in 1760. This generation saw, therefore, the close of\nthe second century of the great Protestant experiment; and if a\ncentennial celebration had been proposed to them in 1751, the\nreport of progress made must have included the following\nprincipal facts.\n\n  \"We have dispossessed the Catholic proprietors of five sixths\n  of their property during this last century; we have excluded\n  them from the bench, the bar, and parliament; we have\n  prohibited them being guardians or teachers of youth; we have\n  disfranchised and disarmed their whole body, even their nobles\n  and gentry; yet as far as the people are concerned, we labor in\n  vain. There has been lately (1747) a census of the kingdom, and\n  out of 4,300,000 inhabitants, 3,500,000 are returned as\n  papists. Even in Ulster they are not supplanted; in Leinster\n  they are three to one; in Munster, seven to one; in Connaught,\n  twelve to one. Without property, with few priests, and scarce\n  any bishops, still doth this perverse generation increase and\n  multiply. What can we do with them more than we have done to\n  convince and convert them?\" To this searching question some\n  observer more profound than the others seems to have replied,\n  \"Try education!\"\n\n{210}\n\nThe third centennial celebration of the introduction of the\nEnglish liturgy into Ireland--the 51st year of the union of the\ntwo national churches--would have afforded an excellent\nopportunity of taking stock, humanly speaking, of the progress\nmade in a hundred years. But no one thought of suggesting an\nappropriate celebration of the great event, and so, unhappily,\nthe precious opportunity has been lost. We shall endeavor,\nhowever, to supply the want of such a comprehensive retrospect;\nand here, for the first time, we find the facts and figures of\nMr. Godkin's book of considerable service to the subject. From\nthe House of Commons debates of the year 1834, Mr. Godkin gives\nthe following sketch of the arguments and illustrations used in\nsupport of \"the Church Temporalities Act:\"\n\n  \"Lord John Russell, Lord Howick, and Mr. Sheil, while fully\n  admitting that an establishment tends to promote religion and\n  to preserve good order, contended that it ought not to be\n  maintained where it fails to secure these objects, and that it\n  must always fail when, as in Ireland, the members of the\n  Established Church are only a minority of the nation, while the\n  majority, constituting most of the poorer classes, are thrown\n  upon the voluntary system for the support of their clergy.\n  Concurring with Paley in his view of a Church\n  Establishment--that it should be founded upon utility, that it\n  should communicate religious knowledge to the masses of the\n  people, that it should not be debased into a state engine or an\n  instrument of political power--they demanded whether the Church\n  of Ireland fulfilled these essential conditions of an\n  establishment. They asked whether its immense revenues had been\n  employed in preserving and extending the Protestant faith in\n  Ireland? In the course of something more than a century it was\n  stated that its revenues had increased sevenfold, and now\n  amounted to \u00a3800,000 a year. Had its efficiency increased in\n  the same proportion? Had it even succeeded in keeping its own\n  small flock within the fold? On the contrary, they adduced\n  statistics to show a lamentable falling off in their numbers.\n  For example. Lord John Russell said, 'By Tighe's _History of\n  Kilkenny_, it appears that the number of Protestant families\n  in 1731 was 1055, but in 1800 they had been reduced to 941. The\n  total number of Protestants at the former period was 5238,\n  while the population of the county, which in 1800 was 108,000,\n  in 1731 was only 42,108 souls. From Stuart's _History of\n  Armagh_, we find that sixty years ago the Protestants in\n  that country were as two to one; now they are as one to three.\n  In 1733, the Roman Catholics in Kerry were twelve to one\n  Protestant, and now the former are much more numerous than even\n  that proportion. In Tullamore, in 1731, there were 64\n  Protestants to 613 Roman Catholics; but according to Mason's\n  parochial survey, in 1818 the Protestants had diminished to\n  only five, while the Roman Catholics had augmented to 2455. On\n  the whole, from the best computation he had seen--and he\n  believed it was not exaggerated one way or the other--the\n  entire number of Protestants belonging to the Established\n  Church in Ireland can hardly be stated higher than 750,000; and\n  of those 400,000 are resident in the ecclesiastical province of\n  Armagh.'\"--pp. 153.\n\nNow, for the maintenance of this church of 700,000 out of a\npopulation of 7,000,000--this church of a tenth of the\npeople--there were then and now are held in mortmain of the best\nlands of the kingdom, above 600,000 acres. We are told by the\npoet:\n\n  \"A time there was ere England's woes began\n   When every rood of ground sustained its man.\"\n\nThe Irish soil is not so nutritious; still, even there, every\nacre stands for a soul saved or to be saved, according to \"the\ndoctrine and discipline\" of the united church.\n{211}\nIn addition to the lands and their revenues, there are also\ncertain supplementary parliamentary grants not to be despised\neven by light and worldly-minded persons. Mr. Godkin enumerates,\nin his introduction, several of these:\n\n  \"It may be desirable to add some more precise information on\n  that subject. There was a return made to Parliament, dated 24th\n  July, 1803, and signed by the then Chief Secretary, Mr.\n  Wickham, who certified that it was made up from the best\n  materials in the chief secretary's office, and believed to be\n  nearly accurate. From this return it appears that the number of\n  parishes in Ireland then was 2436; of benefices, 1120; of\n  churches, 1001; and of glebe-houses, 355. This represents the\n  state of the establishment in the year 1791.\n\n  \"From 1791 to 1803 the Board of First Fruits granted the sum of\n  \u00a3500, in 88 cases, for the building of churches, making a total\n  of \u00a344,000. During the same period the Board granted \u00a3100 each\n  for 116 glebe-houses, making a total of \u00a311,600.\n\n  \"From a parliamentary return, ordered in 1826, it appears that\n  within the present century the following amounts have been\n  voted by parliament up to that date: Gifts for building\n  churches, \u00a3224,946; loans for building churches, \u00a3286,572;\n  total, \u00a3511,538, for building churches in twenty-five years.\n\n  \"During the same period gifts were made for glebes, \u00a361,484;\n  gifts for building glebe-houses, \u00a3144,734. Loans were granted\n  for the same purpose amounting to \u00a3222,291, making a total for\n  glebes and glebe-houses of \u00a3428,509. Thus, between the year\n  1791 and 1826 the Establishment obtained for churches and\n  glebes the sum of \u00a3940,047. The number of glebe-houses in 1826\n  was increased to 771, and of benefices to 1396. The number of\n  cures with non-residence was 286.\" [Footnote 49]\n\n    [Footnote 49: The following additional figures (from the\n    _Union_ to the year 1844) are given on page 96:\n      For building churches,--           \u00a3625,371\n      For building glebe houses,--        336,889\n      For Protestant charity schools,-- 1,105,588\n      For the Society for\n        Discountenancing Vice, etc.--     101,991]\n\nAnd, on the other hand, the celebrants of the third centenary, if\nthey had thought of holding one, would have learned from Mr.\nGodkin (himself a resolute Protestant of the Unitarian school,\nand an ex-reverend) of the alarming increase of popery of late\ndays even in the very capital of English authority.\n\n  \"Indeed, the progress of the Roman Catholic Church in this city\n  is astonishing, and has no parallel perhaps in any country in\n  Europe. In 1820, there were in Dublin only ten parochial\n  chapels, most of them of an humble character and occupying\n  obscure positions. There were at the same time seven convents\n  or 'friaries,' as they were then called, and ten nunneries,\n  which Mr. Wright described as 'religious asylums where the\n  females of the Roman Catholic religion find shelter when\n  deprived of the protection of their relatives by the hand of\n  Providence.' [Footnote 50] Now the loveliest daughters of some\n  of the most respectable and the best connected Roman Catholic\n  families leave their happy homes and take the veil, sometimes\n  bringing with them ample fortunes--devoting themselves to the\n  work of education and the relief of the poor as 'Sisters of\n  Mercy,' 'Sisters of Charity,' etc.\n\n    [Footnote 50: Wright's _Dublin_, p. 174.]\n\n  \"There are now thirty-two churches and chapels in Dublin and\n  its vicinity. In the diocese the total number of secular clergy\n  is 287, and of regulars 125; total priests, 412. The number of\n  nuns is 1150. Besides the Catholic University, with its ample\n  staff of professors, there are in the diocese six colleges,\n  seven superior schools for boys, fourteen superior schools for\n  ladies, twelve monastic primary schools, forty convent schools,\n  and 200 lay schools, without including those which are under\n  the National Board of Education. The Christian Brothers have\n  7000 pupils under their instruction, while the schools\n  connected with the convents in the diocese contain 15,000.\n  Besides Maynooth, which is amply endowed by the state, and\n  contains 500 or 600 students, all designed for the priesthood,\n  there is the College of All Hallows, at Drumcondra, in which\n  250 young men are being trained for the foreign mission. The\n  Roman Catholic charities of the city are varied and numerous.\n  There are magnificent hospitals, one of which especially--the\n  Mater Misericordiae--has been not inappropriately called 'the\n  Palace of the Sick Poor'--numerous orphanages, several widows'\n  houses, and other refuges for virtuous women; ragged and\n  industrial schools, night asylums, penitentiaries,\n  reformatories, institutions for the blind and deaf and dumb;\n  institutions for relieving the poor at their own houses, and\n  Christian doctrine fraternities almost innumerable. All these\n  wonderful organizations of religion and charity are supported\n  wholly on the voluntary principle, and they have nearly all\n  sprung into existence within half a century.\"--p. 94.\n\n{212}\n\nSuch is the latest presentation of facts in relation to \"Ireland\nand her churches.\" Of Mr. Godkin's book (we don't know whether or\nnot he is still called _Reverend_) we can only say that it\nis very fairly intended, and shows great industry in the\naccumulation of materials. From some statements in the historical\nintroduction we most decidedly demur; but the valuable collection\nof facts in the second part, under the head \"Inspection of\nBishoprics,\" and the manifest desire to do, and to inculcate the\ndoing of, justice to men of all churches, throughout the whole\nbook, must bring in every true friend of Ireland the author's\ndebtor.\n\n-----\n\n         Love's Burden.\n\n\n      \"My burden is light\"\n\n\n    The Disciple.\n\n  \"Dear Lord, how canst thou say\n      'Tis light,\n  When I behold thee on the way\n      To Calvary's height,\n  Fainting and falling 'neath its heavy weight?\n  Ah! no. For me thy burden is too great.\"\n\n\n    The Master.\n\n  \"Good child, thou dost mistake\n  The burden I would have thee take.\n      The cruel load\n  That crushed me down on Calvary's road\n      Was thine,\n      Not mine.\n  What lighter burden can there be\n  Than that which Love would lay on thee?\"\n\n\n    The Disciple.\n\n  \"Kind Lord, how foolish is my speech!\n  I mark the truth which thou wouldst teach\n      To my cold heart.\n  Love all the burden bears of others' woes,\n      Beyond its might;\n  But of its own on them it would impose\n      Only a part,\n      And makes that light.\"\n\n--------\n\n{213}\n\n    Florence Athern's Trial.\n\n\nThe farm-house occupied by the Lees, Henry and Margaret, was an\nold-fashioned, plain brick building. It stood at right angles to\na country road which formed a short cut from the turnpike\n(leading from the city of C---- to Hamilton, the county-town of\nButler county, Ohio) to the mills down on the Miami, passing\nthrough Mr. Lee's property and by his garden-gate. The house was\nsome fifteen or twenty feet back from the road, and built one\nroom deep three sides, with an old-fashioned garret across the\nwhole of the main building. A wide brick pavement ran from the\ngate opening into the road past the front of the house to another\ngate opening into a private lane, leading from the barn and\nstables, a hundred yards or so back of the house, to a creek some\ndistance in front, which had been dammed up to afford a\nconvenient watering-place for the farm cattle; another brick\npavement, not quite so wide, encircled the rear and sides of the\nhouse. A broad gravel walk led from the back hall-door to a gate,\nwhich, with a hedge, separated the grassy yard from the\nvegetable-garden, up through that to the barn; another path led\nfrom the front-door down between broad grass-plats of grass,\nstudded with evergreens and fruit-trees, over a rustic bridge\nthat spanned a deep ravine, to some stone steps leading down to a\nspring, which, with the space around and the hill behind, was\npaved with stone, beneath which the water ran a few feet, then\nspread out into a creek fringed with willows. On the right of the\npath from the bridge to some distance behind the spring was a\ncherry orchard; on the left an open knoll bordered with\nflower-beds and shrubbery, and occupied in the centre by a rustic\nsummer-house.\n\nIn front of the farm-house on the edge of the grass-plats was a\nrow of locust-trees. The parlor was at the end of the house\ntoward the road and to the right of the hall; to the left of that\nwas the dining-room; and on the left of that again the kitchen,\nnot fronting evenly with the rest, but leaving space for a porch\nrunning to the end of the house, into the end of which a door\nopened from the dining-room.\n\nIt was Christmas eve, 18--. A lovely, clear moonlight night,\nrendered brighter by six or eight inches of snow that had fallen\nthe day before, and now lay glistening like diamond-dust in the\nrays of the full moon. No sound disturbed the silence save the\noccasional crackling of a branch or twig among the trees, and one\nor two passers-by on horse-back or in wagon, trudging merrily\nhomeward; for though the railroad had long since made a much\nshorter route from the city to the mills and Hamilton, Mr. Lee\nhad not retracted the permit to pass through his farm, and the\nroad still remained open.\n\nThe parlor windows gave out a brilliant light from the candles\nburning on the mantle-piece and the Christmas tree, that blazed\nbetween them and the wood fire on the old-fashioned hearth. A\ngroup was seated round it.\n{214}\nHarry Lee, with just a shade of care on his joyous face and a few\nthreads of silver through his thick brown hair, sat opposite the\nfront windows at one side of the hearth; at his side, with her\narm resting on his knee, seated on a low ottoman, was a young\ngirl, his niece, Florence Athern; from the lamp on the table a\nlittle behind her the soft light fell on the masses of golden\nhair that covered her well-shaped head, and on the pages of a\nrichly illustrated book, the leaves of which were held open by a\nhand perfect in its size, shape, and texture; and her face, as\nshe raised it from time to time, in answer to a caressing nod or\nmotion of her uncle, was very lovely, with a tinge of sadness in\nthe light of the soft blue eyes and the curve of the sensitive\nlips. Opposite these two sat Margaret Lee. Younger than her\nbrother, but old before her time, her sad face was still\ninteresting, though it could not be called handsome. At her side\nwas a younger sister, whose whole attention was given to the\nthree children seated on the floor in the space before the fire,\neagerly examining the gifts just taken from the Christmas-trees.\nHer husband sat on the other side of the table, on which was the\nlamp, looking over a book of engravings, and trying, from time to\ntime, to restrain the uproar made by the juvenile group. Watching\nthe children while her hands were full of gifts that had fallen\nto her share, stood an old colored woman, short and fat, and\ndressed in a neat black dress, while on her head she wore a false\nfront of crinkled black hair and a black lace cap. Her kind old\nface beamed with enjoyment at the children's pleasure.\n\nThe room was furnished handsomely and with taste. One or two\nportraits and paintings of merit hung on the walls, and over the\nmantle-piece was a picture of the Nativity, wreathed with holly,\nand before which two wax candles were burning.\n\nNo one heard the step that approached the house; no one saw the\nwan but handsome face that was thrust close to the panes for a\nfew moments. A tall, well-dressed man stood there looking in,\nthen turned away with a sound like a sob and a sigh and covered\nhis face with his hands. \"It is she, my child, my darling; but I\nam not worthy, O God! I am not worthy!\" He did not look in again,\nbut turned and walked down the path leading to the spring,\nmurmuring, \"Fifteen years, and so little change in outward\nthings. The same trees, the porch, the door-steps, only that\nsnow-ball and these ailanthuses grown into large bushes, and here\nand there a flower-bed where there had been grass; but she--ah!\nhow has my darling passed these years that have been so dreary to\nme?\" Just then the kitchen-door opened, flooding the porch floor,\nthe steps, and portion of the walk with light. One of the workmen\ncame out, and the stranger drew himself closely behind a\npear-shaped evergreen. \"I hope,\" he thought, \"the fellow will not\nbring a dog with him. He has a bucket in his hand, and may be\ngoing to the spring; in that case, I have no escape, for the snow\nwill betray me if I move!\" But the man said good-night in a\nGerman accent, and, whistling to the Newfoundland which had come\nout with him, and now stood snuffing the air toward where the\nstranger was hiding, turned and walked the length of the porch,\ndown the steps at the end, past the pump and smoke-house, out\nthrough the gate into the back lane, and so up to the barn. \"So,\"\nsaid the stranger, \"he has gone to feed the horses for the night,\nand I am safe.\"\n{215}\nHe walked slowly down across the bridge, and stood for a few\nmoments on the topmost step leading to the spring; then went down\nthere, and kneeling on the stones at the edge, scooped up some\nwater in his hand and drank; then rising and brushing the snow\noff his clothes, he retraced his steps and once more gazed in at\nthe parlor window. It happened that the old colored woman had\njust picked up the youngest child in her arms, and, followed by\nthe others, was moving toward the door, her face turned full to\nthe window, when she made an exclamation and nearly dropped the\nchild she held. \"Why, Tamar,\" exclaimed Miss Lee, \"what's the\nmatter?\" \"Oh! nothin',\" replied the woman, \"spec this colored\npusson gettin' nervus, dat's all. Come long, chicks, to roost.\"\nAnd she left the room without affording a chance to the group\nround the fire to see her face, which bore a frightened look. But\nthe children, busy with their happy prattle, did not notice it,\nneither did the nurse who was waiting for them. As soon as she\nhad seen them snug in their beds, with stockings duly hung, and\nnight prayers said, she started to return to the kitchen. Her\nmistress heard her, and came into the hall to speak to her,\npreceding her through the dining-room and across the space on the\nporch between the dining-room and kitchen doors, much to her\nsatisfaction, to the latter department, to make some necessary\narrangements for breakfast. On Miss Lee's return to the parlor, a\ngame of whist was proposed, in which the four elders joined,\nleaving Florence to the quiet enjoyment of her book. After a\nrubber of three games, a motion to retire was made by the\nsisters; and Henry Lee, turning to Florence, said, \"Well, Puss,\nis it not time to give up your book? Half-past eleven, my pet,\"\n(looking at his watch,) \"and we must be up early, you know, to be\nready for church, and dinner at Uncle Joe's to-morrow.\"\n\nAt last the brother and sister were left alone, and stood looking\nat one another for a few moments; then Mr. Lee spoke: \"It must be\ndone to-morrow. Who shall do it--you or I?\"\n\n\"I think I had better, Harry dear. Women can deal better with\nwomen in such a time, although I know your tender, loving heart,\nand do not doubt it.\"\n\n\"I am glad, Mag, you will take it on yourself, for I feel a very\ncoward in the matter.\"\n\n\"Oh! yes, it is better that I should; but I will not tell her\ntill night--I will not mar the happiness of her Christmas till I\ncannot help it.\"\n\n\"As you will; and now good-night, I must go and see that matters\nare all right for the night. You say Anthony has gone up?\"\n\n\"Oh! yes, some time ago.\"\n\n\"Well, good-night!\" He left the parlor, and getting a lantern\nfrom the closet under the stairs, lit it, and started to the\nbarn.\n\nIt had been the custom in this family, since Anna Lee married,\nthat she and her husband should spend Christmas eve at the old\nhomestead, and return to their own house in Hamilton, with her\nbrother, sister, and niece, on Christmas morning. The early Mass\nwas too early for them to hear it, so the clergyman was willing\nto give them the holy communion as soon as they had spent a\nsufficient time in preparation on their arrival. After making\ntheir thanksgiving, they adjourned to Mrs. Mohun's house for\nbreakfast. Then, after High Mass and a Christmas dinner at Mrs.\nMohun's, the two Lees and Florence returned to \"The Solitude.\"\n\nThis programme was carried out as usual on this Christmas day,\nand the evening found the three sitting quietly in the parlor\nround the fire-place, with no noise of children's prattle to\ndistract their attention.\n{216}\nOn pretence of letters to write, Mr. Lee left the women alone\nwith a glance at his sister. No face was flattened against the\nwindows tonight, though old Tamar refrained from looking toward\nthem.\n\nFlorence occupied a low seat between her aunt and uncle; and when\nthe latter left the room, Margaret laid her head gently on the\nyoung girl's shoulder, and drew her toward her, saying:\n\n\"Florence, dearest, your uncle had a letter yesterday from Arthur\nHinsdale. One to you came by the same mail; but on reading that\ndirected to him, your uncle decided not to give you yours till he\nor I had told you something which you must know before you can\nanswer it. Here are both the letters, dear; you can read them in\nyour own room when I have finished. You have often asked,\" she\ncontinued, as Florence took the letters in silence, \"to be told\nsomething about your mother and father. To-night I will tell\nyou.\" A hardness came into her voice as she spoke that made the\ngirl look up in surprise. \"We lived, till your mother married, in\nthe northern part of the State of New York, among the mountains,\nwhere people from the city came every summer to spend the hot\nmonths. My father was wealthy, but cared for no life but that of\nthe country, so we saw nothing of the fashionable world, beyond\nthe glimpse caught in the summer. My mother was an invalid, and\ncared for little beyond her own health; and Anna, who was then a\nchild ten or twelve years old, your mother, and I did pretty much\nas we pleased. Harry was away at college at Fordham, and, when at\nhome in the vacations, was our constant companion in our rides\nand walks.\n\n\"One summer a party of gentlemen from Philadelphia came up to the\nAdirondacks to fish. Our farm and house was not far from the spot\nwhere they encamped, and we met them several times in riding.\nYour father was among them.\" Here she paused, as if choking back\nsome strong feeling, and Florence, slipping on her knees, wound\nher arms around her, resting her head against her. \"Your mother\nwas very beautiful,\" continued Margaret, threading her fingers\nthrough the young girl's golden hair lingeringly, as though she\nsaw a resemblance that she loved to trace, \"and it is not to be\nwondered at that she should have attracted attention. After\nseveral accidental meetings, he, your father, took advantage of\nsome trivial accident, the dropping of Florence's whip, or\nsomething of the kind, to speak when, one day, we came upon them\nsuddenly. From this it was easy to make an excuse to visit the\nfarm-house with some of his friends. My father was a man of\ncultivation and education, though he chose to bury himself from\nthe world, and liked the young men. After one or two visits, he\ninvited them to the house freely, I need not tell you the old,\nold story, dear. Before the time came for the visitors to break\nup their camp, Paul Athern was engaged to my sister. Florence was\nbut sixteen; Paul said he was nearly twenty-one; and my father\ninsisted that they should wait two years, and there was to be no\nregular engagement for one year. This was at length agreed to\nwith great reluctance by, by--your father. He also, being a\nProtestant, made all the necessary promises that your mother\nshould be allowed the full enjoyment of her religion.\n\n\"Well, the winter passed quietly as usual, and toward spring a\ncousin of my mother's wrote, inviting us to pay her a visit in\nNew York. We had once before visited her when I was fourteen and\nFlorence twelve; so remembering the former pleasure, we were\nquite eager to go, Florence particularly seemed anxious.\n{217}\nTamar's mother was our cook, and had been my grandfather's slave\nbefore slavery was done away with in New York. Tamar, a girl of\nmy own age, was our waiting-maid and humble companion and\n_confidante_, and was to go with us. After a good deal of\nhesitation--for he seemed to feel a presentiment of evil--my\nfather consented, and we went to New York. Our visit was nearly\nover, when, one day, on coming home from a walk with my cousin, I\nfound Florence in the drawing-room with Paul Athern. She looked\nguilty, and blushed when she saw my look of surprise; but Paul\ngreeted me with great apparent pleasure, and an easy grace that\ncovered whatever confusion he may have felt. That night, when\nalone in our room, Florence said, 'Mag, was I very, very wrong to\nlet Paul know I was here? I did want to see him so much, dear.\nOh! you _don't_ know how I have craved a sight of his dear\nface!' I could not resist her gentle pleading, so did not blame\nher very much; but told her I must write to father, it was the\nright thing to do and I must do it. The answer to my letter was a\nperemptory order for our instant return home. We, or I, had no\nidea of disobedience, and so prepared to return at once. The day\nbefore we were to have left, Florence was particularly\naffectionate, and seemed not to wish to be left alone. I had some\nlast errands to attend to, and leaving Tamar and Florence busy\nwith their packing, went out for two or three hours. I returned\nto find the trunks packed, but neither Florence nor Tamar was in\nthe house. My cousin said Florence kissed her when she went out,\nsaying laughingly, 'May be you won't see me again.' Tamar went\nwith her, carrying her satchel. As evening drew on and they did\nnot return, a great fear came over me, and Cousin Mary had\ndifficulty in keeping me from rushing into the street to seek for\nthem. At last, a ring at the door was followed by Tamar's rushing\ninto the drawing-room. She threw herself at my feet, buried her\nface in my lap, and cried as if her heart would break. At last,\nwhen she could speak, Cousin Mary had great trouble to understand\nher broken sentences. As for me, I sat stupefied, filled with the\none idea that Tamar had come back without Florence.\n\n\n    II.\n\n\"At last the frightened girl's story was made out. Florence had\ntaken her, on pretence of carrying her bag; but at Union Square,\nPaul Athern met them with a carriage, into which they got, and\nwere taken to a hotel down Broadway, (the Astor House, we\nafterward found it was.) Here they were shown into a private\nparlor where there was a strange gentleman, who looked, Tamar\nsaid, like the minister at home who preached in the little\ncountry church near us. He bowed to Paul and Florence when they\nentered, and then walked over to the farthest window and stood\nlooking out. Mr. Athern had to talk a long time to Miss Florence\nbefore she was willing to do something that he wanted her to do.\nAt last he said something that seemed to frighten her, and then\nhe made a sign to the strange gentleman who went to the door of\nanother room opening into this, and opened it. Mr. Tremaine, one\nof the fishing-party of the previous summer, came in, and before\nTamar knew what they were doing, she heard the strange gentleman\nsay, 'I pronounce you man and wife!' Then Florence fainted, and\nthey had great trouble to bring her\nto.\n{218}\nThen they all signed a paper, and the gentlemen shook hands with\n_Mr. and Mrs. Athern_, and left them. Paul, after a few\nwords to Florence, followed them. As soon as they were alone,\nFlorence threw herself on her knees and cried, 'Oh! what have I\ndone? what have I done? Tamar, do you think my darling father\nwill ever forgive me?' She sobbed and cried, but by the time Paul\nreturned had become quiet. When he came, she asked for paper and\npen, as she wished to write to her father. The letter was given\nto Tamar, with a note to me, exonerating the girl from all blame.\nThen Mr. Athern said it was time to start to the depot. Florence\nturned very pale, but didn't say a word, only got up and began to\nput on her things. Mr. Athern turned to Tamar and told her she\nwas to go home and tell me and Cousin Mary that we would never\nsee _Miss_ Florence again, but that Mr. and Mrs. Athern\nwould be happy to see them on their return from their wedding\ntour. Then they went to the depot in a carriage, taking Tamar\nwith them, trusting to her getting safe home after they had left,\nwhich, thanks to a kind Providence, she did.\n\n\"This news threw me into a brain-fever; and when I came to\nmyself, eight weeks after, I was told how my mother had died of a\nheart disease at the shock of Florence's flight; how a letter had\ncome from Germantown, saying how happy she was if only she knew\nher dear father had forgiven her; then another, full of grief at\nthe death of her mother and my illness; how my father had sold\nthe old house, and was waiting for my recovery to bury himself\nand his griefs in the far west. So the next fall saw us fixed out\nhere; and Florence was told of the change, and that her father\nwould never cross the mountains again. My father had not cast her\noff, as parents do in novels, but his displeasure and\ndisappointment were very great, and he let her know it; his\nletters, few and seldom, were cold and formal, never again the\nfond, loving missives they had been during the short separation\nfrom him in her childhood. More than all, he grieved over the\nProtestant marriage; for it was a Presbyterian minister who had\nperformed the ceremony, and Florence had never mentioned having\nhad it performed by a priest. One day, the next summer, as I was\nsitting at the open door, I saw a carriage drive up to the gate,\nand a lady get out; in a moment I knew it was Florence, and\ncalling Tamar, ran out to meet her, only to receive her fainting\nin my arms. Tamar helped to carry her in and lay her on the sofa.\nFather had gone to Hamilton; and before he returned, we had got\nher up-stairs, and all traces of her arrival done away with. I\nwaited anxiously for him to come, and wondered how I should tell\nhim; but my anxiety was useless, for he came in with a small\nglove in his hand, and his first question was, 'Where's\nFlorence?' I had hardly time to tell him, when the door opened,\nand Florence herself was at his feet.\n\n\"I left them alone together, and when I returned, he had placed\nher on the sofa, and was sitting close to her, holding her hand.\n\n\"It was not till the next day that we asked about her journey,\nand then she told her story.\n\n\"Paul had never told his father of his marriage, knowing what\ndifferent plans the old gentleman had formed, and weakly putting\noff the evil hour, dreading the scene that would follow. He often\ntold Florence of the urgings his father used to induce him to\nmarry a young lady of the fashionable world, and laughed as he\ncompared his 'meadow daisy,' as he called Florence, to the\n'hot-house plant,' that was his\nfather's choice.\n{219}\nThey managed to get along on the handsome allowance his father\nmade him, and Florence's share of my mother's fortune. One day\nthe little cottage at Germantown was overshadowed by a stately\ncarriage, and out of the carriage came an aristocratic-looking\ngentleman, who inquired for Mrs. Paul Athern. When Florence\npresented herself, her gentle beauty had no effect in melting his\nstony heart, for he did his work well. It was Paul's father. He\ntold her of his plans for Paul, and how he had discovered their\nsecret at last; and, with a cruelty I cannot understand even now,\ninformed her quietly that that marriage was null and void; they\nboth being minors, by the statutes of New York could not contract\nlegal marriage without consent of parents or guardians. Florence\nheard him out, and then rose and said she would wait till her\nhusband came home to know the truth. 'Your husband, madam, has\ntaken my advice and gone to New York for a few days, and you will\nnot have the opportunity of telling him what he knows already,\nand knew when, to satisfy you, he went through the mockery of a\nmarriage.'\" The listener tightened her hold on Margaret and hid\nher face; her aunt put both arms around her, and continued: \"Here\nFlorence lost all consciousness, and when she came to herself,\nshe was alone. The afternoon was nearly gone; but she called her\nservant, made her help to pack her trunk, then sent her for a\ncarriage, leaving a note for Paul with the girl in charge of the\nhouse. She drove to Philadelphia, waited quietly at a hotel till\nthe next morning, then started for the west.\n\n\"My father's anger was fearful, all the more so that he was\npowerless. Florence was ill for several weeks after her return,\nand even after she recovered she never looked like herself. She\ncame to us in June; in July came a letter to my father in Paul's\nhandwriting, which he threw into the fire unopened. In October\nyou were born, and in six weeks more your poor mother--died.\"\nHere she paused again, and bent her head close to the\ngolden-tressed one pressed to her breast. \"My father lived till\nthe next fall, but never the same man. Harry came home from\nFordham that summer, and took entire charge of the farm, my\nfather caring for nothing but to carry you about and watch you.\nFor two years we heard nothing of your father; and then the\neastern papers were full of a great forgery that had been\ncommitted, and the forger was a son of one of the first families\nin the city. Florence, darling, need I tell his name? The trial\nproved his guilt, but he managed to escape, and one day we were\nsurprised by his sudden appearance here. He came without any\nannouncement, and walked right into the parlor where I was\nsitting sewing and Uncle Harry reading, while you were asleep in\nyour cradle. Before we could recognize him almost, he asked in a\nhoarse voice, 'Where is Florence--where, for God's sake, is my\nwife?' Then a glance at my black dress and Harry's stern face as\nhe rose to repel his intrusion, seemed to reveal all, and he sank\non the floor in a deep swoon.\n\n\"We kept his presence in the house a secret from the men on the\nfarm, and only Tamar knew it; fortunately, the house-girl had\ngone to Hamilton for a few days. He was quite wild for a day or\nso; and when he came to himself, Harry demanded an explanation,\nand he gave it.\n\n\"He had not known of his father's visit to Germantown till he\nreturned from New York, where he had gone that day at his\nfather's request, having written a letter to that effect to\nFlorence, which must have reached the house very soon after she\nleft it.\n{220}\nHe was kept in New York on some pretext or another for three or\nfour weeks. His letters to Florence, of course, never reached\nher, and on his return home he was told by his father that he\n'had seen his pretty plaything, and told her some home truths.' A\nfearful scene followed, when he left his father's house, swearing\nnever to set foot in it again, and that he would be revenged. He\ndid not know that the marriage was illegal, as he was under the\nimpression that he was twenty-one, till his father showed him the\nrecord, and then he found his mistake; and, as of course he knew\nthat no Catholic clergyman would perform the ceremony, the Rev.\nMr. Bell was the only one who could be found to do it. He had\nsearched for Florence, and written to her father; but, as I knew\ntoo well, had received no answer. His allowance being stopped, he\nsuddenly found himself without a penny, and no business or\nbusiness habits; so he could not come out here to us, and\ngradually sought forgetfulness in dissipation. At last, by the\ntreachery of a friend, himself the guilty one, he was proved a\nforger so skilfully that there was no getting over it. He swore\nsolemnly that he was innocent, and felt sure his innocence would\none day be proved. He did not stay long, being anxious to get out\nof the country and the clutches of the law. You were a great\ncomfort to him, dear, during his short stay, but he had to leave\nyou. In fifteen years, Florence, we have heard or seen nothing of\nhim, and his guilt is still believed by those who have not\nforgotten the circumstances. Now, my darling, you know why I told\nyou this ere your uncle gave you Arthur Hinsdale's letter.\" The\nyoung girl made no answer save a shiver that ran through her\nframe as she clung closer to her aunt. For a full hour they sat\nthus in silence; then Harry Lee came into the room. Florence rose\nto her feet and would have fallen, had her uncle not caught her\nin his arms, and tenderly, as if she had been a baby, he lifted\nher, and carried her up to her bed-room. Margaret followed, and\ntenderly prepared the broken-hearted girl for bed. The letters\nlay unheeded on the parlor floor.\n\n\n    III.\n\nAll through the night Margaret Lee sat by her niece's bed-side,\npraying for strength for her darling, and watching the fitful\nslumbers and soothing the sad awakenings. And in the silent\nwatches of the night arose the long-buried ghost of her own\nlife's happiness, and kept guard beside her. There was an episode\nin the sad story she told her niece that was never\nmentioned--that she had not allowed herself to think of for many\na long year; but to-night memory will not be silenced, and she\nbrings up, once more, the pleasant days when young Tremaine\nwhispered into her ear the same story which Paul told Florence,\nand the fearful crushing of all her hopes of happiness, when her\nfather forbade her ever to see or speak to him again, his anger\nwas so great against him for having assisted Paul. Margaret\nsubmitted quietly, as such natures do; but she never cared for\nanything afterward beyond doing her strict duty--cheerfully and\nheartily; but never joyously. Perhaps the old man repented when\nit was too late; for in two years after, they heard Tremaine was\nmarried, and he was\nvery tender to her then.\n{221}\nOn his death-bed he drew her to him, and, asking her forgiveness\nif he had made her suffer, blessed her for the fondest love and\ngentlest tending that ever parent had from child. In that hour\nMargaret felt repaid for all that had gone before. So, through\nthe long watches of the night, came up the memories of the long\nago, and Margaret lived over again the dead joys and sorrows.\nToward morning Florence slept quietly, and her watcher threw\nherself on the bed beside her, and soon fell into a deep sleep.\nWhen she awoke, the sun had risen, and on glancing at Florence,\nshe found her lying quietly awake.\n\n\"Aunt Margaret,\" said the young girl, \"that--that--letter. I know\nwhat he wrote, and it is not necessary to tell him, is it?\"\n\n\"Only under certain circumstances, my darling; your own heart\nwill tell you what.\"\n\n\"Oh! yes, auntie; but that can never be. I can tell him that, and\nnothing more.\"\n\n\"My poor, dear child, have you not faith enough? do you not think\nhis love for you is strong enough to live through this trial?\"\n\n\"Yes, oh! yes! But would it be right to inflict the trial on him?\nI think not; I think the burden is mine alone, and I alone must\nbear it!\"\n\n\"God grant you strength to do so, my precious one! If I could\nhave spared you the suffering, how gladly would I have done it!\"\n\n\"I know that, auntie, dear. Do you think I do not feel and\nappreciate the years of care and tender love I have had from you\nand Uncle Harry? I was as happy as any one could be\nbefore--before--and I can and will be happy with you still.\"\n\n\"God bless you, dearest!\" was Margaret's answer, as she pressed a\nkiss on her forehead and left the room.\n\nAs soon as she was alone, Florence turned the key in her door;\nthen, throwing a dressing-gown around her, fell on her knees\nbefore a beautiful engraving of the Mater Dolorosa, which hung\nover a _prie-dieu_ at the side of her bed. Long she knelt\nthere, her golden hair falling in dishevelled masses over her\nshoulders, and nearly touching the floor as she knelt. At first\nthere was no sound, but presently her slight frame was convulsed\nwith suppressed weeping that soon found voice in sobs. At last\nshe rose, and began to dress, ever and anon pressing her hands to\nher head or heart to still their aching. When she was ready to go\ndownstairs, she again knelt before the picture, and prayed for\nstrength to bear her cross, so that not even the shadow of it\nshould fall on those whose tenderness and love had been her\nshield in the years that had gone.\n\nAnd then she went down and greeted her uncle with a brave attempt\nat her usual manner; she neglected nothing that she had been\naccustomed to do, none of the little services she had been in the\nhabit of rendering; and, but for the sadness that no strength of\nwill could drive from her face, and the silence of the bird-like\nvoice that before made music through the house the whole day\nlong, a casual observer would not have guessed at the sufferings\nof the previous night.\n\nOn going into the parlor, she saw the letters where she had\ndropped them the night before, and the sight of them sent a cold\nthrill of pain to her heart; but she picked them up and put them\nin her pocket. After going through the house as usual, she locked\nherself up in her room once more, to read the letters. Arthur\nHinsdale's to herself was, as she anticipated, a declaration of\naffection; that to her uncle, written the day after, expressed a\nhope that he would support his cause if it needed it.\n{222}\nAnd how were they to be answered? Florence paused long in painful\nthought on the subject, but felt too utterly miserable to come to\nany conclusion. So the day passed sadly, and so the night and the\nnext day. On the third day Florence felt that some answer must be\ngiven and written before another night went by, and set herself\nto her painful task. Having completed it, she brought the letter\ndown with her into the parlor, and sat down to some pretence of\nemployment that kept her hands busy, though her mind was far off.\nPresently she heard the galloping of a horse in the lane, and in\na few moments a knock at the front-door. The blinds were down\nover the front windows, so she had not seen any one pass, and,\nrising, she tried to make her escape before the visitor was\nadmitted. But she was too late. As she opened the parlor door,\nthe front-door was opened from without by her uncle, and she\nstood face to face with Arthur Hinsdale. The hearty greeting he\nhad met with from Mr. Lee had reassured the young man, and he was\nnot prepared for the frightened look and deadly pallor that\noverspread Florence's face when she saw him. She stepped back\ninto the parlor, and held out her hand with a desperate attempt\nto smile. Arthur took the hand and pressed it to his lips. Mr.\nLee had closed the parlor door, and she was alone with him. With\na desperate effort she commanded her voice enough to make some\ncommonplace remark about his journey, signing him to a chair,\nwhile she seated herself.\n\n\"I ventured to come, although I had received no answer to my\nletter. Did you receive it?\"\n\nFlorence inclined her head.\n\n\"Then you knew the reason of my coming?\"\n\nAgain Florence bowed, but could not speak.\n\n\"Miss Athern, was not my letter plain enough--do you not believe\nme? I do not understand your silence.\"\n\n\"Your--your letter was fully understood, Mr. Hinsdale, and I\nthank--\"\n\n\"You thank me, Florence!\"\n\nThen in earnest language he told her how he loved her, and how\nhis fear that his letter had not reached her had brought him\nthere, preferring the pain of a double refusal to the doubt in\nwhich he must have awaited her reply by post. To all this\nFlorence listened with head bent down and hands clasped; and when\nhe paused for a reply, she pointed to the letter lying on the\ntable. He took it up and walked to the window; a painful silence\nfollowed, broken only by the rustling of the paper in his hands.\nWhen he had finished reading, he came to her side, and leaning\nover her said:\n\n\"Am I to receive this as your answer?\"\n\n\"Yes!\" said Florence in a whisper.\n\n\"A final and decisive answer?\"\n\n\"Yes!\"\n\n\"Then pardon me. Miss Athern, that I allowed my heart to read\nyour conduct as I hoped it was meant, not as you really meant it.\nI gave you credit for a nobler heart than you possess. Let me\ntell you the truth, though what I say seems a reproach, that\noffer would never have been made had I not felt assured, by your\ntreatment of me, that it would be accepted.\"\n\nFlorence started, and the eloquent blood rushed to her very\ntemples.\n\n\"Mr. Hinsdale, you have no right to speak thus to me!\"\n\nShe attempted to draw her hands from his grasp, but could not.\n\n\"No right!--well, perhaps I have not. Forgive me, Florence, and\nonly remember that I love you.\"\n\n{223}\n\nHe still held her hands and tried to look into her face, but she\nbent her head away from him.\n\n\"I love you, Florence, and I feel that I am entitled to a little\nmore consideration than that letter shows, Florence, will you be\nmy wife?\"\n\nA low but distinct \"No,\" was the answer.\n\n\"Do you mean you do not love me?\"\n\nShe made no answer, and he dropped or rather flung her hands from\nhim and started to his feet.\n\n\"Strange, unfeeling! O fool, fool that I was! to build my\nhappiness on such a crumbling base; to be caught in the net of a\nfalse woman's beauty, the smiles of a vain coquette!\"\n\n\"Arthur, Arthur! you will break my heart!\"\n\nShe had risen and was standing with one hand resting on the back\nof a chair, the other pressed to her head. He made a motion to\napproach her, but she put out her hand with a sign to stop him.\n\n\"Now listen to me. I am no false woman, no vain coquette. Until\nthe night I received your letter, I knew no reason why I should\nnot--not--\" She hesitated a moment. \"I knew no reason why I\nshould not have answered it according to the dictates of my\nheart; but that night a story of a life was told me that--that\nchanged my whole existence. It is a heavy burden to bear.\"\n\n\"But not, dearest, if I can help you bear it.\" He would have\ntaken her hand, but she drew back from him, \"You cannot, no one\ncan--O God! help me, my heart is broken!\" She threw her arms up\nover her head, and would have fallen had he not caught her. She\nhad not fainted, though for a moment she thought death had come\nto her relief; and almost in a moment released herself from his\narms, and said sadly: \"I hoped to have spared us both this\nmisery; but it was God's will that we should not escape it. For\nmyself, a little more does not matter; but for you--O Arthur!\nforgive me the pain I have made you suffer, and remember my own\ncross is as heavy as I can bear. Good-by!\" She held out her\nhand--\"good-by! You cannot return home to-day, it is too late; but\nyou must excuse me, I will send uncle.\"\n\n\"Florence! I am not going to remain if this is your answer. Do\nyou think I could break bread or sleep under your roof after what\nhas passed? Heavens! do you think I'm a stick or a stone?\"\n\n\"As you will!\" she said wearily, \"I cannot help it!\"\n\n\"Then I will take my leave.\" He was going; but as he laid his\nhand on the door-knob, he glanced at her, and the expression of\nheart-broken misery in the sweet face overcame his injured\nfeelings, and he turned and took her hand. \"Forgive me, Florence;\nI have been rude and unfeeling--selfish in my great\ndisappointment. Forgive me, darling; remember my love is strong\nenough to bear the heaviest burden _you_ could lay upon it,\nif your own strength fails, Good-by and God bless you.\" He raised\nher hand to his lips, and in another moment was gone.\n\nEvery day Florence strove manfully with her trouble, and every\nnight her prayers were said before the _Mater Dolorosa_, for\nstrength to bear with silent patience the sorrow her loving\nfriends could not cure. But her face grew pale and wan, her form\nmore slight and delicate, till her aunt, in alarm, proposed a\nchange of scene. It was in the early spring, and Margaret Lee\nproposed a tour through the eastern cities; but Florence begged\nso hard not to be taken to New York or Philadelphia that the idea\nwas given up.\n{224}\nAt last they determined to go direct to Boston, and sail thence\nfor Liverpool. This plan was carried out in June, leaving the\nfarm in charge of the overseer, and the house to Tamar.\n\nTo a mind like Florence's, imbued with a loving reverence for all\nconnected with the church, filled with a love for the beautiful\nand grand, and a heart ready to receive their impressions; with\nan intellect of no common order, and a quick appreciation of the\ngood and noble, a tour through Europe, particularly Spain,\nFrance, and Italy, had many charms, and could not but awake an\ninterest that surprised herself. When they settled at Rome for\nthe winter, they had the satisfaction of a decided change for the\nbetter in Florence's appearance.\n\nBut she had not forgotten; she was only glad that returning\nstrength of body enabled her to hide more effectually the anguish\nand heart-sick yearning that sometimes seemed unbearable. Several\nletters came from Arthur Hinsdale during the first year; but\nFlorence returned the same answer to all; and at last the young\nman desisted. Three years were passed in idling from one point of\ninterest to another, when the tocsin of civil war in the United\nStates waked up the nations, and called the country's loyal\nchildren from far and wide to her assistance.\n\nOnce more the scene is laid at \"The Solitude;\" but this time the\nearth is not clothed in winter's snowy mantle. Hid in the wealth\nof foliage the trees are wearing, the birds are singing their\nvesper hymns, the sun is just sinking behind the woods, and\nthrows his last rays over a group seated on the grass near the\nslope into the ravine.\n\nHenry Lee is there, and Margaret and Annie and her children; but\nMr. Mohun is down in Tennessee with Rosecrans, and the wife's\nbrow wears an expression of anxiety, as she watches her children,\nthat was a stranger to it when we last saw her. Florence, too, is\nthere, looking very well, people say; but there is an indefinable\nchange that those nearest her feel, though they cannot say where\nor in what it lies. One or two young ladies are added to the\ngroup, and a young gentleman, whose shoulder-straps show his rank\nas second lieutenant, while the foot still bound up and the\ncrutches lying near, show cause for his presence on the scene. He\nis William Mohun, a younger brother of Annie's husband, and was\nwounded in the siege of Vicksburg. What he is saying now must be\nlistened to.\n\n\"I wish you knew our colonel, Mr. Lee; for a braver, nobler,\nkinder-hearted man never lived. He led a charge at Vicksburg, and\nexposed himself unsparingly; indeed, he seemed to court death;\nyet when he could help a wounded man, he was as gentle as a\nwoman. O Miss Florence! a friend of yours is the regimental\nsurgeon--Arthur Hinsdale, don't you remember him?\"\n\n\"Oh! yes,\" replied Florence, with wonderful self-command.\n\n\"He, too,\" continued the young man, \"deserves the thanks of the\nnation; for I never saw such devotion to the wounded and dying.\nPoor Warrington! hope he is not seriously wounded, for he will be\na great loss to us; and I hope Hinsdale is with him, for then I\nknow he will be well cared for.\"\n\n\"See, is there any mention of Joe's regiment. Will?\" asked his\nsister-in-law; and the young man referred to the paper in whose\ncolumns he had seen the wounding of his colonel--Warrington.\nFlorence rose quietly and went into the house; the old\nNewfoundland, who had been lying beside her, got up and walked at\nher side in stately satisfaction, ever and anon thrusting his\ncold nose into her hand in token of sympathy.\n{225}\nWhen Florence returned, there were traces of tears in her eyes;\nbut her face wore an expression of loving gratification her aunt\nunderstood well.\n\nA month and more has passed, and October began to touch, with her\nchanging pencil, the trees and shrubs. The air was hazy and\nbalmy, and the sun still warm; so the family at \"The Solitude\"\nspent many of their evenings in the open air. William Mohun was\ngone back to duty, and the young lady friends were again at home.\nFlorence and her two aunts were busy over comforts for the\nsoldiers, to help them through the weary winter with the thought\nthat loving hearts at home had not forgotten them. One evening\nFlorence had been down to the spring, and, lured by the lovely\nevening, seated herself in the summer-house on the knoll above\nit, with a book. She did not hear a carriage which approached the\nhouse from the direction of Hamilton, nor did she see the two\ngentlemen who alighted from it. Mr. Lee received Arthur Hinsdale\nand his companion with cordial welcome, though surprised at the\nsudden arrival, and wondering at Arthur's eager, excited manner.\nHe greeted Henry and Margaret warmly, but asked instantly for\nFlorence. They told him where she was, and the young man, instead\nof crossing the bridge, which would have apprised her of his\ncoming, passed with a swift foot down the lane, and, springing\nover the fence among the cherry-trees, down the slope, across the\npath, was in the summer-house almost before Florence saw him.\n\n\"Florence, my darling, our trial is at an end. My precious one, I\nknow your secret now. Cruel! that you doubted me. Could you not\nfeel that nothing could change my love?\"\n\nHe had taken her hands in his, and held them, looking down into\nher sweet face while he spoke, Florence looked at him in\nbewilderment; then, with a sobbing, convulsive movement of her\nlips, almost fainted.\n\nMeanwhile the gentleman, whom Arthur had introduced as Colonel\nWarrington, followed Henry and Margaret into the parlor by the\ndoor that opened at the end of the house toward the gate. When\nthey entered and Margaret turned to offer him a chair, she saw he\nwas deadly pale, and was glancing round the room as if it\nrecalled something painful. At the same moment a veil dropped\nfrom Margaret's eyes. She walked up to him, and, laying her hand\non his arm, said, \"Paul Athern, in heaven's name speak.\"\n\n\"Paul Athern?\" said Henry Lee, with a start of surprise.\n\n\"Yes,\" replied the colonel sadly, \"I am Paul Athern. God bless\nyou for the care you have taken of my darling. I can see her now\nwithout fear. Henry Lee, I can offer you my hand, and you, an\nhonest man, can take it without hesitation.\"\n\nHenry Lee grasped the hand extended to him warmly, saying, \"I\nnever thought anything else, Athern, after the interview we had;\nbut I rejoice that you are relieved from your painful situation\nand are living to enjoy the change. We began to fear you had\ndied. Tell us all about it; for Florence and Arthur will not join\nus yet.\"\n\nThen Paul Athern told how he had gone from \"The Solitude\" to New\nOrleans with a firm purpose to win fortune and a fame that would\nenable him to present himself before Florence in his true\nrelationship. He worked hard and steadily, and gained the\nconfidence of his employers to such an extent that they took him\ninto partnership, and then he came to Ohio to see his child.\n{226}\nBut the stain was not removed from his name, and he shrank from\nthe meeting at the last, as much as at first he had longed for\nit. He rode out to \"The Solitude\" on Christmas eve, and took a\npeep at the family group through the window, and had gone again\nwithout the consolation of hearing Florence speak. He told them\nhow, in looking in at the window the second time, he feared Tamar\nhad seen him, and he had hurried out to his horse and ridden away\nquickly. So he went back with only the crumb of comfort that\nstolen look afforded to his starving heart. When the war broke\nout, he withdrew from business with a comfortable fortune, and\nreturned to C----, raised a company for the ---- regiment, and\nrose to the rank of colonel. During his stay in C----, the family\nwere still in Europe; but he came out to \"The Solitude,\" and had\na long talk with Tamar. Then came the wound that had prostrated\nhim and put him into Arthur Hinsdale's hands; during the ravings\nof the fever he had mentioned names and revealed enough to arouse\nArthur's interest and curiosity. As soon as he was well enough,\nthe young man asked for an explanation, first telling why he\nasked it. Paul told him all, and his story only bound the young\nsurgeon more closely to him. The colonel then paid a glowing\ntribute to the kindness and care he had received from Arthur, and\nto his general interest in and treatment of the wounded men. He\nwatched till Paul was well enough to travel, and then obtaining a\nleave of absence for both from the commanding general, started\nhome. At first Paul refused to accompany Arthur; but one day a\nwounded officer was brought in and laid on the bed next to the\none occupied by him. Arthur made a sign to Paul to help him to\nremove the man's clothes; he stooped over him to unbutton his\ncoat, when the man opened his eyes, and, after looking round with\na startled gaze, fixed them on Paul with a frightened stare. Paul\nlooked and recognized the man who had blighted his whole\nexistence. A fierce struggle arose in his breast, and his fingers\nceased their work, while he turned away with a look of disgust\nand dislike. Arthur looked up at him with surprise, and just then\nthe man made a desperate effort and put out his hand, saying\nfaintly:\n\n\"Athern, forgive--here--I have it--all here.\"\n\nAnd his hand fluttered toward his heart, then fell, and his eyes\nsought Paul's with agonized entreaty. It was a hard struggle; but\nthe better angel conquered, and Paul took the hand and said:\n\n\"I do forgive you, Brooks, as I hope to be forgiven.\"\n\nA smile passed over the man's face; he moved his head slightly\nand was dead. In his breast-pocket were two packages, one\naddressed to Paul's father, the other to an influential gentleman\nin Philadelphia. The latter was mailed duly, and the former,\nPaul, his father being dead, opened. It contained a full\nacknowledgment of having committed the forgery for which Paul\nsuffered, and an explanation of how it was managed. This\ndetermined him at once to return to his wife's family. Meantime\nthe same story had been told in different words in the\nsummer-house down by the spring, and it took so long in the\ntelling that it was almost dark when Margaret, going to call her\nniece, saw them rise and approach the house, Florence, with a\nbright look of happiness her face had not worn for years, leaning\non Arthur's arm. She hastened with trembling footsteps to the\nparlor, at the door of which Arthur left her, and in another\nmoment she was clasped in her father's arms.\n\n{227}\n\nA gay wedding-party is assembled, when the spring once more puts\non her robes of ferial green, in the parlor of \"The Solitude.\"\nAll brides look lovely, they say; but certainly May never smiled\non a lovelier one than Florence Athern. Arthur Hinsdale certainly\nseemed to think so, for he looked at her with reverence mingled\nwith his deep love, as though she were a spirit dropped from the\nskies. The venerable and dearly loved and honored archbishop is\nthere, and has blessed the new ties; and the bride was given away\nby that tall, handsome man in brigadier-general's uniform, with\none arm in a sling yet, at whose side is the noble form of Henry\nLee, while Margaret moves about through the company with her\nusual quiet grace, and Tamar's face is filled with satisfaction\nat her young mistress' joy, as she looks in at the door.\n\n---------\n\n   Sayings Of The Fathers Of The Desert.\n\n\nA brother asked Abbot Antony to pray for him. The old man\nresponded: \"Neither I can pity thee nor can God, unless thou\nshalt have been anxious about thyself, and prayed to God.\"\n\nAbbot Antony again said: \"God doth not allow wars to arise in\nthis generation, because he knoweth they are weak and unable to\nbear them.\"\n\nAbbot Agathi said: \"If a man of wrathful spirit should raise the\ndead to life, he would not be pleasing to God because of his\nwrath.\"\n\nAbbot Pastor said: \"Teach thy heart, to observe what thy tongue\nteacheth others.\" Again, he said: \"Men wish to appear adepts in\nspeaking; but in carrying out those things of which they speak,\nthey are found wanting.\"\n\nAbbot Macarius said: \"If we remember the evils done to us by men,\nwe shall deprive our soul of the power to remember God; but if we\ncall to mind those evils which the demons raise against us, we\nshall be invulnerable.\"\n\nAbbot Pastor said of Abbot John the Small that, having prayed to\nGod, all his passions had been taken away, and, thus made proof,\nhe came to a certain old man and said: \"Behold a man freed from\npassion, and compelled to battle with no temptations.\" And the\nold man replied: \"Go, pray the Lord that he command thee to be\ntempted, for the soul grows perfect by temptation.\" And when\ntemptations came back upon him, he no longer prayed to be freed\nfrom them, but said, \"Lord, give me patience to bear with these\ntemptations.\"\n\nAbbot Daniel used to say: \"The stronger the body the weaker the\nsoul; and the weaker the body the stronger the soul.\"\n\n----------\n\n{228}\n\n\n         Popular Education. [Footnote 51]\n\n  [Footnote 51: _Report of the Rev. James Fraser.\n  Blackwood's Magazine_, Jan. 1868.]\n\n\nAt no period of the world's history have nations and their\ngovernments seemed to be in such a feverish state of uncertainty\nand apprehension. From all quarters of Christendom we hear the\ncry of change. The last vestiges of the ancient order are\ndisappearing. The rule of caste is everywhere confronted by\nself-asserting populations, who are no longer willing to bear the\npatient yoke of servitude, even though consecrated by the\ntraditions of centuries. Russia has abolished her serfdom, so\nlong and so deeply rooted in her soil; and the more advanced\nnations of Europe, whilst yet retaining their accustomed forms of\ngovernment, are heaving with the volcanic fires of revolution. We\nspeak not of violent revolution, mainly; but of that other more\nradical and enduring change, which is the inevitable result of\nthe wonderful mechanical inventions of this age. It is simply\nimpossible in the dread presence of steam and the electric cable,\nfor nations to continue to be what the Greek republics and the\nRoman empire were, or what mediaeval Europe was, centuries ago.\nThe Christian world is now, for all great practical purposes, one\nnation. Even that \"_despotism tempered by assassination_\" is\nnot now the thing that Talleyrand described in his witty\naphorism; for the Czar himself bows to the censure of the world.\nNapoleon prosecutes the Parisian editors, and sends them to\nprison; but it avails nothing toward the suppression of the power\nof opinion. He, to-day, has greater fear of the sentiment of\nFrance, than ever his terrible uncle felt for the combined armies\nof Europe. In England, the House of Peers has become a gloomy\npageant, and the Commons, under the new Reform Bill, will\nhenceforth represent, not the gentry, nor even the moneyed lords\nof the loom, but the toiling millions of Great Britain. In a\nword, power is passing from the few to the many, from the\nhereditary rulers to the multitude. We have nothing to do, in\nthis article, with the merits of this vast revolution, as to the\nmanner of change, its good or evil, its probable success or\nfailure. We accept it as a fact, and propose to deal with it as\nsuch. It is very possible that all this would have occurred if\nAmerica had never been discovered; but it is absolutely certain\nthat the achievements of Christopher Columbus and George\nWashington have been the chief, immediate causes of its rapid\nconsummation. When a Bourbon king, to gratify the traditional\npolicy and animosities of his house, sent his fleets and armies\nto help the glorious work of building up the independence of this\npeople, little did either he or his enraged and maniac foe, King\nGeorge, imagine what the end of it all would be! Little did they\ndream that this land would, in ninety years, contain thirty\nmillions of men of European blood, and that the whole European\npopulation would learn new principles, catch new inspirations,\nand be filled with new longings, new hopes, and stern resolves by\nintercourse with this young republic. Those pampered kings could\nnot foresee the advent of steam-ships and the telegraph!\n{229}\nThey could not foretell the power of emigration--how it would\npeople a continent, build up its commerce, fortify it with the\nmaterials for armies and navies, ready to be called into\nexistence more magically than the palace of Aladdin, and, above\nand beyond all, how its sweeping currents of democratic ideas\nwould rush back upon the father-lands everywhere, washing away\nthe old dikes of royalty and caste, and floating the populations\nover the battlements of feudal castles, musket in hand, and with\nloud cries for \"change;\" that is, for the all-essential change\nwhich shall see that governments be henceforth established and\nconducted for the benefit for the governed, and not that the\ngoverned shall be held, as they have been for many thousand years\nheretofore, as the property of the ruler, existing solely for his\nglory and profit. Europe sends her millions hither, and they in\nturn send back by every ship to those they left behind, the\nwonderful record of what they see here; and these inspiring\ntestimonies are read at the firesides of ten thousand hamlets by\nkindred men whose awakening intelligence and energies are\nstirring the foundations of European society and shaking all\nthrones to inevitable ruin, unless they speedily plant themselves\non more solid ground than the _divine right of kings_. It is\nnow very certain that no government anywhere can be said to rest\non a sure basis, unless it stand upon the love and confidence of\nthe people. Any other basis is the lawful prey of time and\nfortune, and will go with the opportunity that may arise for its\ndestruction.\n\nNow, if these be facts with which we have to deal, then a very\ngrave question meets us right here, and it is this: Can any such\nsolid foundation for government be found in a self-governing\ncommunity? In other words, can the people govern themselves for\ntheir own weal, and maintain institutions _solely by the force\nof their own will_, which shall accomplish the purposes of\ngood government, and for ever secure the approval of all wise and\nvirtuous citizens? If nay, then, royalty and aristocracy being\nrepudiated, whither shall we fly for refuge and hope? If yea,\nthen how is this most precious end to be attained? We Americans,\nby birth and blood, and still more so by passionate love of\ncountry, say most emphatically that we have never doubted that\nthe way to such a consummation is plain, if only the nation will\npursue it. It is nothing new; simply the old and trite aphorism,\nthat a free, self-governing nation can only be so upon the\nconditions precedent of a clear intelligence and a\nwell-established virtue; the latter (if we may separate the two)\nmust always take precedence, and be regarded as the indispensable\nprerequisite. It follows, therefore, that education without\nmorality would be at least futile. It is very certain that it\nwould be absolutely _fatal_; because the intelligent man of\nvice is armed with keen weapons, which are greatly blunted by\nignorance, and are consequently then less dangerous to society.\nCatiline, the polished patrician, was a greater object of alarm\nto Cicero and the Roman senate than the rude assassins whom he\nhad hired to do his treason. Before and during the first French\nrevolution, France was ablaze with genius; but, like the high\nintelligence of the \"Archangel ruined,\" it brought death in its\nfiery track. Education without morality is more terrible than the\nsword in the hands of men or a nation. It is not the part of\npatriotism to deny that we have seen some instances of this in\nour own favored country, and that the tendency to that perilous\ncondition is very apparent even now.\n{230}\nThis has resulted from the too prevalent idea, taught by the\ninfidel or indifferent press, and accepted by the unreflecting or\nequally indifferent citizen, that morality can be maintained\nwithout formal or doctrinal religion; that one morality is as\ngood as another; that Plato would answer as well as Christ; that\nwhat even the pagans taught--to deal honestly by your neighbor\nand perform the domestic and public duties of life with\nreasonable decency--is quite sufficient; and that all else is\nnothing more than priestly dogmatism and controversial jargon. So\nthat, indeed, the prevailing opinion of the country would almost\nseem to be (if we judge it by the secular press and multitudes of\nvery honest and intelligent citizens) that America, as a\nChristian democratic nation, may be satisfied to be as moral, and\nconsequently as grand and powerful, as was pagan Rome in the days\nof her republican simplicity of manners. They forget or ignore\nthe history of the _Decline and Fall_, and fail to see in\nthat tremendous catastrophe of the most extraordinary people of\nthe ancient world, the logical development of the certain causes\nof destruction which were inherent in the nation from the day\nthat Romulus slew his brother upon the wall of the rising city.\nIt cannot be that Christ came for a delusion and a snare, or even\nas a simple fatuity. If his coming was necessary, then it was to\nteach a new religion and a new morality; _the one inseparable\nfrom the other_. If this be indisputable, then all education\nwhich is not based expressly and clearly upon religion is\nheathenish, and will prove destructive in the end. It will\ndestroy the very people whom it was expected to save. It will\nconsume them as a fire. Pride and lust of power will burn out the\npublic conscience. The nation will drip with the blood of\nunjustifiable conquest, as did pagan Rome, or be given up to the\nferocious struggle for individual aggrandizement, as seen in\nlater revolutionary times. The father of our country fully\nrecognized these principles, and in the foregoing we have but\nechoed his words of warning in his Farewell Address to the\nAmerican People:\n\n  \"Of all dispositions and habits,\" he says, \"which lead to\n  political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable\n  supports. A volume could not trace all their connection with\n  private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is\n  the security for property, for regulation, for life, if the\n  sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the\n  instruments in courts of justice? And let us with caution\n  indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without\n  religion.\"\n\nTo this it will be replied, by some well-meaning persons, \"How\ncan we place education in the United States upon the basis of\ndoctrinal religion, when we have innumerable sects, none of which\nabsolutely agree?\" And now we approach the marrow of the subject.\n\nFirst, let us clear away one difficulty. Let it be very\ndistinctly comprehended that nowhere can the state find its\ncommission as exclusive educator of the people. That is a duty\nand a privilege belonging, of original right, to the family; it\nis domestical and not political, though it may be always, and is\nmost frequently, wise and politic that the state should lend\nefficient aid to _assist_, but not _arbitrarily to\ncontrol_ the training of the free citizen's child. The parent\nis placed over the child by the Creator, and is the natural\nguardian, primarily responsible for the training which is to lead\nthrough this valley of probation to the eternal home.\n{231}\nReligious freedom, freedom of conscience, is not a right granted\nby constitutions, but is the result of the relation of man as a\nfree, moral agent to the Creator who thought fit to make him the\nmaster of his own destiny here and hereafter. To coerce the\nconscience of the child by an educational system, actively or\npassively, (for there may be effective coercion by negative\nmeans,) is to violate the sacred rights of the parent, vested in\nhim by the divine appointment. There is not a religious man,\nfollowing any form of worship, professing to be a Christian and\nan American, who can seriously deny this proposition, or who\nwould accept any other in a question involving his rights and\nduties in regard to his own off-spring. No such man, we are sure,\nwould tolerate any assumption of the authority on the part of the\nstate to step between him and his child in the matter of\nreligious belief and instruction. No other form of tyranny would\narouse so quickly the indignant resistance of an American citizen\nand father; and every upright man feels in his heart that what\nwould be so grievous to him should not be imposed upon any other\nof his fellow-citizens, directly or indirectly. Actuated by such\nviews in the main, the state provides a system of public schools\nfrom which, theoretical (and it may be practically in most\ncases,) all forms of doctrinal religion are excluded, and\neducation is based upon a vague, undefined, generalized moral\nteaching which very many eminent men of different religious\ndenominations have pronounced to be \"godless,\" because the\ndoctrines of Christ (the foundation of his moral law) are not\ntaught in such schools according to any interpretation whatever,\nfor the plain reason that it could not be done without such\nmanifest injustice and wrong as we have already protested\nagainst. To read the Bible, _without note or comment_, to\nyoung children is, in reality, to lead them to the fountain of\nliving waters and forbid them to drink; whereas, \"to expound the\nword\" is, at once, to violate the absolute neutrality which the\nstate is bound to maintain in the presence of conflicting\ninterpretations and dissenting consciences. Such is the precise\ndifficulty. Hence it is, that the Catholic Church has set its\nface against the peril with which such a system of education\nthreatens its youth; and the Catholic pastors and their flocks,\nthough struggling with poverty, and harassed by ten thousand\npressing claims upon their charity, have strained every nerve to\nestablish parochial and other denominational schools where\nsecular education could be imparted without sacrificing religious\ninstruction.\n\nThere is no doubt but that there are many strong and marked\ndoctrinal differences between the various Protestant\ndenominations which have led some of their most eminent men to\nargue against the possibility of a perfect or desirable system of\npublic schools upon the mixed or non-intervention basis.\nNevertheless, it is also true that in the fundamental point,\nessentially characteristic of Protestantism, and in which it\nespecially differs from the Catholic Church (private\ninterpretation and the rejection of tradition) all Protestant\nchurches agree; and herein we find the reason why they can\nconform to the necessities of such a public-school system as we\nhave described, with some degree of amalgamation; whereas their\nCatholic fellow-citizens cannot avail themselves of the secular\nadvantages of such schools without a total sacrifice of religious\ntraining.\n{232}\nWe are told by the Rev. James Fraser, despatched on an official\nmission for the purpose of reporting on the whole subject to the\ncommissioners appointed by her Majesty Queen Victoria, and who\nvisited the United States in 1865, that one of the\n_influences_ adverse to the success of our American\ncommon-school system is, \"_the growing feeling that more\ndistinctly religious teaching is required, and that even the\ninterests of morality are imperfectly attended to;_\" and\nanother \"_influence_\" is \"_the very lukewarm support that\nit receives from the clergy of any denomination, and the languid\nway in which its claims on support and sympathy are rested on the\nhigher motives of Christian duty;_\" from which, and other\ncauses, the Rev. Mr. Fraser reluctantly augurs misfortune to the\nsystem itself in the future. There can be no doubt but that such\n\"lukewarmness\" does exist, and that it is produced solely by the\n\"growing feeling that more distinctly religious teaching is\nrequired.\" No accord of the Protestant sects upon what they call\n\"essentials,\" can permanently reconcile them to either a\ndoctrinal teaching at the public schools, in which it would be\nimpossible for them all to agree, or to the alternative necessity\nof excluding from the schools all manner of \"distinct religious\nteaching,\" without which \"even the interests of morality are\nimperfectly attended to.\" Hence springs not only the\nlukewarmness, but the affirmative opposition of distinguished\nProtestant clergymen to the \"godless system.\"\n\nIt is altogether erroneous, however, to suppose, and unjust to\ncharge, that Catholics are hostile to the continuance of the\npresent schools. FAR FROM IT. They rejoice to see their\nProtestant fellow-citizens availing themselves freely of those\ngreat opportunities to instruct the future self-governing\ncitizens of the young republic. They appreciate, nay, they insist\nupon the absolute necessity of raising the standard of popular\nintelligence, so as to insure the wisest possible administration\nof public affairs through the agency of the elective franchise.\nThat their church is profoundly solicitous for the secular\neducation of her people is too manifest for dispute, since she\nhas, by the instrumentality of her various religious orders,\nestablished universities, colleges, academies, and innumerable\npreparatory schools in every great city, and throughout the rural\ndistricts of the country, wherever it was possible to do so. A\nglance at the Catholic Register or Directory, for 1868, will\nsatisfy the most sceptical upon that point. The Roman Catholic\nChurch has covered Europe with such institutions, grand in\ndesign, and magnificent in endowment; and it is not her purpose\nto permit her children in America to fall behind the age for the\nwant of similar advantages, if she can supply their necessities.\nShe is ever appealing to their public spirit, their patriotism,\ntheir religious sentiment, to obtain the means to build and\nconduct her educational establishments; and most nobly have they\never responded; for it was by the steady contributions of the\npoor mainly, that nearly all of those great works were begun and\nperfected.\n\nBut we may well adopt the assertion of a writer in the last\nJanuary number of _Blackwood's Magazine_, that \"_the fact\nis palpable and every statesman, philosopher, and candid student\nof the educational question confesses, that voluntary agencies\nare wholly unable to undertake a task so gigantic,_\" as that\nof reaching the great mass of helpless ignorance existing even in\nthe most favored communities.\n{233}\nIt is exactly here that government may legitimately step in with\nits organized resources, but without wearing the pedagogue's cap.\nThe wisest governments of Europe, Catholic and Protestant, have\ndone this. They have abandoned the Lacedemonian usurpation of\ndomestic rights, reproduced by the first Napoleon, as he\nexpressed the policy in his curt style, \"_My principal end in\nthe establishment of a teaching corps is to possess the means of\ndirecting political and moral opinions._\" A candid confession\nfor an autocrat. The nephew, who now reigns over France, has\nlearned by the experience of misfortune to be wiser and more\nfaithful to natural rights. In Catholic France education is\nentirely free and without favoritism. The public educational fund\nis equitably distributed to Catholic and Protestant, and each is\npermitted to rear, under the supervision of their respective\nclergy, as they may elect, the children of their own religious\nhousehold. Conscience is respected; and yet the youth of the\ncountry are not deprived of instruction in the Christian faith at\nthe public schools. Protestant Prussia is as liberal and as wise\nas France, and her system of public instruction is based upon the\nnecessity of religious teaching, and the right of the parent to\ndirect the child, and the just relation of the pastor to the\nparent, and therefore the equity of a proper distribution of the\npublic-school fund. We have not the time, nor is it necessary to\ngo into the details; but it is sufficient to say that the\nPrussian system concedes more to the Prussian Catholic than the\nAmerican Catholic has yet asked from an enlightened and\ndemocratic American government; and yet, strange to say, the\nAmerican Catholic has been violently and persistently charged\nwith hostility to public education, and a conspiracy to destroy\nrepublican institutions! Even England, iron-clad in her\nprejudices, has adopted the principles of Prussia, niggardly as\nher policy toward the public schools has always been. And what\nshall we say of \"benighted Austria,\" the land of popish\nconcordats! Let Mr. Kay, a recognized authority upon matters of\neducation, and a Protestant, answer this question.\n\n  \"The most interesting and satisfactory feature of the Austrian\n  system is the great liberality with which the government,\n  though so staunch an adherent and supporter of the Romanist\n  priesthood, has treated the religious parties who differ from\n  themselves in their religious dogma. It has been entirely owing\n  to this liberality that neither the great number of the sects\n  in Austria, nor the great differences of their religious\n  tenets, has hindered the work of the education of the poor\n  throughout the empire. Here, as elsewhere, it has been\n  demonstrated that such difficulties may be easily overcome,\n  when a government understands how to raise a nation in\n  civilization, and wishes earnestly to do so.\n\n  \"In those parishes of the Austrian empire where there are any\n  dissenters from the Roman Church, the education of their\n  children is not directed by the priests, but is committed to\n  the care of the dissenting ministers. These latter are\n  empowered and required by government to provide for, to watch\n  over, and to educate the children of their own sects in the\n  same manner as the priests are required to do for the education\n  of their children.\"\n\nHe also says:\n\n  \"And yet in these countries--Austria, Bavaria, and the Rhine\n  provinces, and the Catholic Swiss cantons--the difficulties\n  arising from religious differences have been overcome, and all\n  their children have been brought under the influence of\n  religious education without any religious party having been\n  offended.\" (_Kay_, vol. ii. p. 3.)\n\nAnd bearing testimony to the earnest desire of the Catholic\nChurch to advance the education of her children everywhere, he\nsays:\n\n{234}\n\n  \"In Catholic Germany, in France, and even in Italy, the\n  education of the common people in reading, writing, arithmetic,\n  music, manners, and morals is, at least, as generally diffused\n  and as faithfully promoted by the clerical body as in Scotland.\n  It is by their own advance, and not by keeping back the advance\n  of the people, that the popish priesthood of the present day\n  seeks to keep ahead of the intellectual progress of the\n  community in Catholic lands; and they might, perhaps, retort\n  upon our Presbyterian clergy, and ask if they, too, are in\n  their countries, at the head of the intellectual movement of\n  the age? Education is, in reality, not only not suppressed, but\n  is encouraged by the popish church and is a mighty instrument\n  in its hands and ably used. In every street in Rome, for\n  instance, there are at short distances public primary schools\n  for the education of the children of the lower and middle\n  classes of the neighborhood. Rome, with a population of 158,000\n  souls, has 372 public primary schools, with 482 teachers, and\n  14,000 children attending them. Has Edinburgh so many schools\n  for the instruction of these classes? I doubt it. Berlin, with\n  a population about double that of Rome, has only 264 schools.\n  Rome has also her university, with an average number of 600\n  students, and the papal states, with a population of 2,500,000,\n  contains seven universities; Prussia, with a population of\n  14,000,000, has but seven.\"\n\nIf the church has been found in hostility to educational systems,\nit has been when, as in Ireland, the schools have been made\n_proselytizing agencies_ and _instruments of\noppression_; and if she has disfavored without opposing other\nsystems, as here, it was solely to preserve her _own people_\nfrom the damaging effects of a purely secular education, and to\nsecure for them the higher advantages of a religious training. If\nothers find that the schools answer all their wants, she is well\npleased to see them derive every benefit therefrom which the best\nadministration of such a system can produce. But the Catholic\npeople say: If we who are counted by millions, and who are daily\nadding to the wealth of the nation by our labor and enterprise,\nare required to pay taxes for the support of the public schools\nwhich we cannot use for the education of our children, ought we\nnot, at least, to receive an equitable proportion of the public\nfund, to assist us in securing what every good citizen wishes to\nsee accomplished, the education of our youth? We are now\nmillions, and millions more are coming, by ship and steamer,\nevery day, almost every hour. We are a part of the nation,\nchildren and citizens of the great republic. Shall we add to the\nvirtue and intelligence of the community, or to its ignorance and\nvice? We are struggling with all our might, and devoting all our\nmeans to reach the lowest stratum of our society, and lift it up\ninto the light and air of secular knowledge and spiritual grace.\nWhy should not the State of New York help in the good work?\n\nThe regulations of France, Prussia, Austria, England, and other\ncountries of Europe would assuredly afford to our legislators the\npractical details of a good working system, which it is not our\nprovince to suggest in form, uninvited. Let it be conceded,\nhowever, that millions of men throughout this country should not\nbe taxed for establishments of which they cannot conscientiously\navail themselves, unless, at the same time, they are permitted to\nparticipate, in a reasonable way, in the enormous funds derived\nfrom those tax-rates. Let the schools, though denominational when\nendowed by the state, be subject to state inspection so far as to\ninsure the full compliance with the requirements of the general\nlaw as to the standard of education to be bestowed, but with no\nfurther control over management or discipline.\n\n{235}\n\nIn the European countries referred to, (it may be said here\ngenerally,) each religious denomination when sufficiently\nnumerous in a district to justify it, is permitted to establish a\ndenominational school; receiving its share of the public fund,\nand being subject to governmental inspection as to the proper\napplication of the money, and the faithful discharge of the\nengagement to impart secular knowledge according to the fixed\neducational standard. The selection of the school-books and the\nreligious training of the children are in such cases placed in\nthe charge of the clergy, or made subject to their revision.\nWhere the religious denomination has not sufficient numerical\nstrength to enable it to establish a separate school, its\nchildren attend the other public school or schools, but are\ncarefully guarded against all attempts at proselytizing, and\ntheir religious instruction is confided to their own ministers.\nIn no instance is the proper proportion of the school fund ever\nrefused to any denomination which has the number requisite under\nthe law for the establishment of a separate school. By these\nmeans, perfect freedom of conscience is preserved, and public\nharmony and good-will promoted; whilst at the same time, the\nchildren of all churches are brought up in the wisdom of the\nworld without losing the fear of God. In this way, too, religious\nfreedom becomes a _practical thing_, and not a\nconstitutional platitude or an empty national boast. In this\nserious matter, this great national concern, those European\nmonarchies have expelled sham altogether. Have we? Do we in the\nUnited States, vaunting our hatred of \"_church and state_,\"\nour devotion to entire freedom of conscience, our preeminent love\nof \"_fair play_,\" our respect for the _inviolable rights\nof minorities_, do we imitate the liberal example of\nmonarchical Europe, Catholic and Protestant, when we tax our six\nmillions of Catholics for public schools, and then refuse them a\nparticipation in the fund? What just man will say that such a\nrule is right? What wise man will say that it is _politic_?\nAt least, let it not be said that in our great cities, where\nthere are tens of thousands of poor Catholic children, and in\nthose rural districts where the numbers are notoriously\nsufficient to justify the establishment of one or more schools,\nthey shall be driven to seek an education under a system which\ntheir parents cannot conscientiously sanction, or be left to the\nchances of procuring the rudiments of learning from the\nover-taxed and doubly-taxed resources of their co-religionists.\nHelp the schools now actually existing, and which are filled to\noverflowing with eager scholars; and assist those who are willing\nto build up others; the cost is no greater; the educational\npolicy of the state is equally satisfied, whilst the morals of\nthe rising generation, purified by religious faith and\nstrengthened by religious practices, will give the republic\nassurance of a glorious future.\n\nWe are satisfied that such a system would give us an enlightened\nChristian people, and not merely a nation of intelligent men of\nthe world, as cold as they are polished, and as indifferent to\ndivine things as they are eager for the pleasures of sense and\nthe pride of life.\n\nThis would be a truly solid basis upon which to build and\nperpetuate the empire of a self-governing nation. Without this,\nour constitution is a rope of sand, our republicanism a delusion,\nand our freedom a miserable snare to the down-trodden\nnationalities all over the earth.\n\n--------\n\n{236}\n\n       All Souls' Day--1867.\n\n\n  Dying? along the trembling mountain flies\n    The fearful whisper fast from cot to cot;\n  Strong fathers stand aghast and mothers' eyes\n    Melt as their white lips stammer, \"Not, oh! not\n        Him of all others? Nay,\n  Not him who from our hearths so oft drove death away?\"\n\n  Well may those pale groups gather at each door.\n    Well may those tears that dread the worst be shed.\n  The hand that healed their ills will bless no more,\n    The life that served to lengthen theirs has fled;\n        And while they pray and weep,\n  Unto his rest he passeth like a child asleep.\n\n  Ah! this is sudden! why, this very morn\n    He rode amongst us: sick men woke to hear\n  The step of his black pacer: the new-born\n    Smiled at him from their cradles; many a tear\n        On faces wan and dim.\n  He dried to-day: to-night those cheeks are wet for him.\n\n  For there he lies, together gently laid\n    The hands we were so proud of, his white hair\n  Making the silver halo that it made\n    In life around his brow; as if in prayer\n        The gentle face composed.\n  With nameless peace o'ershadowing the eyelids closed.\n\n  And as beside him through the night we hold\n    Our solitary watch, I had not started\n  To hear my name break from him, as of old,\n    Or see the tranquil lips a moment parted.\n        To speak the word unsaid,\n  The last supreme adieu that instant death forbade.\n\n  I dread the day-dawn, for his silent rest\n    Befits the night: I half believe him mine,\n  While in the tapers' shadowy light, his breast\n    Seems heaving, and, amid the pale moonshine\n        That wanders o'er the lawn.\n  Crouch the still hounds unknowing that their master's gone.\n\n{237}\n\n  But when the morning at his window stands\n    In glory beckoning, and he answers not;\n  Not for the wringing of the widowed hands,\n    Or orphans wrestling with their bitter lot,\n        I feel, old friend, too well,\n  That naught can wake thee but the final miracle.\n\n  Was it but yesterday, that at my gate,\n    Beneath the over-arching oaks we met;\n  Throned in his saddle, statue-like he sate,\n    A horseman every inch: I see him yet,\n        His morning mission done.\n  His deep-mouthed pack behind him trailing, one by one.\n\n  Mute are the mountains now! No more that cry\n    Of the full chase by all the breezes borne\n  Down the defiles, while echo's swift reply\n    Speeds the loud chorus! Nevermore the horn\n        Of our lost chief will shake\n  Those tempest-riven crags, or pierce the startled brake!\n\n  Those summits were his refuge when the touch\n    Of gloom was on him, and the gathered care\n  Of long life, that braved and suffered much,\n    Drove him from beaten walks, to breathe the air\n        That, haunts gray Carrick's crest,\n  And spur from dawn to dusk till effort purchased rest.\n\n  But yet, in all these thirty years, how few\n    The days we saw not the familiar form\n  Amid the valleys passing, till it grew\n    Part of the landscape: through the sun or storm\n        With equal front he rode,\n  Punctual as planets moving in the paths of God.\n\n  I've seen him, when the frozen tempest beat,\n    Breast it as gayly as the birds that played\n  Upon the drifts: and through the deadly heat\n    That drove the fainting reapers to the shade.\n        Smiling he passed along.\n  Erect the good gray head, and on his lips a song.\n\n  I've known him too, by anguish chained abed,\n    Forsake his midnight pillow with a moan,\n  And meekly ride wherever pity led,\n    To heal a sorrow slighter than his own;\n        Or rich or poor the same--\n  It mattered not: let any sorrow call, he came.\n\n{238}\n\n  Thy life was sacrifice, my own old friend,\n    Yet sacrifice that earned a sacred joy,\n  For in thy breast kept beating to the end,\n    The trust and honest gladness of a boy;\n        The seventy years that span\n  Thy course, leave thee as pure as when their date began.\n\n  Who could have dreamed the sharp, sad overthrow\n    Of such a life, so tender, strong, and brave?\n  My pulse seems answering thy finger now--\n    'Twas one step from the stirrup to the grave!\n        Oh! lift your load with care,\n  And gently to its rest the precious burden bear.\n\n  All Souls' Day! as they place him in the aisle.\n    The bells his youth obeyed for Mass are ringing;\n  And, as beneath the churchyard gate we file,\n    To latest rite his honored relics bringing.\n        You'd think the dead had all\n  Arrayed their little homes for some high festival.\n\n  As if for _him_ the flowering chaplets, strewn\n    Throughout God's acre, breathe a second spring;\n  To him the ivy on the sculptured stone\n    A welcome from the tomb seems whispering:\n        The buried wear their best.\n  As, in their midst, their old companion takes his rest.\n\n  Yes, he is yours, not ours: set down the bier:\n    To you we leave him with a ready trust:\n  Beneath this sod there's scarce a spirit here\n    That was not once his friend: Oh! guard his dust!\n        And if your ashes may\n  Thrill to old love, your graves are gladder than our hearths to-day.\n\n----------\n\n{239}\n\n         Is it Honest? [Footnote 52]\n\n    [Footnote 52: Sermons in answer to the Tract, _Is it\n    Honest?_ By Rev. L. W. Bacon. _The Brooklyn Times_,\n    March 9th, 17th, 24th, 1868.]\n\n\nA brief tract, issued a short time since by The Catholic\nPublication Society, seems to have produced an unusual commotion\namong our non-Catholic brethren, and has called forth reply after\nreply from the sectarian press and pulpit. The tract is very\nbrief, and consists only of a few pointed questions; but it has\nkindled a great fire, and compelled Protestants to come forward\nand attempt to defend their honesty, in uttering their false\ncharges and gross calumnies against Catholics and the church. It\nhas put them on their defence, made them feel that they, not the\nchurch, are now on trial before the public. This is no little\ngain, and they do not have so easy a time of it, in defending\ntheir libels, as they had in forging and uttering them, when\nCatholics had no organ through which they could speak, and were\nso borne down by public clamor that their voice could not have\nbeen heard in denial, even if they had raised it. Times have\nchanged since those sad days when it was only necessary to vent a\nfalse charge against the church, to have it accredited and\ninsisted on by a fanatical multitude as undeniable truth, however\nridiculous or absurd it might be.\n\nSince our sectarian opponents have been put upon their defence,\nwe trust Catholics will keep them to it. We have acted on the\ndefensive long enough, and turn about is only fair play. They\nmust now prove their libels, or suffer judgment to go against\nthem. They feel that it is so, and they open their defence\nresolutely, with apparent confidence and pluck. They have no lack\nof words and show no misgiving. This is well; it is as we would\nhave it, for we wish them to have a fair trial, and to make the\nstrongest, boldest, and best defence the nature of the case\nadmits.\n\nIn our remarks we shall confine ourselves principally to the\njustification attempted by Mr. Bacon, in his sermons, as we find\nthem in the _Brooklyn Times_; and we must remind him in the\noutset that the assumption with which he commences--that the\ntract, in appealing to the good sense of the public, whether it\nis honest to insist on certain charges against the church as\ntrue, when the slightest inquiry would show them to be\nfalse--makes an important concession, or any concession at all to\nthe Protestant rule, is altogether unwarranted. He says: \"This\nsubmitting of the questions in dispute to the public, man by man,\nafter the Protestant, the American fashion--concedes at the\noutset one great and most vital principle, to wit, that the\nultimate appeal in questions of personal belief, is to each man's\nreason and conscience in the sight of God.\" Quite a mistake.\nThere is no question of personal belief in the case. The question\nsubmitted to the public by the tract is not whether what the\nchurch teaches and Catholics believe is true or false, but\nwhether it is honest to continue to accuse the church and\nCatholics of holding and doing what it is well known, or may\neasily be known, they do not do, and declare they do not hold?\n{240}\nThis is the question, and the only question, submitted. Is it\nhonest to continue repeating day after day, and year after year,\nfoul calumnies against your neighbor, when the proofs that they\nare calumnies lie under your hand, and spread out before your\neyes so plainly that he who runs may read? We think even the\nsmallest measure of common sense is sufficient to answer that\nquestion, which is, on one side, simply a question of fact, and\non the other, a question of very ordinary morals. The competency\nof reason to decide far more difficult questions than that, no\nCatholic ever disputes. We think even the reason of a pagan can\ngo as far as that. \"Why even of yourselves judge ye not what is\nright?\"\n\n\"But this tract,\" the preacher continues, \"is a plain assertion\nthat no man ought blindly to accept the religious opinions to\nwhich he is born, nor the instructions of his religious teachers;\nbut that he is bound, in honesty and justice, to hear the other\nside, and decide between them by his own private judgment.\" If by\nopinions is meant faith, it does no such thing; if by opinions\nare meant only opinions, it may pass, though the tract neither\nargues nor touches the question. The Catholic always supposes man\nis endowed with reason and understanding, and that both are\nactive in the act of faith as in an act of science. There is and\ncan be no such thing as _blind_ faith, though blind\nprejudices are not uncommon. Men seek or inquire for what they\nhave not, not for what they have. They who have the faith do not\nseek it, and can examine what is opposed to it only for the\npurpose of avoiding or refuting it. Catholics have the faith;\nthey are in possession of the truth, and have no need to make for\nthemselves the examination supposed. Non-Catholics have not the\nfaith; they have only opinions, often very erroneous, very\nabsurd, and very hurtful opinions, and they are therefore bound,\nnot by the _opinions_ they have received from their\nreligious teachers, or to which they were born, but to seek\ndiligently, with open minds and open hearts, for the truth till\nthey find it. When they find it, they will not be bound to seek\nit, but to adhere to it, and obey it. There is no Protestant\nteaching in this, and it is nothing \"different from what the\nChurch of Rome always teaches her followers.\"\n\nThe tract says: \"Americans love\nfair play.\" The preacher says:\n\n  \"I believe it is no more than the truth. If there is one thing\n  rather than another that Americans do love, it is this very\n  thing--absolute freedom and fairness of religious discussion.\n  Curious, isn't it? How came Americans to 'love fair play'?\n  Englishmen seem to have a similar taste. Catholic or Protestant\n  in England can speak or write his thoughts, on either side,\n  without hinderance or constraint. The same thing may be\n  remarked, in a measure, in Northern Germany. How can you\n  account for it? What is the reason, do you suppose, why they\n  don't 'love fair play' in Spain? or in Austria? or in Mexico?\n  or in Rome? This injured innocent stands in New York, at the\n  corners of the streets, bemoaning himself that he is treated\n  'dishonestly, and unjustly,' because the public will not buy\n  and read his books; and all the time, in the Holy City\n  itself--under the direct fatherly government of the pope--a\n  subject is not allowed to be (as this tract says) 'honest and\n  just' toward Protestant Christians by examining both sides,\n  except at the peril of being punished as for an infamous crime!\n  'Americans love fair play.' Why do all Roman Catholic nations\n  suppress it? Why does the pope forbid it in his own dominions?\n  And what reason have we to believe that, if these who are\n  clamoring for 'fair play' should ever hold the power in this\n  country, they would put it to any different use here, from that\n  which prevails in Catholic countries generally?\"\n\n{241}\n\nWe are not aware that there is any less love of fair play in\nSpain, Mexico, or Rome, than in the United States, England, or\nNorth-Germany, in Catholic than in non-Catholic countries, only\nthere is more faith and less need to seek it, or to examine both\nsides in order to find it. As a matter of fact, though we cannot\nregard it as any great merit, Catholics are generally far more\nready to hear both sides, and to read Protestant books, than\nProtestants are to read Catholic books. We have never met with\nintelligent Catholics as ignorant of Protestantism as we have\ngenerally found intelligent Protestants of Catholicity. There is\nnothing among Catholics to correspond to the blind prejudice,\ndeplorable ignorance, and narrow-minded bigotry of sectarians;\nbut we are happy to believe that even these are mellowing with\ntime, losing many of their old prejudices, and becoming more\nenlightened and less bigoted and intolerant; there is still room\nfor improvement.\n\n  \"Let us understand in the outset,\" says the preacher, \"that the\n  charges against Catholics and the Catholic Church that are\n  complained of in this tract, are conceded by the writer to be\n  of grave importance. The prohibiting of the Bible to the\n  people--the belief that priestly absolution has efficacy of\n  itself, and is not merely conditional on the sincerity of the\n  sinner's repentance--the paying to images of such worship as\n  the heathen do--all these are declared by this writer to be\n  'detestable and horrible.' So that if it should appear that any\n  one of them is proved against Catholics or the Catholic Church,\n  the case is closed against them. He is not at liberty to go\n  back and apologize for the doctrine or palliate it. He has\n  declared it to be 'false doctrine'--'detestable and horrible.'\"\n\nWhat the tract regards as important or unimportant, is nothing to\nthe purpose; what the preacher must prove is, that it is honest\nto continue to repeat charges against Catholics and the Catholic\nChurch which have been amply refuted, and the refutation of which\nis within the reach of every one who would know the truth; or at\nleast he must show that the refutation is insufficient, and that\nthe charges are not false, but true. He will not find us\nshrinking from the truth, apologizing for it, or seeking to get\nbehind it or around it. We, however, beg him to understand that\nhe is the party accused, and on trial, not we, and that we are\nprobably better judges on doubtful points, of what is or is not\nCatholic doctrine and practice, than he or any of his brethren.\nHe will do well, also, to bear in mind that the question raised\nby the tract is not whether the doctrine of the church is true or\nfalse, but whether it is honest to persist in saying that it is\nwhat the church and all Catholics affirm that it is not. What he\nmust prove, in order to be acquitted, is that the church and\nCatholics do hold what the tract denies, and denies on authority,\nor that there are good and sufficient reasons for believing that\nthey do so hold.\n\n1. The tract asks, \"Is it honest to say that the Catholic Church\nprohibits the use of the Bible, when anybody who chooses can buy\nas many as he likes at any Catholic bookstore, and can see on the\npage of any one of them the approbation of the bishops of the\nCatholic Church, with the pope at their head, encouraging\nCatholics to read the Bible, in these words, 'The faithful should\nbe excited to the reading of the Holy Scriptures,' and that not\nonly for the Catholics of the United States, but also for those\nof the whole world.\" Mr. Bacon does not meet directly the facts\nalleged by the tract, nor plead truth in justification of the\nlibel; but undertakes to show that even if false, yet Protestants\nmay be personally honest in uttering it; and he adduces various\ncircumstances which he thinks may very innocently induce\nProtestants to suppose that the church does prohibit the use of\nthe Bible.\n{242}\nWe have not the patience to take up in detail all the\ncircumstances alleged, and refute the inferences drawn from them;\nmost of them are mere inventions, perversions of the truth,\nmisapprehensions of the facts in the case, and none, nor all of\nthem together, justify the inference, in face of what the tract\nalleges, that the church prohibits the use of the Bible; and it\nis easy for any one who honestly seeks the truth to know that\nthey do not.\n\nThe facts alleged by the tract are accessible to all who wish to\nknow them. He who makes a false charge through ignorance, when he\ncan with ordinary prudence know that it is false, is not\nexcusable; and it is not surely in those who claim to be the\nenlightened portion of mankind to attempt to defend their honesty\nat the expense of their intelligence. They are the last people in\nthe world, if we take them at their estimate of themselves, to be\npermitted to plead invincible ignorance.\n\nThe _Newark Evening Journal_ is bolder and more direct than\nMr. Bacon. It asserts that the Church actually forbids the\nreading of the Scriptures, and boldly challenges the fact alleged\nby the tract. It says: \"On the very page from which are taken the\nwords, 'The faithful should be excited to read the Holy\nScriptures,' are quoted, it is also said, 'To guard against error\nit was judged necessary to forbid the reading of the Scriptures\nin the vulgar languages, without the advice and permission of the\npastors and spiritual guides whom God has appointed to govern his\nChurch.' How then can it be false to say that the Church\nprohibits the use of the Holy Scriptures?\" Simply because to\nforbid the _abuse_ of a thing is not to prohibit its\n_use_. The faithful, for the promotion of faith and piety,\nare excited to read the Scriptures; but to guard against error or\nthe abuse of the sacred writings, those who would wrest them to\ntheir own destruction are forbidden to read them in the vulgar\nlanguages, except under the direction of their spiritual guides.\nA prudent and loving father forbids his child, who has a morbid\nappetite or a sickly constitution, to eat of a certain kind of\nfood except under the direction of the family physician, lest the\nchild should be injured by it; can you therefore say that he\nprohibits the _use_ of that kind of food? Certainly not. All\nyou can say is, that while he concedes the use, he takes\nprecautions against the abuse, which is in no sense inconsistent\nwith anything asserted by the tract.\n\nMr. Bacon, referring to reported cases of the confiscation of\nBibles, circulated by the Bible Society, found in the hands of\nthe laity, says the French Bible confiscated was the Catholic\nversion of De Sacy; that the Polish Bible circulated by the Bible\nSociety was, word for word, the copy of the version published two\ncenturies before, and approved by two popes; the Italian Bible,\nfor reading which the godly family Madiai were persecuted and\nimprisoned, was the Catholic version [not so] of Martini,\nArchbishop of Florence, published with the approbation and\nsanction of Pope Pius VI. Suppose this correct, it does not prove\nthat the Church prohibits the use of the Holy Scriptures, but is\nvery good proof to the contrary. These versions were made and\npublished for the people, and would have been neither made nor\npublished if the use of the Scriptures was forbidden. And how can\nyou say that popes prohibit what you show they approved and\nsanctioned? There was a German Bible before Luther, and our Douay\nBible was published before the version of King James.\n\n{243}\n\n\"But I am not willing,\" continues the preacher, \"that this\neffrontery [what effrontery?] of this question should be let go\neven with this answer.\" We can easily believe it. \"I am ready to\ncall witnesses.\" Well, dear doctor, your witnesses; we are ready\nto hear their testimony. \"Whoever heard of a Catholic Bible\nSociety multiplying copies of the Bible?\" Nobody that we know of.\nBut how long is it since Protestants had a Bible Society? Prior\nto that, did they prohibit the use of the Holy Scriptures? \"Popes\nhave fulminated their bulls against Bible Societies, denouncing\nthem as an invention of the devil.\" Not unlikely; but it is one\nthing to denounce Bible Societies, and another to prohibit the\nuse or the reading of the Bible. Your witnesses. Rev. sir, do not\ntestify to the point. Besides, all the facts, or pretended facts,\nyou bring forward are too recent for your purpose. The accusation\nthat the Church prohibits the use of the Scriptures was made by\nProtestants long before any of them are even said to have\noccurred, and therefore could not have originated in them.\n_Ex-post facto_ causes are not admitted in catholic\nphilosophy. The charge brought against the Church betrays no\nlittle folly and ingratitude. If the Church had prohibited the\nuse of the Scriptures, how could the Reformers have got a copy of\nthem? They certainly purloined them from her, and could have got\nthem from no other source.\n\nThe preacher concludes his first sermon by saying: \"I am glad the\ntime has come when it is understood on both sides that, if the\nRoman Church is to commend itself to the American people, it must\nbegin by repudiating, as horrible and detestable, the teaching\nand practice for three hundred years of the church.\" What has for\nthree hundred years been falsely alleged by her enemies to be her\nteaching and practice, agreed; but what has really been her\nteaching and practice, denied. \"Let it but make good this new\nclaim, and we thank God for the new reformation, and welcome it\nto the platform of Protestantism.\" There is no new claim in the\ncase; what the tract asserts has always been the doctrine and\npractice of the church; she has always encouraged the use and\nopposed the abuse of the Holy Scriptures. That the preacher\nshould desire a new reformation can be easily understood, for the\nold has well-nigh run out; that he will ever be able to welcome\nthe church to the platform of Protestantism is, however, not\nlikely; for she is not fond of standing on platforms, and prefers\nto remain seated on the rock. The reverend gentleman may be\nshocked to hear it; but it is, nevertheless, a fact, that the\nBible and reason are not special Protestant possessions; they\nwere ours ages before Protestantism was born, and will be ours\nages after Protestantism is dead and forgotten.\n\n2. In his second sermon--in a note to which he corrects his\nassertion that it was the Catholic version of Martini, and states\nthat it was the Protestant version of Diodati, that was used by\nthe godly family of the Madiai--the preacher confines his efforts\nto questions raised by the tract with regard to the worship of\nimages and pictures, and of the Blessed Virgin and the saints.\nThe tract asks:\n\n  \"Is it honest _to accuse Catholics of paying divine worship\n  to images or pictures as the heathen do_--when any Catholic\n  indignantly repudiates any idea of the kind, and when the\n  Council of Trent distinctly declares the doctrine of the\n  Catholic Church in regard to them to be, 'that there is no\n  divinity or virtue in them which should appear to claim the\n  tribute of one's veneration;' but that all the honor which is\n  paid to them shall be referred to the originals whom they are\n  designed to represent?' (Sess. 25.)\n\n{244}\n\n  \"The answer to this question,\" the preacher says, \"is to be\n  found by asking two others: 1. What sort of honors do the\n  heathen pay to images? 2. What sort of honors do Roman\n  Catholics pay to them? When we have got answers to these two,\n  we can compare them, and shall be able to say whether they are\n  the same.\"\n\nWe respectfully submit that neither of these questions need be\nasked; for so far as pertinent, both are answered in the tract\nitself. The accusation against Catholics which the tract implies\ncannot be honestly made, is that we pay _divine_ worship to\nimages and pictures, as the heathen do; what the tract then\ndenies is that Catholics pay _divine_ worship to images and\npictures; and what it asserts is, that the heathen do pay them\ndivine worship; but this assertion is simply illustrative, and\nshould it be found inexact, it would not affect the formal denial\nthat the worship Catholics pay them is _divine_. As to what\nsort of worship Catholics do render to images and pictures, the\nanswer in the tract is explicit, that it is a \"certain tribute of\nveneration paid them in honor of their original. The worship is\nnot divine worship, and the honor paid is not paid to them for\nany virtue in them, but is referred solely to their originals.\"\nThe catechism puts this clearly enough. \"_Q. And is it\nallowable to honor relics, crucifixes, and holy pictures? A._\nYes; with an inferior and relative honor, as they relate to\nChrist and his saints, and are the memorials of them. _Q. May\nwe then pray to relics and images? A._ No; by no means, for\nthey have no life or sense to hear or help us.\"\n\nThe preacher labors to show that this inferior and relative honor\nis precisely what the heathen pay to the images of their gods;\nbut this, if true, would not prove that we do, but that the\nheathen do not, pay divine honors to images. He cites various\nauthorities, Christian and heathen, to prove that it is not the\nbrass and gold and silver, when fashioned into a statue, that the\nheathen worship, but that through the statue or image they\nworship the invisible gods; that is, they worship the image as\nthe visible representation of the invisible divinity. This is, no\ndoubt, in some respects, the actual fact; nobody pretends that\nthey worship precisely the material statue, but the numen or god,\nthe prayers, invocations, incantations, and the other ceremonies\nof the consecration of the statue by the priests compelled to\nenter the statue and take up his abode in it. But to this image,\nwhich for them contains the god, the heathen offer sacrifices and\nother acts of worship which are due to God alone, which makes all\nthe difference in the world, though we have no doubt that the\ntype copied, perverted, corrupted, and travestied in heathen\nworship is the Catholic type; as all heathenism is a corruption,\nperversion, or travesty of the true religion, or as Protestantism\nis a corruption, perversion, or travesty of the Catholic Church.\n\nThe heathen images and pictures represent no absent reality, and\nare not memorials of an absent truth, like our sacred images and\npictures; and the heathen, then, can honor only the material\nsubstance or the supposed indwelling numen or daemon. The gods\nthey are supposed to bring nigh, represent, or render visible,\nare either purely imaginary, or evil spirits; hence the Scripture\ntells us that \"all the gods of the heathen are devils.\" And\nfinally, to these idols, which are nothing but wood and stone,\nbrass and silver, or gold, which represent, if anything, demons\nor devils, the heathen pay divine honors; while we simply honor\nand respect images and pictures of our Lord and his saints for\nthe sake of the originals, or the worth to which they are\nrelated.\n{245}\nHere is a difference which we should suppose even our Protestant\ndoctor capable of perceiving and recognizing.\n\nThe preacher forgets that what is denied by the tract is, that we\npay divine honors to sacred images and pictures, and cites ample\nauthority to prove that we do not pay divine honors to them or\nthrough them. We offer them no sacrifices, and we offer them no\nprayers or praises, even as symbols or as memorials of a worth\nthey represent. They are never the media through which we honor\nthat worth; but we honor them for the sake of the worth to which\nthey are related, as the pious son honors the picture of his\nmother, the patriot the picture of the father of his country, or\nthe lover the portrait of his mistress. The respect we pay them\nsprings from one of the deepest and purest principles of human\nnature, and can be condemned only by those who hold that there is\nnothing good in nature, and condemn as evil and only evil\nwhatever is natural.\n\nThe minister thinks that, even should enlightened and intelligent\nCatholics understand the question as explained by the catechism\nand defined by the Council of Trent, yet ignorant Catholics may\nnot; and with them the honors paid to images and pictures\nactually degenerate into idolatry. He asks:\n\n  \"But how in this respect do the people of modern Italy differ\n  from those of ancient and heathen Italy? Do the practices of\n  the people there correspond to the doctrines of the\n  theologians, or have they, as of old time, 'bettered the\n  instruction?' Do they pay no special veneration, as if there\n  were some special virtue in the image itself, to those images\n  that are reputed to bleed or sweat, or to the pictures that\n  wink? If it was only as a guide of the thoughts toward the\n  person represented that the image or picture served, then one\n  image would serve as well as another, except that those in\n  which the skill and genius of the artist had most excelled to\n  represent in touching and vivid portraiture the object of the\n  worship, might be preferred above ruder and coarser works. But\n  as I have passed from church to church in those lands in which\n  the Roman system has had unlimited opportunity to work itself\n  out into practice, and have 'beheld the devotions' of the\n  people, I have seen certain statues frequented by a multitude\n  of worshippers, and visited by pilgrims from afar, who had come\n  to bow down before them, and hung with myriads of votive\n  offerings--waxen effigies of arms and legs and other members\n  that had been healed in consequence of prayers to that\n  particular image. And one fact, which I did not then appreciate\n  the bearing of, was constantly observed by myself and my\n  companion--that these objects of special worship and veneration\n  were _never_ works of superior art, but commonly rude, and\n  sometimes even grotesque. The inexpressibly beautiful and\n  touching statue by Bernini, of the Virgin holding upon her\n  knees the body of the dead Jesus, is in the crypt of St.\n  Peter's, and admiring critics go down to study it by\n  torchlight. But the image which is _adored_ is a grimy\n  bronze idol above it in the nave of St. Peter's, which is so\n  venerated as the statue of that apostle that the toes of the\n  extended foot have been actually kissed away by the adorations\n  of the faithful.\"\n\nIt is very evident that the preacher, whatever opportunities he\nmay have had, knows very little of the Catholic people in\ngeneral, or of the Italian people in particular, and his guesses\nwould deserve more respect if made in relation to his own people.\nProtestants have no distinctive worship which can be offered to\nGod alone, and are therefore very poor judges of what they may\nsee going on before their eyes among a Catholic people. The\nChurch is responsible only for the faith she teaches and the\npractices she enjoins, approves, or permits. If the people depart\nfrom this faith and abuse these practices in their practical\ndevotion, the fault, since she takes away no one's freedom, is\ntheirs, not hers.\n{246}\nThe worship that Catholics render to God, the honor they pay to\nthe saints, and the respect they entertain for sacred images,\ndiffers not, as all worship with Protestants must, simply as more\nor less, but in kind, and not even a Protestant community can be\nfound so ignorant as not to be able to distinguish between an\nimage or a picture and the saint or person intended to be\nrepresented by it. For the many years we lived as a Protestant we\nnever met any one of our brethren who mistook his mother's\nportrait for his mother herself, or the statue of a distinguished\nstatesman for the statesman himself. Who ever mistakes the\nequestrian statue of George Washington in Union Square for George\nWashington on horseback, or confounds Andrew Jackson himself with\nMill's ugly equestrian statue of him in one of the squares of\nWashington? Who could mistake the bronze horse on which the image\nof the old General is placed, and which you fear every moment is\ngoing to tilt over backward, for a real horse? Well, my dear\ndoctor, however ignorant these Italian people may be whom you see\nkneeling before an image or a picture of the Madonna, they know\nmore of the doctrines of the Gospel, more of God, and of man's\nduties and relations to him, more of his proper worship, than the\nmost enlightened non-Catholic community that exists or ever\nexisted on the earth. They may not know as much of error against\nfaith and piety, of false theories and crude speculations as\nnon-Catholics; but they know more of Christianity, more of what\nChristianity really is, what it teaches, and what it exacts of\nthe faithful, than the wisest and most learned of your sectarian\nministers, not even excepting yourself.\n\nWith regard to bleeding, sweating, or winking pictures, if you\nfind people believing in them, you will never find among\nCatholics any who believe that they bleed, sweat, or wink by any\nvirtue that is in the picture itself; but that the phenomenon is\na miracle, which God works by the saint pictured. You may doubt\nthe miracle, but not reasonably, unless on the ground that the\nevidence in the case is insufficient. Whoever believes in God\nbelieves in the possibility of miracles, and there is nothing\nmore miraculous in a picture of the Madonna winking, sweating, or\nbleeding, than there was in Balaam's ass speaking and rebuking\nhis master. It is simply a question of fact. If the proofs are\nconclusive, the fact is to be believed; if insufficient, no one\nis bound to believe it.\n\nIf you find the people flocking to a particular image or picture\nand bringing to it their votive offerings, it certainly is not,\nas the preacher takes notice, on account of its merit as a work\nof art; for the Italian people, with all their love and exquisite\ntaste for art, do not, like so many non-Catholics, confound\nartistic culture with religious culture; nor is it because they\nhold that there is any hidden virtue in that particular image or\npicture itself, but because the saint whose it is, has or is\nbelieved to have specially favored those who have invoked him\nbefore it. They may or may not be mistaken as to the fact, but\nthe principle, on which the special devotion to our Lady or a\nsaint before a particular shrine is a correct one; and there is\nin the practice no special honor to the image or picture for its\nown sake, and consequently nothing necessarily superstitious or\nidolatrous.\n\nEven if, as there is no reason to believe, the statue of St.\nPeter in St. Peter's at Rome, and which the preacher calls a\n\"grimy bronze idol,\" was originally, as he tells us some say it\nwas, a statue of Jupiter, the honor paid to it by the faithful\nwould not be paid to Jupiter, while intended to be paid to St.\nPeter.\n{247}\nBut the toes of the image have been worn away by the kisses of\nthe worshippers; and do not these kisses prove that Catholics\nadore the image? The heathen adore their gods by kissing the feet\nof their statues; and when Catholics kiss the feet of the images\nof their saints, how can it be said that they do not worship or\nadore images as the heathen do? The heathen use incense in the\nworship of idols; Moses prescribes incense, and the Jews use it\nin their worship of the true God; therefore the Jews are\nidolaters! The preacher forgets that what the tract declares to\nbe dishonest is the accusation that Catholics pay _divine_\nworship, that is, the worship due to God alone, to images and\npictures, as the heathen do. To kiss the feet of the statue of\nSt. Peter, from love and devotion to the saint himself, the\nprince of the apostles, on whom our Lord founded his church, is\nnot to pay divine worship to the image, nor even to Peter\nhimself. Were we so happy as to find ourselves at St. Peter's in\nRome, we are quite sure that we should kneel before the statue of\nSt. Peter, and kiss its feet, running the risk of its having been\nonce a statue of Jupiter, and we should do it as a proper method\nof expressing our love and veneration for the great apostle, and\nas simply and innocently as the mother kisses the carefully\npreserved portrait of her beloved son slain in battle for his\nfaith or his country. As to using the forms used by the heathen\nto express affection or devotion, if proper in themselves, we\nhave as little scruple as we have in using the language which our\nancestors used in the worship of Woden or Thor, in our prayers\nand praises to the One Ever-living and True God.\n\n3. The sermon next takes up the false accusation that Catholics\npay divine worship to the Blessed Virgin and the saints. The\ntract asks:\n\n  \"Is IT HONEST _to accuse Catholics of putting the Blessed\n  Virgin or the Saints in the place of God or the Lord Jesus\n  Christ_--when the Council of Trent declares that it is\n  simply useful to ask their intercession in order to obtain\n  favor from God, through his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who\n  alone is our Saviour and Redeemer--\n\n  \"When 'asking their prayers and influence with God,' is exactly\n  of the same nature as when Christians ask the pious prayers of\n  one another?\"\n\nThe preacher says, \"At the outset let me remark, that the\nquestion what Roman Catholics _do_ is not conclusively\nanswered by quoting what the Council of Trent declares.\" This\nsupposes that the same rule must be applied to Catholics, who\nhave an authoritative church, that is applicable to\nnon-Catholics, who have none, or to people among whom every one\nbelieves according to his own private judgment, and does what is\nright in his own eyes. But this is not permissible. Our faith is\ntaught and defined by authority, and to know what we as Catholics\nbelieve or do, you must be certain what the church\nauthoritatively teaches or prescribes. We cannot go contrary to\nthat and be Catholics. No doubt Catholics may depart from the\nfaith of the church, and disobey her precepts; but when they\nobstinately persist in doing so, they cease to be Catholics in\nfaith and practice, and their belief or their practice is of no\naccount in judging what is or is not Catholic doctrine or\npractice. They who believe or do anything contrary to what is\ndeclared by the Council of Trent, are _pro tanto_\nnon-Catholics. To know what is Catholic faith and Catholic\npractice, you have only to consult the standards, of the Catholic\nChurch--not every individual Catholic, as you must every\nindividual Protestant when you wish to ascertain what is\nProtestant\nopinion and practice.\n{248}\nOur standards speak for themselves; and in determining what\nCatholicity enjoins or allows, you must consult them, and them\nonly.\n\nMr. Bacon and his brethren have as free access to our standards\nas we ourselves have, and they must remain under the charge of\ndishonestly misrepresenting us, or prove by our standards that\nthe church offers or authorizes or does not forbid her children\nfrom offering divine worship to the Blessed Virgin. Their\nsurmises, their conjectures, their inferences from what they see\namong Catholics, but do not understand, must be thrown out as\ninadmissible testimony. There are the standards: if they sustain\nyou, well and good; if not, you are convicted, and judgment must\ngo against you. This is the case presented by the tract, and\nwhich Mr. Bacon and his friends are to meet fairly and squarely.\n\nNow, the tract shows from the standards, from the Council of\nTrent, which is plenary authority in the case, that the\naccusation against Catholics of \"putting the Blessed Virgin or\nthe saints in the place of God or the Lord Jesus Christ,\" is an\naccusation so manifestly untrue that no one can honestly make it.\nHere also is the catechism, which the church teaches all her\nchildren. \"_Q. Does this commandment [the first] forbid all\nhonor and veneration of saints and angels?_ No; we are to\nhonor them as God's special friends and servants, but not with\nthe honor which belongs to God.\" The Council of Trent declares\nthat \"it is good and useful to ask the saints who reign together\nwith Christ in heaven, to pray for us,\" \"or to ask favors for us\nfrom our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone is our Redeemer and\nSaviour.\" We ask the saints in heaven, as we ask our friends on\nearth, to pray for us. Here is the whole principle of the case.\nThe Council of Trent, Sess. 22, c. 3, defines that, \"though the\nchurch is accustomed to celebrate masses in honor of the saints,\nyet she teaches they are never to be offered to them, but to God\nalone.\" _Non tamen illis sacrificium offerri docet, sed Deo\nsoli, qui illos coronavit._ Now, with Catholics the\ndistinctively divine worship, the supreme worship due to God\nalone, and which it would be idolatry to offer to any other, is\nsacrifice, the highest possible sacrifice, the sacrifice of the\nMass, which our priests offer every day on the altar; the one\nunbloody sacrifice which was offered in a bloody manner on\nCalvary. This is offered to God alone; all else that is offered\nto God in worship, prayer, praise, love, veneration, may, in kind\nat least, be offered to men. We honor the chief magistrate,\nwhether called king or emperor, president or governor; we honor\nthe prelates whom the Holy Ghost has placed over us in the\nchurch; we pray to or petition rulers and men in authority; we\nchant the praises of the great and the heroic; we love our\ncountry, our family, and friends; we venerate the wise and the\ngood, who, in services to the cause of truth, morals, and\nreligion, prove themselves godlike. That Protestants, who have no\nsacrifice, no priest, no altar, no victim, should mistake the\nnature of our _cultus sanctorum_, is not surprising, for\nthey have nothing in kind to offer God that we do not offer to\nthe saints, especially to the queen of saints, the Blessed Mother\nof God. But this is their fault, not ours; for it is easy for\nthem to know--for our standards tell them so--that we as\nCatholics place the supreme act of worship in the sacrifice of\nthe Mass--holding that only God is an adequate offering to God,\nand that the sacrifice of the Mass is never offered to the saints\nor to any but God alone.\n{249}\nThere is a marked difference between our _cultus sanctorum_\nand that with which men like Mr. Bacon, of Brooklyn, seek to\nidentify it. The heathen offered sacrifices, the highest form of\nworship they had, to their idols, their demigods and heroes; we\noffer the highest worship which we have--and we have it only\nthrough God's goodness--to the one, living, true God only. This\nproves that the accusation against Catholics of putting the\nBlessed Virgin and the saints, as objects of worship, in the\nplace of God, is a false accusation, so well known or so easily\nknown to be false, that no one of ordinary intelligence can\nhonestly make it.\n\nBut the preacher supposes that Catholics, in other respects, put\nthem in the place of God. This is impossible. Catholics hold that\nthe saints, with the Blessed Virgin at their head, are men and\nwomen--creatures whom God has made, has redeemed with his own\nblood, and has elevated, sanctified, and glorified by his grace,\nand therefore they cannot identify them with him or substitute\nthem for him. We hold that Mary is the Mother of Christ, and that\nhe is her Lord as well as ours, and that it is through his merits\nalone, applied beforehand, that she was conceived without\noriginal stain; and can anybody, so believing, mistake her for\nher Son, in any respect put her in his place, or assign to her\nhis mediatorial work? The very fears expressed by our Protestant\nfriends that we do or are liable to do so, prove that even they\nare able to discriminate between her and her Son; why not then\nwe?\n\nThe reverend gentleman continues:\n\n  \"We are invited to several inquiries. First: Is it true that\n  the prayers that are offered by Roman Catholics to departed\n  saints, and especially to that holy woman whom we with them in\n  all generations unite to call the blessed, are only of such a\n  nature as we might offer to a fellow-Christian here upon the\n  earth in soliciting his prayers in our behalf? Secondly: Are\n  these supplications only for favor and influence, or are they\n  for the direct gift of blessing and salvation? Do they put Mary\n  into the place of Christ, the one Mediator between God and man;\n  making of the All-Merciful Saviour who inviteth all to come\n  unto him, an inaccessible object of dread and terror, whom we\n  dare not approach except through the mediation of Mary? Do they\n  ascribe to her the glory due to Christ, the only name given\n  under heaven among men whereby we may be saved? Do they profess\n  faith in her alone for salvation? Do they put the saints in the\n  place of the Holy Ghost, by supplicating from them directly the\n  divine gift of holiness and the renewal of the sinful heart?\"\n\nWe have answered these questions by anticipation. It is probable\nthat Catholics believe somewhat more distinctly and more firmly\nin \"the one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus,\" than\ndo the sects, and are less likely to forget it, seeing that all\ntheir practical devotions, public and private, the great honors\ngiven to Mary and the saints are founded on it and tend directly\nto keep us from forgetting it. Catholics do not pray to Mary\nbecause they regard the All-merciful Saviour as inaccessible, or\nas an object of dread and terror; nor because she comes in\nbetween them and him, represents him, or enables them to approach\nhim through her, as is evident from the fact that we not\nunfrequently directly beseech him to grant that she and other\nsaints may pray for us. We honor her as the mother of God in his\nhuman nature. We pray to her to pray to him for us, not only\nbecause she is our mother as well as his, but because she is dear\nto her Son our Lord, and he delights to honor her by granting her\nrequests.\n{250}\nFor a like reason we invoke the saints, that is, ask them to pray\nfor us. We must then be more ignorant and stupid than even our\nsectarian ministers believe us, if, in praying to them because as\nhis friends they are dear to him, we substitute them for him from\nwhom what we seek can alone come. If we believe they themselves\ngive it, why do we ask them to pray him to grant it? Cannot our\nacute and ingenious doctor see that the invocation of saints\nrenders the error he supposes Catholics fall into utterly\nimpossible in the case of the most ignorant Catholic, and that it\ntends to fix the mind and the heart directly on the fact that\nevery good and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down\nfrom the Father of lights? Can he not see that the intercession\nwe invoke is a clear confession of the truth he thinks it\nobscures or obliterates? If we think the good comes from them,\nwhy do we ask them to intercede with Christ to bestow it? Why not\nask it of them? But is it true, as the tract affirms, that we ask\nnothing of Mary and the saints in heaven that it would be\nimproper to ask of our fellow-Christian? This is not precisely\nwhat the tract asserts. It asserts that asking their prayers and\ninfluence is exactly of the same nature, that is, the same in\nprinciple, with what Christians do when they ask the pious\nprayers of one another. To this the preacher replies:\n\n  \"I hold here a volume of 800 pages, almost every one of which\n  contains an answer to these questions, so far as I honestly\n  read it, in the affirmative. It is _The Glories of Mary_,\n  by St. Alphonsus Liguori, approved by John, Archbishop of\n  New-York. I scarcely know where to begin quoting, or to cease.\n\n  \"'O Mary, sweet refuge of miserable sinners, assist me with thy\n  mercy. Keep far from me my infernal enemies, and _come\n  thyself_ to take my soul and present it to my eternal\n  Judge.' 'All the mercies ever bestowed upon men have come\n  through Mary.' 'Mary is called the gate of heaven, because no\n  one can enter heaven if he does not pass through Mary, who is\n  the door of it.' 'As we have access to the eternal Father only\n  through Jesus Christ, so we have access to Jesus Christ only\n  through Mary.'\n\n  \"'Mary is the peacemaker between sinners and God.' 'My Mother\n  Mary, to thy hands I commit the cause of my eternal salvation.\n  To thee I consign my soul; it was lost, but thou must save it.'\n  'Thou art the advocate, the mediatrix of reconciliation, the\n  only hope, and the most secure refuge of sinners.' 'I place in\n  thee all my hopes of salvation.' 'She is the advocate of the\n  world and the true mediatrix between God and man.' 'Blessed is\n  he who clings with love and confidence to those two anchors of\n  salvation, Jesus and Mary.' 'Deliver me from the burden of my\n  sins; dispel the darkness of my mind; banish earthly affections\n  from my heart.' 'O Lady, change us from sinners to saints.'\"\n\nTastes differ, and not every Catholic would employ every\nexpression used by St. Alphonsus in his _Glories of Mary_;\nbut none of these expressions convey to the Catholic mind what\nthey do to the Protestant mind; for Catholics have a key to their\nmeaning in their faith in the incarnation. The strongest of them\nis justified by the relation of Mary to that great mystery in\nwhich centres and from which radiates the whole of Christianity.\nFrom her was taken that flesh, that human nature, in which God\nredeems and saves us; and being taken from her, she has a\nrelation to God, our Saviour, and consequently to our redemption\nand salvation, which no other woman, no other creature, has or\ncan have. This relation explains the passages in the Litany of\nour Lady of Loretto, and those passages of St. Alphonsus and\nother Catholic writers which assert that all mercies and graces\ncome from God through her. They all come from God in his human\nnature; and as that nature was taken from her, they must in some\nsense come through her.\n{251}\nThey come through her, because they come from God as born of her.\nThey also come through her, because God, her divine Son, who\ngives them, loves her as his mother, and delights to honor with\nthe highest honor a creature can receive; he therefore confers\nthe favors mortals pray for only through her intercession. But as\nall the special honor done to her is done only in consequence of\nher relation as his mother, the higher we carry that honor the\nmore clear, distinct, and energetic our conviction of the fact of\nthe incarnation, and the more impossible it must be for us to put\nher in the place of the Incarnate Word, or to substitute her for\nher Son, who is the one mediator of God and men, the man Christ\nJesus. To do so would be not only to rob him of his glory, but to\ndeny her title to that very honor given to her as the mother of\nGod. Catholics are not capable of anything so illogical and\nabsurd.\n\nThe key to the other expressions objected in St. Alphonsus is in\nthis same relation to the incarnation and the confidence of the\nSaint in the power and efficacy of Mary's prayers or intercession\nfor us with her divine Son. He confides to Mary, leaves in her\nhands the cause of his eternal salvation, as the client confides\nhis cause to his advocate or counsel. \"My soul,\" he says, \"was\nlost, but thou must save it\"--by thy intercession with thy Son,\nwho will deny thee nothing thou dost ask, because thou canst\nnever ask but what he inspires thee to ask, and what is agreeable\nto his will, and he delights to honor thee before heaven and\nearth by granting thy requests. In the same way understand the\nexpressions, \"the advocate,\" \"the mediatrix of reconciliation,\"\nand all the rest. The term mediatrix is not the best possible,\nbecause it is liable to mislead not a Catholic, but a\nnon-Catholic, who believes little in the incarnation, and refuses\nto interpret the language of Catholics by the official teaching\nof their church. The Catholic always knows in what sense it is\nsaid, and for him the explanations are never necessary; still\nless are they necessary for Him who sees and knows the thoughts\nand intents of the heart before they are even formed. It is the\nduty of non-Catholics to consult the standards of the church and\nto explain what seems to them difficult or inexact in the warm\nand energetic expressions of Catholic love and devotion by them;\nand it is not honest to found a charge against Catholics on such\nexpressions without having done so. The preacher continues:\n\n  \"'Is IT HONEST to accuse Catholics of putting the Blessed\n  Virgin or the saints in the place of God or of the Lord Jesus\n  Christ? You have the answer. You know the place which God\n  claims for himself the 'honor which He will not give to\n  another.' You have heard from the very words of the Roman\n  Catholics themselves the place to which they exalt the spirits\n  of departed men and women.\"\n\nYes, you have the answer such as your minister gives; and we have\nshown that his answer misinterprets facts which he does not\nunderstand; that it refuses to interpret them by the key\nfurnished in the official teaching of the church; that it\ncontradicts itself, and proves, if anything, the falsity of the\nvery charge it undertakes to establish, and therefore clears\nneither him nor you, if you accept it, from the charge of\ndishonestly bringing false accusations against the church of God.\n\n{252}\n\n  \"Is IT HONEST _to assert that the Catholic Church grants any\n  indulgence or permission to commit sin_--when an\n  'indulgence,' according to her universally received doctrine,\n  was never dreamed of by Catholics to imply, in any case\n  whatever, any permission to commit the least sin; and when an\n  indulgence has no application whatever to sin until after sin\n  has been repented of and pardoned?\"\n\nThe preacher has the air of conceding that this charge is\nunfounded, and says, \"If it is made, it does not appear to be\nsustained  yet he maintains that indulgences really remit the\npunishment due to sins committed after the indulgence has been\nbought and paid for; for they are alleged to preserve the\nrecipient in grace till death, in spite of subsequent sins.\" And\nhe cites the case of Tetzel, in the sixteenth century, in proof\nHe adduces what purports to be a form of absolution published by\nTetzel, and offered for sale in the market-places of Germany. The\nform of absolution alleged is manifestly a forgery, and a very\nstupid forgery; and besides, absolution and indulgences are very\ndifferent things, and the indulgence affects only a certain\ntemporary punishment that remains to be expiated after the\nabsolution is given or the eternal guilt is pardoned, and is\nrather a commutation than a remission of even that temporary\npunishment, which, if not commuted or borne here, must be\nexpiated hereafter in purgatory. There is no _form_ of\nindulgence; there are _conditions_ of gaining an indulgence;\nbut there is no certificate given to the effect that we have\nobtained it. If we have sincerely complied with the conditions\nprescribed by the pope, we gain it; but whether we have gained it\nneither we nor the church can know in this life without a special\nrevelation. Every Catholic knows that to offer money for it would\nargue a disposition on his part that would render it impossible,\nwhile he retained that disposition, to gain an indulgence. No one\ncan gain an indulgence while in a state of sin, and hence\nindulgences are not at any price profitable things to purchase.\nThat Tetzel exaggerated the virtue of indulgences was asserted by\nLuther and his friends; but that he offered them for sale in the\nmarket-places, was never, we believe, even pretended until after\nhis death--was and never has been proved. Luther and his friends\ncomplained that he was causing a scandal, and procured his arrest\nand imprisonment in a convent of his order, where he died two\nyears after, without the matter, owing to the troubles of the\ntimes, even undergoing a judicial investigation. As for Luther's\nown testimony, in a case touching his hatred against Rome, it is\nof no account.\n\n  \"The only sense,\" continues the preacher, \"in which the Roman\n  Church has ever sold licenses for crime, has been in this, of\n  announcing (not in America, in this century) a tariff of\n  cash-prices at which (_with_ contrition) all evil\n  consequences of certain sins, whether in this world or the\n  world to come, would be cancelled. The price-current in Germany\n  in the sixteenth century, ranged as follows: for polygamy, six\n  ducats; for sacrilege and perjury, nine ducats; for murder,\n  eight ducats. In Switzerland, at the same period, the price was\n  for infanticide, four francs; for parricide or fratricide, one\n  ducat.\"\n\nThis seems to us quite enough. The Catholic will perceive that\nour learned friend is not very well posted on Catholic matters.\nHe evidently confounds sacramental absolution with indulgences,\nand indulgences with the dispensations which the church grants in\nparticular cases, not from the law of God, nor the law of nature,\nbut from her own ecclesiastical law; and supposes that the fees\npaid to the chancery for the necessary legal documents in the\nvarious causes that come before it, are the fees paid by the\nfaithful for indulgences and the pardon of their sins. [Footnote\n53]\n{253}\nA man who speaks of matters of which he knows nothing is liable\nto say some very absurd things. Nevertheless, the preacher says\nexpressly, and we doubt not means to concede the point made by\nthe tract, that indulgences are not licenses to commit sin, but\nhe has labored to make his concession as little offensive to his\nProtestant brethren as possible. Still he concedes it. \"I think,\ntherefore,\" he says, \"that the author of this tract is right in\nclaiming that it is not just to assert that the Catholic Church\ngrants any indulgence or permission to commit sin.\" No, she does\nno such thing, she only \"intimates beforehand her willingness, if\nsuch and such crimes are committed, to make it all right with the\nmalefactor both in this world and the world to come, for\npenitence--and CASH.\" He who should offer cash to pay for\nabsolution would receive for answer, \"Thy money perish with\nthee!\"\n\n    [Footnote 53: For a full proof of the forgery of the above\n    passage in the book called _Tax-Book of the Roman\n    Chancery_, see Bishop England's Letters to Dr. Fuller,\n    Works of Bishop England, vol. iii. p. 13.]\n\n  \"Is IT HONEST _to repeat over and over again that Catholics\n  pay the priests to pardon their sins_--such a thing is\n  unheard of anywhere in the Catholic Church--when any\n  transaction of the kind is stigmatized as a grievous sin, and\n  ranked along with murder, adultery, blasphemy, etc., in every\n  catechism and work on Catholic theology?\"\n\nThe preacher thinks it is very honest, because, if the church\nprohibits and punishes it as simony, it is very evident that it\nsometimes happens. If the offence had never been committed, the\nchurch would never have had occasion to legislate on the matter.\nIt was argued that for a long time the crime of parricide was\nunknown at Rome, because there was no law prohibiting and\npunishing it. This is his answer, and a proof, we suppose, of his\ncandor of which he boasts, of his readiness to die rather than\nknowingly repeat a false charge against the church! The real\naccusation against the church, which the tract denies can be\nhonestly made, is that Catholics are required to pay, or that the\npriest can lawfully exact pay, for the pardon or absolution he\npronounces in the sacrament of penance. It does not necessarily\ndeny that the thing may sometimes be done, but, if so, it is\nunlawfully, is a sin, and ranked along with murder, adultery,\netc. The sin of simony, in one form or another, has in the\nhistory of the church often been committed, and those who\ncommitted it are, in general, favorites with Protestant\nhistorians, who seldom fail to brand as haughty tyrants and\nspiritual despots the noble and virtuous popes who struggled\nenergetically against it, and did their best to correct or guard\nagainst the evil. But honest men will not hold the church\nresponsible for the misdeeds of unprincipled men, which she\nprohibits and exerts all the power of her discipline to prevent\nand punish. The case is too plain to need argument. Penance, the\nchurch teaches, is a sacrament, of which absolution is a part,\nand to sell any sacrament or part thereof is simony, a grievous\nsin; and though there is no sin that may not have been committed,\nyet the fact of a priest, however depraved, demanding pay for\nsacramental pardon or absolution is not known to have ever\noccurred. The church prohibits it, indeed, but only in\nprohibiting simony, and we are not aware that she has ever passed\nany special law against this particular species of simony, and\ntherefore the argument of the preacher falls to the ground, and\nfor aught he shows, it is true to the letter that the thing is\nunheard of.\n\n{254}\n\n  \"Is IT HONEST _to persist in saying that Catholics believe\n  that their sins are forgiven merely by the confession of them\n  to the priest, without a true sorrow for them, or a true\n  purpose to quit them_--when every child finds the contrary\n  distinctly and clearly stated in the catechism, which he is\n  obliged to learn before he can be admitted to the sacraments?\n  Any honest man can verify this statement by examining any\n  Catholic catechism.\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" says the preacher, \"could be more conclusive than this\nlogic, if we could constantly presume that the belief and\npractice of the people always coincide exactly with the teaching\nof the catechism.\" If the coincidence were perfect, there would\nbe no sins to confess, no need of the sacrament of penance, and\nno question as to the condition of ghostly absolution or pardon\ncould ever be raised. But as the preacher finds nothing to object\nto under this head in the teaching or official practice of the\nchurch, we must presume that he finds the logic of the tract,\nwhatever may be the deceptions, if any, practised upon the\npriest, is quite conclusive, and he certainly concedes quite\nenough to show that the accusation against the church which the\ntract repels, cannot be honestly repeated. We would remind the\npreacher that no one is forced against his will to go to\nconfession, and the very fact of one's going is presumptive proof\nof sincere sorrow for his sins, and a resolution, weaker or\nstronger, God helping him, to forsake them. Why should he seek to\ndeceive the priest, when he knows that if he seeks to do so, he\nwould not only receive no benefit from the absolution, but would\ncommit the grievous sin of sacrilege by profaning the sacrament?\n\n  \"Is IT HONEST _to say that Catholics believe that man, by his\n  own power, can forgive sin_--when the priest is regarded by\n  the Catholic Church only as the agent of our Lord Jesus Christ,\n  acting by the power delegated to him, according to these words,\n  'Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them, and\n  whose sins you shall retain, they are retained?' St John xx.\n  23.\"\n\nThe preacher has offered no reply, or, if he has, we have\noverlooked it, to this grave accusation; perhaps he has none to\nmake. The journals, however, attempt a reply, the purport of\nwhich is, that, though the tract states truly the official\nteaching of the church, yet Catholics practically believe, as\nevery one knows who has had intercourse with them, that it is the\npriest, not God, who they believe pardons sin. This, too, is in\nsubstance the reply of Mr. Bacon throughout. The tract states the\ndoctrine of the church correctly on all the points made, but then\nthat, it is pretended, is not the doctrine of the Catholic\npeople, the practical doctrine of Catholics, and gives no clue to\nthe practical workings of the Roman system--a clear confession\nthat they really have nothing to object to Catholic doctrine and\npractice, though they have much to object to in what is no\ndoctrine or teaching or practice of the church. The reason of\nthis, we suppose, is, that they have no conception of the church.\nNow, we think it is very likely that there are many Catholics who\ncannot define very scholastically the distinction between\nefficient cause and instrumental or medial cause; but put the\nquestion to the most ignorant Catholic you can find. \"Do you\nbelieve the priest as a man in confession pardons your sins?\" as\nsoon as he gets hold of what you are driving at, he will answer:\n\"No; he pardons or absolves them as a priest.\" This answer means\nthat the priest does not absolve by a virtue in him as a man, but\nby virtue of his priestly office, to which he is appointed by the\nHoly Ghost; that is, as the minister, or as the tract says, the\nagent of our Lord Jesus Christ. All Catholics unhappily do not\nconform their life to their faith; but you will find that the\nfaith of the people is that of the church, that which the church\nofficially teaches; and there is no room for the distinction\nwhich non-Catholic ministers and journals, try, as their best\nresort in self-vindication, to make between Catholicity in the\nformularies of the church and the Catholicity that works\npractically in the faith and lives of the Catholic people,\nwhether learned or unlearned.\n{255}\nAll this talk about the practical workings of the system is\nmoonshine, at least outside of the record, to which no Catholic\nis bound to reply. We are required to believe and defend only\nwhat the church teaches and requires of her children:\n\n8. The tract concludes with the question,\n\n  \"Is IT HONEST _to make these and many other similar charges\n  against Catholics_--when they detest and abhor such false\n  doctrines more than those do who make them, and make them too,\n  without ever having read a Catholic book, or taken any honest\n  means of ascertaining the doctrines which the Catholic Church\n  really teaches? AMERICANS LOVE FAIR PLAY.\"\n\nIn spite of all that sectarian preachers and journals can say,\nthe unprejudiced and fair-minded American will answer, to each\nquestion the tract puts, No! it is not honest, but gravely\ndishonest; for every one is bound to judge Catholics by the\nstandards of the church, open to all the world. And these\nmanifestly disprove the accusations.\n\nWe have attempted no defence in this article of our holy religion\nitself. We have only attempted to show our Protestant accusers\nthat their efforts to prove themselves honest, in their false\ncharges against the church and her faithful children, are\nunsuccessful. They have not successfully impeached the tract in a\nsingle instance, nor vindicated themselves from a single one of\nits charges; nor can they do it. Many things may be said against\nthe immaculate spouse of Christ; the daughters of the\nuncircumcised may call her black, may rail against her, and call\nher all manner of hard names; but she stands ever in her\nloveliness, all pure, and dear to her Lord, who loves her, and\ngave his life for her, and dear to the heart of every one of her\nloving children, and all the dearer from the foul aspersions cast\nupon her by the ignorant, the foolish, and the malicious.\n\nWe have not taken much notice of the professions of candor and\nindependence of the preacher; for we have never much esteemed\nprofessions which are contradicted by deeds; nor are we easily\nwon by fine things said of individual Catholics by one who in the\nsame breath calumniates the holy Catholic Church. Few sermons\nhave we read that show a more decided hostility to our religion\nthan these of the Rev. Leonard W. Bacon, of Brooklyn, which are\nunredeemed from their low sectarian character by any depth of\nlearning, extent of historical research, force of logic, richness\nof imagination, flow of eloquence, or sparkle of wit. We have\nfound them very commonplace and dull; we have found it a dull\naffair to read and reply to them; and we fear that our readers\nwill find our reply itself very dull, for dulness is contagious.\n\n--------\n\n{256}\n\n        Magas; or, Long Ago.\n\n      A Tale Of The Early Times.\n\n\n     Chapter IX.\n\n\"She is bewitched, my lord,\" said her attendants to Magas, as he\nstood the next day by the bedside of Chione, and she knew him\nnot. \"She is bewitched. Chloe and two or three others heard the\nspell muttered just before she fell.\"\n\nMagas looked incredulously, yet half-believing what they said.\n\"Why, who can have bewitched her?\"\n\n\"The Christians, my lord; there were many present, and they came\non purpose. They failed the first time, but they did it the\nnext.\"\n\nMagas gazed at Chione, as she lay, for the most part insensible,\nyet at intervals uttering incoherent words which alarmed them\nall. He said softly, \"Chione?\"\n\nShe started up and gazed fiercely at him. \"Begone!\" she said,\n\"you have lost me my soul for ever; begone!\" And she struck him a\nviolent blow.\n\n\"It is ever thus, my lord,\" said an attendant consolingly, \"when\npeople are thus attacked by the furies; they hate those most that\nthey loved the best.\"\n\n\"What makes you think the Christians have bewitched her?\"\n\n\"They are practising magic all over, and playing all kinds of\ntricks throughout the country.\"\n\n\"But why should they attack your mistress?\"\n\n\"Why, my lord--\" And the woman hesitated.\n\n\"Well, what?\"\n\n\"Well, my lord, they do say she was once one of them; and when\nany one leaves them, they never forgive them--they torment them\nfor ever.\"\n\n\"Pshaw! what nonsense is this?\"\n\n\"I did not make the story, my lord; more than one says so.\"\n\n\"Let those in this house beware of ever saying it again then,\nunless they are fond of being scourged.\" And Magas turned away.\nHe was but half satisfied, however. He remembered the meeting\nwith the bishop, as he had afterward discovered him to be. He\nknew, too, that Lady Damaris was accounted a Christian, and that\nChione always shrank from naming her. The Christians had a great\nname for magic: but Dionysius and the Lady Damaris were of the\nhighest families. Magas paced for many hours the sacred grove to\nwhich he had wandered, then suddenly betook him to the bishop's\nresidence.\n\nHe was admitted, courteously received; but it was some time\nbefore he returned the bishop's greeting. Dionysius waited his\npleasure with the courtesy for which he was remarkable.\n\nAt length Magas said: \"I cannot think you have done it.\"\n\n\"Done what, my son?\"\n\n\"Bewitched Chione; made her mad.\"\n\n\"Is Chione ill?\"\n\n\"She is very ill, she is raving and insensible by turns.\"\n\n\"Your words seemed just now to imply I was concerned in her\nillness.\"\n\n\"Her attendants think--think--tell me, noble Dionysius, is it\ntrue that Chione was ever a Christian?\"\n\n\"Why do you ask?\"\n\n{257}\n\n\"Because it is important that the Christians should know that, if\nthey have bewitched her in revenge for her leaving them, they\nmust undo the spell at once, or brave my vengeance.\"\n\n\"This much, at least, I may tell you--the Christians have not\nbewitched her.\"\n\n\"Yet she fainted at some words uttered close to her, and that was\nthe _second_ interruption of the evening.\"\n\n\"My son, you must not make me responsible for the interruptions;\nI was not present at your meeting.\"\n\n\"No, but some Christians were; that has been ascertained.\"\n\n\"Even so; each one must answer for himself.\"\n\n\"You did not send them there?\"\n\n\"I did not!\"\n\n\"Now, will you tell me, was Chione ever a Christian?\"\n\n\"I would rather that she answer for herself.\"\n\n\"She is not in a state to answer for herself, and your answer may\nprevent some suffering; if she was never a Christian, those\nslaves shall be scourged who affirm she was.\"\n\nMagas had hit on the right method, as he intended; the bishop\nanswered at once: \"Spare the poor slaves, my son. I baptized\nChione myself.\"\n\n\"Baptized?\"\n\n\"Yes, admitted her within the pale of the church by washing away\nall sin; by that she became a Christian.\"\n\n\"How long ago?\"\n\n\"About fifteen months before she was missing from Corinth.\"\n\nWhen did she leave your society?\"\n\n\"I suppose when she left Corinth; I have not spoken with her\nsince.\"\n\n\"Is her present illness connected with her Christianity?\"\n\n\"How can I possibly tell, my son? I have not seen her; mental\nagitation may have caused it, and her leaving her religion may\nhave caused that; how can I tell?\"\n\n\"But has magic been used upon her?\"\n\n\"Not by Christians, decidedly; and I should think, not at all.\nHer brain is probably over-worked, and she has been suffering\nfrom over-excitement: these will frequently cause derangement.\"\n\n\"And you think religion has nothing to do with it?\"\n\n\"I did not say that, my son; to profess one thing and believe\nanother must occasion uneasiness, until the conscience is dead. I\nshould say, from your account, that Chione is suffering from\nmental disturbance, brought on by her unfaithfulness to her own\nconvictions. Once a Christian, she must still feel its influence;\nand unwilling to yield to its teachings, she writhes under its\npower.\"\n\n\"That is it, that is what her nurses say; she is under the power\nof the Christians--bewitched by them. Now, that spell must be\nundone.\"\n\n\"If it is in her own mind, caused by her own act, _no one_\ncan undo it, as long as _her_ will remains perverse.\"\n\n\"What does this mean?\" said Magas.\n\n\"It means this, my friend: Christianity links the soul to the\nliving God from which it sprang. To become a Christian is not a\nmyth, not a mere intellectual conviction, not an adoption of\nphilosophical tenets: it is an _act_, a solemn act of\n_surrender_; it is an acknowledgment that the world has been\ndisturbed by influences foreign to the true God; it is a\nrenunciation of those influences, a solemn reunion of the soul\nwith the Eternal Soul, the Creator, the Upholder, the Redeemer;\nit is positive.\n{258}\nA soul so linked by her own free consent, placed under\ninfluences unknown to those outside, must, so long as conscience\nspeaks at all, suffer from the conflict she is undergoing, in\nbreaking loose from a personal intercourse with her Maker, as\nalso from a revelation of truth, beauty, and goodness, to plunge\nanew into the darkness of human guesses.\"\n\n\"You speak in enigmas, my lord! I presume one must be initiated\nto understand you. Meantime, tell me, can you do anything for\nChione?\"\n\n\"I am somewhat of a physician, although no professor of magic. I\nwill see your patient, if it will give you comfort.\"\n\nMagas bethought him: the visit of a Christian bishop to his house\nwould be too remarkable. What was he to do? Suddenly he said:\n\"What could possess Chione to make herself a Christian?\"\n\n\"I believe it was the love of truth and beauty. She sought a key\nto the mysteries of life, and Christianity offered her one.\"\n\n\"And yet she left it!\"\n\n\"It is by no means clear that she has left it, otherwise than by\nact. She is an unfaithful member, but she still believes, or it\nwould have no power over her.\"\n\n\"I wonder is it religion that is making her so ill? My Lord\nDionysius, among her former companions, do you know one whose\ndiscretion you could trust to take care of her for a day or two,\nwho would be competent to discover whether Christianity is\ndisturbing her?\"\n\n\"I know an amanuensis who might perhaps be willing to oblige you;\nwe will see.\" They left the house by a side-door. The bishop led\nthe way through a narrow path for some distance, till they came\nto a villa. Here he made a signal at the gate; it was opened by\nan old servitor, who bowed profoundly as he admitted him and his\ncompanion. Dionysius whispered a word in his ear, and the old man\ntottered on before to a side entrance, which he left open. They\nentered, and very shortly another door opened into a small\nlibrary. A lady was writing there; they saluted her, and Magas\nrecognized Lotis.\n\nThe bishop quickly made known the purport of his visit, and Lotis\nwillingly offered her services. Magas, however, demurred. \"Is it\npossible,\" said he; \"are you really a Christian?\"\n\n\"I have that happiness,\" replied Lotis.\n\n\"Why, how can it be? how is it that lofty minds like yours and\nChione's can ally yourselves with such a drivelling set?\"\n\nLotis smiled as she observed, \"I think, Lord Magas, that the\nillustrious Dionysius, who stands beside you, will scarcely feel\ncomplimented.\"\n\nMagas blushed and apologized. \"Forgive me,\" he said; \"I am so\nfairly confounded to-day, I do not know what I am saying.\"\n\nDionysius said smilingly, \"You do not know what Christianity is,\nand therefore stand excused beforehand. Do you wish Lotis to\naccompany you to Chione?\"\n\n\"The more, as I think she will scarcely be suspected of--\" Magas\nhesitated. The bishop filled up the gap for him--\"of belonging to\nsuch a drivelling set. No; and Chione even does not know it; so\nyour secret will be doubly safe. You may confide in Lotis\nentirely.\"\n\n\n\n      Chapter X.\n\nLotis took her place by the bedside of her friend, but she found\nher situation almost a sinecure. Though Chione did not recognize\nher, she was very uneasy in her presence. \"Take those large black\neyes away from me,\" she would say.\n{259}\nFinally Lotis found herself reduced to watching in the next room,\nas Magas still desired her to stay and direct proceedings; and to\nbeguile the hours, she occupied herself in what had become almost\na business with her, in transcribing the gospels and apostolic\npapers for the use of the different churches. Magas often visited\nher, and would have shared her watch, had she permitted it; but\nthis she would not hear of; so he was obliged to be content with\nfrequent visits to inquire after the progress of Chione, and by\ndegrees to study the parchments on which Lotis was engaged.\n\nAshamed to manifest the interest he felt, he took them to his own\napartment, and studied first, then secretly copied the writings\nwith his own hand. Weeks went on; Chione's health improved, but\nher insanity did not pass away. Lotis proposed she should be\nremoved to a dwelling in the neighborhood of Lady Damaris' abode,\nand be there tended.\n\n\"Two influences are about her here,\" she said, \"counteracting\neach other. There all will be in unison.\" Magas assented. \"I am\nno longer afraid of Christians,\" he said; \"but how any one\n_once_ believing what is here written,\" continued he,\nproducing the gospel he had written out with his own hand--\" how\nany one, once believing, can fall away, is a mystery. I would\ngive all my possessions to have the faith, the confidence in God,\nherein described. Faith seems to mean the creature's power in\nGod, derived from God. Could I once feel that God is my Father in\nthe sense the gospel has it, I would bid adieu to philosophy for\never, and be at rest.\"\n\n\"Then you are not angry that Chione is a Christian?\" said Lotis.\n\n\"I am angry that she has acted a lie, and imposed upon me,\" he\nsaid.\n\n\"It was love of you that constrained her. Forgive her, Magas.\"\n\n\"_Love_ of me! Did she not know I love truth? I can never\nbelieve her again.\"\n\nLotis left the apartment and proceeded to superintend the removal\nof Chione.\n\nMagas went to the bishop, to make arrangements for Chione's\nmaintenance; he wished to settle revenues on her ere he departed.\n\n\"Depart! are you about to leave Athens, my son?\"\n\n\"Yes, father; it has become hateful to me, since I no longer love\nChione.\"\n\n\"You do not intend to desert her?\"\n\n\"I leave her in good hands; what can I do more?\"\n\n\"Her whole being is bound up in you; through you she sinned.\"\n\n\"That is the worst of it; I cannot look at her without feeling\nthat; but yet, I knew not she was a Christian, nor did I know how\nsublime the Christian faith is. I cannot forgive her for\nabandoning her faith.\"\n\n\"But you are not a Christian, Magas?\"\n\n\"No! I am waiting for the manifestation of God. I am going to the\napostle who has heard and seen, who works miracles in the name of\nJesus; I am going to ask of this Jesus the _power_ of\nfaith.\"\n\n\"What do you mean by the power of faith, Magas?\"\n\n\"The power of becoming a son of God, of being free, with the\nfreedom of old Merion, who is more free amid his chains than the\nyoung worldlings with their power and wealth. Free from my own\npassions, which master me and blind me; free from false\nknowledge, which misleads me; free from the power of habit, which\nenslaves me.\n{260}\nI want power to endure that crucifixion which dying to these\nobjects will occasion me. I feel my own nature rebelling against\nmy aspiration, and I want power to conquer it. The apostle says\nthe gospel is power unto salvation, and that power is needed\nwhere life must be one combat, as mine must be for the time to\ncome.\"\n\nDionysius, too modest to arrogate to himself the gifts which\ndaily experience proved him to possess, of working miracles to\nattest the power of God, simply said, \"The holy apostle Paul is\neven now at Corinth; you cannot do better than seek him there; I\nmyself will shortly do the same.\"\n\n\n    Chapter XI.\n\n\nTwo years have passed; such years! Magas has left Athens, has\nbecome a Christian--nay, a Christian preacher. His property has\nbeen more for others than himself; for he has renounced wealth,\npomp, earthly power, to follow the footsteps of that wondrous\nconvert who was brought to Christ by being struck down to earth\nby excess of light--blinded by glory--by seeing the heavenly\nvision with the unprepared eyes of earth. By St. Paul confirmed\nin the faith, Magas was, through the same apostle, set apart for\nthe ministry through the laying on of hands. Magas has so\ncompletely changed his nature, his very features seem altered.\nThe young Athenian noble, proud of a long line of ancestry, but\nseeks to devote his days to the one Master who shares his\nundivided heart.\n\nYet he returned to Athens, and his voice was heard by Chione.\n\nAll night she listened; in her short slumbers she dreamed of him;\nIn the morning her wandering senses had returned. Lotis entered\nher room with her breakfast; and the wild light in Chione's eyes\nhad subsided. She looked around; she inquired, \"Where am I?\nLotis, why are you here?\"\n\n\"I am here to tend you, dear Chione; you have been ill.\"\n\n\"Ill!\" said Chione, passing her hand over her brow; \"Ill! I've,\nhad a long, strange dream! Where's Magas?\"\n\n\"I do not know,\" said Lotis.\n\n\"He was here last night,\" said Chione. \"I heard his voice; all\nnight I watched for him; why did he keep away?\"\n\n\"I cannot tell you,\" answered Lotis.\n\n\"Cannot tell! Is not this his house? is he not at home?\"\n\n\"No! this is not his house,\" said Lotis; \"he has been away from\nAthens, and he left you here to be taken care of. Now you must\nask no more questions, but take your breakfast. I will send to\nMagas to tell him you are better.\"\n\nLotis left the room and summoned another attendant, charging her\nto be careful of her speech, lest the newly returned reason\nshould again fail, she herself sought the bishop to let him know\nof the change.\n\nIt required some care to break to Chione the tidings that she was\nin the house of the Lady Damaris; that for two years she had been\na prey to a most cruel malady of the brain, during which time\nLotis had taken every possible care of her; and that Magas had\nbeen, during that time, away. Reawakened reason almost tottered\nagain on its throne. Chione's pride was evidently hurt.\n\n\"Two years! two years! was that the end of my triumph? Magas! a\nmad woman! What has Magas been doing?\"\n\n\"He will tell you that best himself; he will be here shortly.\"\n\n\"Two years! two long years! O Magas!\"\n\n......\n\n{261}\n\n\"They met! But is this Magas? is this Chione? The long, lank\nhair, eyes almost starting from their sockets; and that form, so\nshrunken, so bereft of its former beauty, can this be the Venus\nUrania? And Apollo! will you recognize him in that weather-beaten\nform, coarsely clad, and mien so humble, though an intellectual\nmanliness still sat upon the brow?\n\n\"Is this Magas? the same, and yet so changed? Magas, speak to\nme.\"\n\n\"You are then recovering at last, Chione?\"\n\n\"At last! yes! I knew not of my illness till I recovered. Strange\nthing, this mind is, Magas! I lived on you: you were absent--I\ndied; your voice brought me back to life.\"\n\n\"Nay, you were ill before I left you, Chione. It was a higher\nvoice speaking to you, to which you turned a deaf ear, that\ncaused your illness.\"\n\n\"What mean you?\"\n\n\"That the remorse you felt for your abandoned faith upset your\nmental energies. Venus Urania should not have been enacted by a\nChristian.\"\n\n\"You have discovered my secret then; but I am a Christian no\nlonger.\"\n\n\"Oh! do not say that, Chione; say, rather, you will repent, do\npenance. Chione, you cannot at will cast away faith. The effect\nthose words produced on you show that you still believe.\"\n\n\"The devils believe and tremble,\" muttered the unfortunate woman;\n\"yet it is not faith they have.\"\n\n\"But you are not yet a reprobate--are not yet beyond recall.\nChione, I, Magas, entreat you, do not lie to your God. You cannot\ndeceive him, and for his power, does not your past illness make\nyou tremble for the future?\"\n\n\"What means this altered tone, Magas?\" said Chione bitterly. \"Are\nyou turned against me? Ah! I see how it is! Two years of absence,\ntwo years of illness, have done their work. Man's constancy is of\na summer day; the winter comes, he freezes with the cold; for the\nlove within no longer glows, no longer sends the blood rushing\nthrough the veins with a warmth that defies exterior cold. Some\nother form fresher than this frame impaired by sickness hath\nreplaced Chione in your heart. You come to bid me farewell.\nFarewell, Magas.\"\n\nDeceived by her feigned calmness, Magas rose. \"Again, Chione, I\nentreat you to return to the religion you have abandoned.\"\n\n\"And do penance at the church door in sackcloth and ashes? Is\nthat your meaning? Will you be there to see me beg the prayers of\nthe faithful as they pass in to the mysteries from which I am\nexcluded?\"\n\nThis was said with an inconceivable mixture of sarcasm and\nbitterness.\n\n\"Love could sweeten even such an act as that,\" said Magas;\n\"surely, even that is better than apostasy.\"\n\n\"And who are you that dare to twit me with apostasy? False one,\nwearied of thy old love, seeking another,\" (here she seized the\narm of Magas,) \"tell me,\" she said fiercely, \"what is the name of\nthe fair one for whom you abandon me?\"\n\n\"Why would you know?\" asked Magas.\n\n\"That I might tear her limb from limb!\" said the frenzied woman.\n\n\"That is beyond your power, Chione. Him I love sits enthroned in\nthe heavens. I have no earthly love. Chione, farewell. Remember,\nMagas blesses you--blesses you as he leaves you. You will not see\nhim soon again, for Magas is a Christian priest.\"\n\n{262}\n\nHe left her.\n\nNo, the energies did not depart as she started to her feet on\nhearing the last words--\"a Christian priest!\" \"Magas! Oh! had I\nknown, could I have guessed! The love of Magas without losing my\nreligion! Can I regain it? Yes; by penance, Chione, doing\npenance! Faugh! Chione standing in the cold, clothed in\nsackcloth, exposed to the derision of the faithful. 'Twould be\neasy to love, he said. Did he say so? Love must be boiling hot\nindeed to sweeten such an act as that; and my love, ah! ah! love\nfor religion, such a religion as that, ah! ah! ah!\"\n\nThe poor woman raved, but alas! there was too much method in her\nmadness. Wilfully she shut out faith; wilfully she turned to hate\nall that heretofore she had held dear; but she acted for a while\nwith an earthly prudence that deceived those around her.\n\nShe staid with the Lady Damaris until she had recovered health\nand strength, until she had made herself sure of the independence\nMagas had settled on her. Then she left, and opened a school of\nphilosophy, which was soon filled. Her former reputation did her\nmuch service in that respect, and that she had escaped from the\nenchantments of the Christians, who had tried to destroy her,\nadded to the interest she inspired. She soon recovered her former\nbeauty, and she studied now, studied deeply, how to thwart the\nChristians, how to demonstrate that whatever was beautiful in\ntheir religion they had stolen from the muses; that whatever was\nmystical came to them from Hindostan, the seat of mysticism; that\nwhatever was reasonable and ethical they had learned from\nphilosophy. It was a splendid success in Athens, that\nphilosophical school of Chione; for it flattered the passions\nwhile it shed the grace of eloquence and refinement over them.\nAll beauty, taste, and melody were made to yield their utmost\nsweetness there. Her disciples were of the rich, the great, the\nnoble. They could practise the elegant course of study\nalternating with ease that she prescribed: \"To enjoy is the aim\nof existence, refinement, cultivation, a correct system of ethics\nmakes perfect enjoyment. Science gives interest, lifts one above\nthe vulgar. Art ennobles and civilizes, and Athens is still the\ncentral point of art, science, and philosophy.\" So said Chione.\n\n\n    Chapter XII.\n\n\"Indeed, Lotis, you must give me more hope than that; you must\nnot bid me despair.\"\n\nThe words were spoken somewhat louder than was intended. They\nwere heard by one who was passing by. The speaker was Magas; the\npasser-by was Chione. Magas was lamenting over the account he had\nheard of Chione's continued resistance to grace. Chione applied\nto the words another meaning; she ascribed them to a passion felt\nfor Lotis, and her heart burned with rage and jealousy.\n\n\"Magas was then returned to Athens. What was he doing?\" She set\nspies on his steps. He was often at the bishop's house, often in\nthe Christian assembly; but also often had interviews with Lotis.\nThis fact, which might have been easily explained by the\noccupation of Lotis, who supplied copies of books, and kept\nvarious accounts for the church, was otherwise interpreted by the\nmisled woman, and she resolved on the destruction of Lotis.\n{263}\nIf she could not regain the love of Magas, at least she would not\nhave a rival. She had influence in the city. Nero's persecution,\nthough but little felt in the colonies, could be brought to bear.\nLotis should not live to triumph over her by a Christian\nmarriage. The idea was insupportable.\n\nUp to this point, Chione had kept herself unfettered from human\nties since Magas had departed. She had loved Magas, and though\nmany had made her offers of marriage, she could not resolve to\naccept them. Magas was alike elegant and profound. Who was worthy\nto succeed him? Athenian after Athenian paid court to her; gay,\nwitty, and attractive to all, Chione accepted none. This was a\nmatter of great wonder in so licentious a city as Athens.\n\nBut a greater wonder still was to ensue. A new Roman praetor\narrived. A rude barbarian he seemed to the fashionables of\nAthens: certainly he was not distinguished for refinement, for\nlearning, or for elegance; but it was soon observed that Chione\nheld him enthralled, and, what was more remarkable, that she\nseemed to favor him.\n\nHow it happened, people could hardly tell, but a different spirit\nseemed animating Athens. The Christians, from being despised were\nbecoming feared, and at length hated. When Nero's edict had been\nfirst made known, it made little impression; but gradually a\nvoice was found, to proclaim that there were Christians in Athens\npractising magic to the detriment of all good citizens.\n\nA few poor slaves were seized and brought before the praetor;\nthey were ruthlessly condemned on acknowledging themselves\nChristians. People were startled, but poor slaves have few\nfriends, and the matter blew over. Suddenly the praetor grows\nmore religious, decrees foreign to the usual spirit of Athenian\ngovernment are enacted; a test is instituted, and several free\ncitizens of Athens have to abide the scrutiny; executions follow,\nand Chione's reputation suffers, for it is currently reported\nthat it is she who instigates the inquiry and persecutes the new\nsect.\n\nThe Roman praetor evidently takes counsel of her. But there comes\none concerning whom even he hesitates; a young lady, daughter of\na philosopher, one beloved for her private virtues, is brought\nbefore the judge. \"Sacrifice to the genius of the emperor.\" \"I\ncannot.\" \"Why not?\" \"I am a Christian.\" How often have the words\nbeen repeated; they are so simple, yet so fraught with\nconsequence; how many perished under that simple interrogatory!\nLotis undergoes it; she is remanded; the praetor seeks to release\nher; he is sick of his office when it hits upon the young, the\ninnocent, the lovely; the outside interests him, he cannot see\nthe soul. Faith, ever young, has sustained many an aged slave,\nwrinkled with age; has adorned many a worker embrowned and\ntoil-worn, bearing marks on his frame that his life has not been\nspent in uselessness; but these excited only a passing interest,\nif any--they were common people (would that the toiling saints\nwere more common!) they went to their doom, by fire or by the\nheadsman, unmarked by men and unpitied, though Heaven assumed\ntheir souls with hymns of joy, dressed them in white garments,\ncrowned them with brilliants, endowed them with perpetual youth\nand with beauty that never will fade. But here comes a lady. The\npraetor understands that she has slaves to wait upon her, every\nluxury attends her; she may lead a life of indolence, if she\npleases. These are the exterior signs, the signs that awaken\ncommiseration. The praetor hesitates.\n{264}\nChione does not hesitate. The prisoner is not only a Christian,\nshe is a member of a conspiracy just laid open to Chione's\napprehension. She has lived in the city longer than the praetor,\nshe knows its dangers. This Lotis is a dangerous person, she is a\npersonal enemy to Chione; she must die; nay, Chione names the\nmanner of her death; she is to die by fire. The praetor,\ninfatuated by his passion for the guilty woman who prescribes to\nhim the sentence he is to pronounce, submits, gently hinting that\nhe looks for his reward. \"Reward!\" says Chione to herself, \"is\nnot a smile from me reward enough for a barbarian like him?\" And\nin her egotism, she really believes she is speaking the simple\ntruth.\n\nThe sentence is pronounced; horror seizes the city; to-morrow the\nflames are to consume the conspirators, who are many in number;\nand Lotis is among them; there is no escape.\n\nThe ancient bishop contrives, however, to visit his condemned\nflock, bearing consolation, courage, and, above all, the blessed\nsacrament, with him. To each and all he addressed himself\naccording to their needs; if he, too, staid a little longer with\nLotis than with the others, it arose out of a previous\nconversation, and because he wished to promote a holy work.\n\n\"My daughter, do you know who has stirred up this accusation\nagainst you?\"\n\n\"I rather guess than know it, father. What have I done to draw\ndown Chione's hatred?\"\n\n\"She is jealous of Magas in your regard. She cannot appreciate\nthe depth of Christian devotedness; she can understand selfish\naims alone.\"\n\n\"Poor Chione!\"\n\n\"Do you, from your heart, forgive her?\"\n\n\"I have not thought about forgiveness; I pity her too much.\"\n\n\"Do you remember the conversation we had years ago?\"\n\n\"About laying down my life for her? Father, I do.\"\n\n\"Are you willing to do so now?\"\n\n\"If I thought it would save her soul, I am more than willing.\"\n\n\"Pray for her, then, my daughter.\"\n\n......\n\n'Twas a wild shriek that rang through the streets that morning,\nas Magas arrived just in time to see the procession set forth, to\nrecognize Lotis, to hear Chione's name as the one who had\nprocured her condemnation. \"Stop, stop!\" he had cried to the\nRoman soldiery; \"stop! It is all a mistake; stop! In a few\nminutes it will be rectified. Stop for a short time, in the name\nof all that is holy!\" Had Magas donned his patrician's dress and\nscattered largess, as in times of yore, his words would have been\nheeded; a few minutes would have been granted. Even now, his air,\nhis manner, his authoritative gestures occasioned a slight pause;\nbut his weather-stained appearance caused him to be considered as\na plebeian, and the pause was not long. He flew rather than ran\nto Chione's abode. \"Come,\" said he, \"it seems you are omnipotent\nin Athens; come and prevent a murder.\" He dragged her with him to\nthe praetor's house, but the great man was absent. A bright flame\nlit up the sky! \"My God, if we are too late!\" he cried. Almost\ncarrying Chione in his arms, Magas hurried through the streets,\ntill they came to a place set apart for the execution. It was\nalready commenced; singing hymns of glory to God, one soul after\nanother departed homeward. Magas paused opposite to Lotis; she\nmade a sign of recognition. Magas turned to Chione. \"Are you a\ndevil,\" he shrieked, \"that you have dared to do this?\" \"Forgive\nher, Magas, as I forgive her,\" said the dying Lotis. \"Farewell,\nChione! Friends we were in youth, and we shall yet meet in\nheaven.\" Lotis was gone.\n\n{265}\n\n\"Meet in heaven! meet in heaven! meet in heaven! I and Lotis meet\nin heaven! meet in heaven! Magas, tell me, Magas, can it be?\"\n\nThe brain of Magas was on fire with excitement, and he held a\nmurderess in his arms; but he was a Christian priest, and he\nanswered solemnly:\n\n\"God is merciful; Christ died for sinners. Do penance; it may be\nyet.\"\n\n\n    Conclusion.\n\nVery many years have passed away, and if the dignity of person is\nconsidered, a more solemn martyrdom than the last we have\ncommemorated is to take place. The venerable bishop and his\ncompanions, some priests, some laymen, are to lay their heads\nupon the block--among them Magas. A woman veiled, bearing but few\nremains of beauty or of youth, was also there; but not a\nprisoner; she was there to kneel at the bishop's feet, to pray\nfor his blessing. That morning, for the first time for long, long\nyears, had that woman knelt within a Christian church--had\nreceived the adorable sacrament of the body and blood of our\nLord, after years of penance heroically, _lovingly_\nperformed at the entrance to the building. That morning she had\nbeen absolved, that morning communicated. Ere he went to his home\nin heaven, the venerable bishop, who had sustained the fainting\nand often faltering soul through so many years of expiation, had\nthought fit to pronounce her purified, to command that she should\nagain take her place among the faithful. She came to thank him;\nto accompany him--him and Magas! Consoled, the procession moved\nalong. Chione--such was the name of the penitent--knelt as the\nvictims knelt. The bishop, ere he surrendered himself, gave his\nblessing to all the assembly. Magas preceded him to the block.\nWhen the axe fell, the woman fell also. Magas and Chione stood\ntogether before the judgment-seat of God.\n\n-------\n\n     Translated From Le Correspondant.\n\n       Abyssinia And King Theodore.\n\n         By Antoine D'Abbadie.\n\n\nA Spanish bull having accidentally strayed on a railroad, which\nspoiled the beauty of his beloved country, met a locomotive. The\nking of the pasture-lands, fired with anger at the violation of\nhis right, and listening only to the voice of his courage,\nlowered his head and butted with his horns so accustomed to\nvictory against the mail-clad invader of his verdant fields. This\nbattle is an image of that which is going to take place between\nEngland and Theodore, King of the Kings of Ethiopia. It is plain\nthat it is not Theodore who represents the locomotive.\n\n{266}\n\nBefore explaining the true motives of the costly English\nexpedition to Abyssinia, it may be well to look at the physical\nand moral condition of the country which is to be the scene of\nconflict, and where I passed more than ten years of my youth.\n\nThe whole extent of territory from Suez and Aquabah to the Strait\nof Mandeb, or _affliction_, along the shores of the Red Sea,\nis barren and desolate. The small, scattered towns in this region\nowe their existence to commercial travelling; and even in the\nmost favored portions of the land it takes a two or three days'\njourney from the salt water into the interior, before meeting\ncultivated fields.\n\nThe only deep bay in the south of the Red Sea is that of Adulis,\nwhich the natives designate by the \"Gulf of Velvet,\" perhaps on\naccount of the smoothness of its waters, sheltered by the\npalisades which guard it on the eastern side. The English, who\nare fond of baptizing territories before conquering them, have\ncalled this part of the sea, \"The bay of Annesley.\" This name is\nsaid to be that of the family of Lord Valentia, who, little\nversed in geography, imagined that he had discovered in 1809\nthose celebrated districts anciently frequented by Egyptian\nmerchants in the time of the Ptolemies. The island of Desa,\nformed by a row of schistous hills, shelters the entrance to the\nbay of Adulis, which we call by this name in memory of that\nflourishing city of Adulis, which stood by its waves up to the\nsixth century of our era. The natives still show the site of that\nGrecian city, and inform the traveller that it was swallowed up\nby an earthquake. Of its past greatness, there remain but a small\nnumber of carved capitals in the lava of the environs, and some\nsculptured marbles which seem to display the Byzantine style.\nNear these ruins is the large village of Zullah, which contained,\nin 1840, two hundred and fourteen cabins, and a population of\nabout one thousand souls. It is from Zullah that the shortest\nroute lies to the plains and highlands of Ethiopia, or, as the\nEnglish call it, Abyssinia.\n\nExcept during January and February, when the weather is still\nwarm, Zullah suffers from the frightful heat which pervades the\nwhole of that stretch of low land called Samhar, which lies along\nthe sea. Wishing to take a bath during the summer, I could not,\nby reason of the seeming excessive coldness of the water. But\nplacing a thermometer in it, I found the temperature 36 degrees,\nwhile in the shade the air was at 48 degrees. I found it at 65\ndegrees in the between-decks of a French steamer; and when\nevening brings a refreshing breeze to cool this burning\natmosphere, one is tempted to say with a Frenchman after having\nescaped during the bloody \"reign of terror:\" \"I have done a great\ndeal, for I have managed to live.\"\n\nTravellers at this season start at midnight, and traverse, on\ntheir way into Ethiopia, a plain as barren as desolation itself.\nSometimes they encounter the _Karif_, an atmospheric column\nof a red brick color, which appears on the horizon like a living\nphantom. This column seems to increase in volume as it\napproaches, the air that drives it along roaring like a\nwhirlwind. Man and beast are obliged to turn their backs to it,\nand it covers them with a dry, black cloud, as with a mantle of\nhorror. In a few minutes the _Karif_ passes away; and men\nare glad to be out of its hideous gloom, even though it be but to\nwander again through that intense but quiet heat which broods\nover the Samhar. Sometimes, also, the _Harur_, which the\nArabs call the _Simoom_ or _paison_, surprises the\ntraveller.\n{267}\nThis wind comes without any previous sign of warning, belching\nout burning death like a furnace. The patient camel then puts his\nhead on the ground, rejoiced to find relief even in the relative\nfreshness of the scorching earth; the strongest of the natives\nsuccumb; and such is the sudden and complete prostration of human\nstrength during the simoom, that in the open country I have been\nunable to hold up a small thermometer, to learn at least the\ntemperature of this strange wind, which science has as yet failed\nto explain. This Harur lasted five minutes. They say that men and\nbeasts die if it lasts a quarter of an hour.\n\nAfter crossing those desert plains, the traveller finds the\ncountry gradually assume an undulating character. A stream is\nmet. Mountains rise up before him, and deep, verdant valleys\nextend among them.\n\nI often visited those valleys with, the vain hope of seeing a\nphenomenon very rare in Europe. During the summer season caravans\nrepose or march in perfect safety under a serene sky, when\nsuddenly the practised ear of a native hears a strange noise in\nthe distance, rapidly increasing in loudness. He cries out, \"The\ntorrent!\" and climbs breathlessly up the nearest height. In less\nthan half a minute after, the whole valley disappears under a\nbroad and deep stream, which carries with it trees, pieces of\nrock, and even wild beasts. Rising in an instant, those torrents\nvanish in a day, and leave no trace of their passage, save ruins\nof all sorts, and pools of stagnant water in the indentations of\nthe soil. The general nakedness of the mountains explains these\nstrange phenomena. From the bottom of the funnel in which the\ntraveller stands when he is in one of those valleys, he cannot\nsee the small clouds which let fall their liquid burdens with an\nabundance unknown out of the tropical climates. There is very\nlittle loam, and still less of roots of trees to absorb this\nsudden rain; so that it rolls from rock to rock, as on a roof,\nrushes through every little valley, and mingles in one common\nriver, as frightful as it is transitory. One day, as I arrived\njust too late to behold it in all its grandeur, I found a\nsolitary individual, who, with a stupefied look, regarded the\nstill humid earth. \"God save you,\" said I, \"what news have you?\nWhere are your arms? Can a man like you remain without lance or\nbuckler?\" \"May you live long and well!\" he replied. \"The torrent\nhas carried away my lance, my buckler, my ass, my camel, and my\nwhole substance, my wife and my children. Woe is me! Woe is me!\"\nI then turned to my guide and asked him: \"Does thy brother speak\ntruly?\" \"Doubtless,\" answered he, \"and if the torrent came at\nthis moment, unless we were warned of its approach by the small\nnoise of which I have spoken, it is not the most swift-footed,\nbut the most lucky, who would be saved.\" Then turning toward the\nson of his tribe--\"May God console thee, my brother!\" We all\nrepeated this pious wish, and continued our route, without being\nable to give anything to this wretched man, for we had neither\nvictuals nor money; and from the summit of the neighboring hills\nwe could hear him repeating for a long time, \"Woe is me! Woe is\nme!\"\n\nFor more than two centuries the civilization and native wealth of\nEthiopia have been concentrated around Lake Tana. Just on its\nshores stands Quarata, the largest city of oriental Africa--proud\nof its sanctuary and its twelve thousand inhabitants. A little\nfurther on is Aringo, the Versailles of the dusky kings.\n{268}\nNear it is Dabra Tabor, the capital, or rather the camp of the\nlast chiefs, as well as of the actual sovereign; and finally, on\na spur of mountain which projects to the south, appears\nGondar--the famous Gondar, which I have seen, still powerful,\nalthough reduced to eight thousand inhabitants, only a fourth of\nits former population. Of all the faults of King Theodore, that\nwhich the Ethiopians will be least ready to forgive is his having\nsystematically burned the city of Gondar. Of seventeen churches,\nonly two have escaped this cool and useless cruelty of the\ndespot.\n\nThe Ethiopians are a people of very mixed origin. Languages,\ninstitutions, usages, and prejudices, even the shades of color\nand the formations of the human body, are placed in strange\njuxtaposition with one another. Except the Somal, who afford\ninstances of tall stature, the Ethiopians are of medium height,\nhave thick lips, white and well-formed teeth, and are of slender\nframe. Their hair is curly; but straight hair, though rare, is\nsometimes seen. The Semites have often the aquiline nose of the\nEuropeans. As to the color of the skin, all degrees, from the\ncopper color of the Neapolitan to the jet black of the negro, are\nfound. This latter color is often allied to European features.\nThere is an unconscious and natural grace in all the movements\nand actions of the Ethiopians. Our sculptors might study their\ngestures and drapery with profit.\n\nOn the coast, to the north of Zullah, live the Tigre, whose\nlanguage, traditions, and customs entitle them to be considered\namong the descendants of Sem, like the Hebrews and Arabs. The\nsame must be said of the Tigray, who inhabit the neighboring\nplateau, and speak a kindred idiom to that of the Tigre. The\nAmaras, more lively, more intelligent, and more civilized, live\nin the interior, and use a language of Semitic origin, yet\nmodified by associations with the sons of Cham. This is the\nlanguage used by most European travellers, for it is commonly\nemployed by the merchant, by the learned, and in diplomacy. The\nGiiz, or Ethiopian, closely connected with the Tigre, is the dead\nlanguage, the Latin of those distant countries. It is used in\nquotations, in philosophical and religious discussions, and\nsometimes to conceal the sense of a conversation from the vulgar.\nFrom Tujurrah to the environs of Zullah, a common language,\nentirely different from those which we have mentioned, unites all\nthe fractions of the Afar nation, often called Dankalis, but\nimproperly, for the Dankalas, the Adali, etc., are only tribes of\nthe Afar. The Sahos, who are the most numerous among the\ninhabitants of Zullah, and extend along all the slopes of the\nneighboring plain, consider themselves as strangers to the Afar,\nand speak a distinct but affiliated dialect. Another idiom much\nmore important by the number of the nations who use it, has also\nthe same origin as the Afar tongue. We mean the Ylmorma used by\nthe Oromos, whose name in war is Gallei or Galla, and who, by\nreason of their conquests, have extended their sway from the Afar\ncountry as far as to the still unknown regions of interior\nAfrica. Called Gallas by all the Christians of Ethiopia, the\nOromos threaten, by their proximity, the stronghold of Magdala,\nwhere the English prisoners have been awaiting for four years the\narrival of their avenging countrymen.\n\nA serious calculation of the population of any African nation has\nnever been made. As to the centres of population, a fatigued and\ndisgusted traveller, looking at them from a distance and but for\na moment, might state the census of such or such a city to be ten\nthousand souls.\n{269}\nAn optimist, on the contrary, might gravely affirm that at least\nthirty thousand should be admitted as the correct number. It is,\nin fact, almost impossible to form a proper estimate of the\npopulation of Ethiopia. Considering its extent of territory, I\nshould say there are three or four millions in it, though if some\nother traveller were to maintain that it contains six or eight\nmillions I could not refute his opinion, owing to the fact that I\ndo not know the proportion between the inhabited and the desert\nportions of the country.\n\n\n    II.\n\nThe Jews were formerly numerous in Abyssinia. There are not\neighty thousand of them left now, and they are gradually\ndisappearing under the influence of the powerful civilization of\nthe Amara.\n\nThe origin of the Ethiopian Jews probably dates from the time of\nthe prophet Jeremias, when commerce was carried on between\nAlexandria and Aksum. At a later period, similar facilities\nbrought to Ethiopia the first Christian missionaries. This\nhappened in the beginning of the fourth century, when the\ninhabitants of Gaul, or France, were still plunged in the\ndarkness of paganism. The truth, however, progressed slowly in\nAbyssinia; for the local Judaism, though notably separated from\nthat of the Hebrews, preserved its political power during five or\nsix hundred years, notwithstanding the wonderful efforts of\nnative missionaries, whose feasts and martyrdoms are still\ncelebrated in the country. Even up to the 14th century there were\npagans in it; and there are, very probably, some there still.\n\nAfter the Mussulman invasion of the fifteenth century, Islamism\nfiltered through Egyptian society. The Christianity of the\ncountry became corrupt, and we can liken it to nothing better now\nthan to those lepers who abound in this part of Africa, whose\nbodies are at first attacked in their extremities, and fall away\npiecemeal. In the same way, her Christianity perished on the\nfrontiers of Ethiopia. Twenty years before our arrival among the\nTigre, they were Christians, or rather they lived in the\nrecollection of their faith; but without baptism or sacrifice,\nand guided in their prayers by the descendants of their last\npriests. They became Mussulmans under our eyes, with the\nexception of their principal chief, who said, with a touching and\nproud respect for ancient usages, that \"a king ought to die in\nthe faith of his fathers.\" One becomes irritated on reflecting\nthat two or three fervent missionaries could have, at the\nbeginning of this century, rolled back the tide of advancing\nMohammedanism, by evangelizing or rather reviving that ancient\nChristianity whose history goes back as far as St. Athanasius,\nand which we have seen expire after ages of agony.\n\nIf we study Christianity in the centre of Ethiopia, we find a\nsomewhat confused schism, but of all schisms the one least\nremoved from Catholic orthodoxy. The only dogmatic points which\nwe regret in this schism are the _one_ procession of the\nHoly Ghost, which has been condemned among us only at a late\nperiod, and the belief in only _one_ nature in Jesus Christ,\nwhich is publicly professed by the African schools. But the term\nin the Abyssinian vernacular which we translate by _nature_,\nhas such a vague and obscure signification that, if the word\ncould be destroyed, the schism would no longer exist.\n{270}\nIt must be remembered that the Ethiopians do not understand the\nart of defining; and when I restricted this ambiguous term\naccording to our method, they understood the dogma exactly as we,\nand congratulated themselves on being, without knowing it,\nattached to the same faith as Rome, that seat of St. Peter which\nalways commands their respect.\n\nWhat particularly distinguish their Christianity from ours, are\nvicious or irregular practices. Like many of the Eastern\nChristians, they allow the marriage of the clergy; but in the\nabbeys, where there are professors, they allow no priest to say\nMass who is not a celibatarian by vow. \"Among you,\" said an\nEthiopian who had visited Europe, \"the important practice is to\ngo to church.\" \"And among you,\" I answered, \"the one thing\nnecessary is to prolong your fastings.\" One is tempted to say\nthat the active people of the West, and the slow and\nrepose-loving nations of the East, have made the principal merit\nof a Christian to consist in _those pious exercises which cost\nthe least trouble_.\n\nIt is impossible to leave this subject without saying a word\nabout the Dabtara, or secular clerics. They were organized by a\nking who found himself, like many of his royal brethren in\nEurope, very much embarrassed by those mixed questions, in which\nthe spiritual power seems to invade the domain of the temporal.\nTo keep the balance, between them, he created an intermediary\nbody, called the Dabtara. This order is filled from all classes\nof society; and it possesses the usufruct of all the churches. It\nalone takes charge of the temporal affairs of the church, and\nfrequently its members act as parish priests, which is a purely\ntemporal office in Abyssinia. The Dabtara hire by the month,\nrebuke or dismiss the priest who says Mass. Their essential\nfunction consists in singing in choir. This duty requires a\ncertain education. In Europe the music of our church hymns may be\nchanged, the words remaining unaltered. The contrary is the case\namong the Ethiopians. Their music is traditional and sacramental,\nand in every well-ordered church, the rhymed words of every hymn\nare specially composed for every festival. The twelve Dabtara of\nevery church display their piety, wisdom, and especially their\nwit in these productions. They use hymns learnedly ambiguous, to\ncriticise the bishop, to give a lesson to the head of the monks,\nand even political hints to the sovereign. By recalling an act of\nsome personage of the Old Testament, they find occasion to\ncriticise the government of the city, to praise some Maecenas who\nis expected to be present at the service, or even, if necessary,\nto satisfy a personal grudge. When a Dabtara advances into the\nchoir to whisper into the ear of the principal chanter the hymn\nwhich has just been written by the Dabtara, and which the singer\nmust know by heart, the other Dabtaras surround the composer,\nexamine the sense of the rhyme, and no matter what may be the\nresult of their investigation, they always congratulate the happy\nauthor. Sometimes it is discovered that the hymn has not been\nmade by a member of the order, but by some young candidate in\ndistress, who, for a measure of meal, often sells to the wealthy\nthe fresh inspirations of his genius.\n\nAfter the teacher of plain-chant, the most important professor is\nhe who teaches grammar, the roots of the sacred language, its\ndictionary, and particularly the art of composing\nhymns.\n{271}\nAfter the lesson, the pupils spread over the lawn before the\nchurch, repeat the precepts just heard from their professor, and\nessay to make rhymes or compose hymns, which they afterward\nrecite to him in order to obtain the benefit of his criticism. As\nin our middle ages, these scholars ask alms and live in misery;\noften they are the only servants of their preceptors. Lively and\nfrolicsome, like our collegians, they play many tricks on their\nfellow-students, but never on their teacher, whom they love and\nalmost worship. Having once chanced at Gondar to describe how my\ncollege-fellows in France had eaten the dinner of their\nprofessor, and left a sermon on fasting and patience on his\nplate, I was met with such a torrent of invective, that I never\nventured on a repetition of the scandal.\n\nIn Abyssinia, education is essentially public and gratuitous. As\nall explanations must be made in the vernacular, which I spoke\nbut poorly in the beginning, I was obliged to have recourse to a\nprivate tutor, and when I wished to recompense him for his\ntrouble, I was answered that science should not be sold like any\nother vile merchandise, and that the honor of the teaching body\nrequired knowledge to be transmitted gratuitously, just as it had\nbeen acquired. The Ethiopian students are generally very\ndiligent. If they play truant, their parents bring them into the\nchurch where the school is being held, and tie their feet\ntogether with an iron chain. Sometimes this disciplinary measure\nis ordered by the professor, and pupils are often seen who,\ndistrusting themselves, ask for those chains, which are not\nconsidered symbols of dishonor. They are rarely worn by the\nhigher scholars.\n\nThe university course of the Ethiopians is composed of four\nbranches, which might be compared to the four faculties of our\nown. A fifth branch, devoted to astronomy and replete with\ntraditional ideas, has not been cultivated for some time past. I\nknew the last professor of this science, who had only one pupil.\nThe other classes are occupied with the study of the New\nTestament, the fathers of the church, civil and canon law, and\nthe Old Testament. This last requires an effort of memory of\nwhich few Europeans are capable; for I have never heard but of\none man in the West who knew the whole Bible by heart. No one can\nbe a teacher in Ethiopia without knowing by heart the text of the\nbook he is to explain, the variations of four or five\nmanuscripts, and especially the ingenious commentary, sometimes\neven learned, but always traditional and purely oral, on the\ntext. The degree of bachelor is unknown in that country; that of\ndoctor is given to the student who is chosen by his professor as\ncapable of explaining in the evening to his comrades the lessons\ngiven in class in the morning. In the case of a doubt of his\ncapacity, the teacher is consulted, and his affirmation is\nconsidered a sufficient diploma. Great attention and much\nperseverance are required to make this system of unmethodical\neducation profitable. An aged professor informed me that he had\nlearned to read in three years. He spent two years afterward in\nlearning the liturgical chant, and five years in studying grammar\nand in composing hymns. He learned how to comment on the New\nTestament in seven years; and spent fifteen years on the Old\nTestament, for the strain on his memory was very great.\n\nI have dwelt somewhat on the Ethiopian colleges because M. Blanc,\none of the English prisoners of Magdala, says expressly in his\nnarration: \"The Abyssinians have no literature; their\nChristianity is only a name; their conversational power is very\nlimited.\"\n{272}\nTo this testimony, altogether negative, I oppose the statement\nfirst made, and which I could prove and extend farther. I will\nmerely add that in Gojjam, as well as at Gondar and elsewhere, I\nhave held disputes with native. Christians, on religious,\nphilosophical, and other scientific subjects, and found them as\nwell informed as if they had been brought up in Paris or at\nLondon.\n\nWith rare exceptions, the regular clergy alone has preserved its\nvirtues and its _prestige_. The secular priests have lost a\ngreat part of their importance by the singular institution of the\nDabtara. Yet the Ethiopians, jealous of their political\nindependence, and capable of preserving it by the natural\ninfluence of their traditional customs, wish to keep religious\nauthority powerful and undivided. To avoid schisms, and as\nseveral bishops can consecrate others, they recognize only one,\nwho must be of white race and a stranger to the country. He has\nalways been consecrated by the schismatical patriarch of\nAlexandria; but, since the last consecration, I was assured that\nthe Abyssinians would make application elsewhere for the future.\nThe title of their bishop is abun. The last abun or aboona was\nSalama, who having only a semi-canonical appointment, and besides\nbeing addicted to all kinds of vice, had very little influence\nover the inferior clergy or the people. Suspected by the\nprofessors and hated by the Dabtara, he planted more thorns than\nblessings in the hearts of his subjects. A Copt by birth, he at\nfirst frequented the English Protestant school at Cairo, and\ncarried afterward to the convent where he made his vows such\ndoctrines of disobedience and incredulous opinions, that the\nPatriarch of Alexandria thought it would be wise to exile him to\nEthiopia as abun, though he was under the canonical age. In fact,\nthe abun was more anxious for money than for the faith. He\nreceived the 36,000 francs, which are usually given as a present\nat the investiture of the Abyssinian bishop; and the patriarch\nthus delivered up distant Ethiopia, too much despised by the\nCopts, to the vices and vague doctrines of Salama. This ornament\nof the episcopacy had no sooner arrived in his diocese, than he\ndevoted himself to commerce, especially to the traffic in slaves,\nwhich is most profitable. His vices were such that our pen cannot\ndescribe them. He told me himself that by mistake he had ordained\npriest a boy only ten years old, and laughed heartily at the\ntrick played on him in his case. Having learned from Monseigneur\nde Jacobis the cases which annul an ordination, I told them to\nthe professors of canon law. They kept silence in public; and\nwhen I pushed them with questions, they all gave me this answer:\n\"Your objections are true; only, in the name of God, do not\nscatter them among the Dabtara. Except the Masses said by old\npriests ordained by the preceding abun, there are none valid, and\nthere is no holy sacrifice in Ethiopia; but the ignorance and\nstrong faith of the faithful will suffice before God for their\nsalvation.\" Abun Salama, busied with intrigues, in which he\nthought himself very skilful, was nevertheless, only the tool of\nthe princes, who attached him to them in order to help their\npolitical combinations. It was he who consecrated King Theodore,\nwho, after frequently insulting his consecrator, finally cast him\ninto prison, where he lately died.\n\n{273}\n\n    III.\n\nNo matter what the English prisoners may say to the contrary, the\nEthiopian soldiers are very brave, and fight fiercely if they are\nwell commanded. As in Europe during the middle ages, the flower\nof their army is composed of cavalry. The battle is begun by the\nfusiliers, who shoot well; but their importance had not yet been\ncomprehended by the native chiefs in my time. Soon the charge is\nsounded, the cavalry rushes to the conflict, the victory is\nquickly won, and the infantry, badly furnished with blunt sabres,\nlances, and bucklers, hardly does anything but make prisoners.\nEvery soldier keeps all the spoils of those he may vanquish,\nexcept the guns and blood-horses, which by right belong to the\ngeneral. During this latter phase of the victory, the\ncommander-in-chief, deserted by his eager soldiers, is left\nalmost unattended. In speaking with Ethiopian officers, I often\nmentioned to them, but always in vain, how important it is to\nhave a body-guard for the commander. The first victory of Kasa,\nnow King Theodore, attracted attention to this necessity\nafterward. Let us say a word here about the mother of this chief,\nsince she is involuntarily one of the remote causes of the\nEnglish expedition. This good old woman once did me a great\nservice, and in 1848, notwithstanding the recent elevation of her\nson to royalty, she was still so polite as to rise at my\napproach. She was then courted as a power behind the throne. But\na short time previously, she was the despised mother of Kasa, an\nobscure rebel, living in misery, and reprobated by all. His poor\nmother, in her old age, joined a religious order, and put on the\nlittle white bonnet which is its distinctive sign. But she was\npenniless. The convents had been robbed, and every one shunned\nthe mother of a rebel. She was finally compelled to turn vendor\nof _koso_, a drug which the Ethiopians take six times a\nyear, to kill the tape-worm, with which most of the inhabitants\nare afflicted.\n\nKasa, the rebel of Quara, grew more powerful day by day, and the\nproud Manan grew angry. Manan was the mother of Ali, the most\npowerful prince of Central Ethiopia, and the real mayoress of the\npalace of that _fain\u00e9kant_ king who ruled at Gondar, only\nwithin the precincts of his dwelling. Manan, desiring to be\ncalled _ytege_, or queen, an exclusive title in that\ncountry, caused the nominal king to be dethroned by her son, and\nplaced her husband, _Yohannis_, or John, in his stead. This\nprince was an estimable man, and honored me with his friendship.\n\nIn 1847, war was waged against the rebel Kasa. The soldiers of\nManan insulted their adversary. One gasconading cavalier\nexclaimed, at a review: \"Manan, my great queen, depend on my\nvalor, for I shall lead before you in chains this fellow; this\nson of a vendor of _koso!_\" But Kasa won the battle, and\nchained the boaster in a hut, where, after a fast of twenty-four\nhours, he received the following message from Kasa, delivered\nverbally by a waggish page: \"How hast thou passed the night, my\nbrother? How hast thou passed the day? May God deliver thee from\nthy chains! May the Lord grant thee a little patience! Be sad\nwith me, for yesterday mamma remained at market all day, and\ncould not sell a single dose of _koso_. I have therefore no\nmoney to buy bread for thee or for me. May God grant thee\npatience, my brother! May God break thy chains! It is Kasa who\nsends thee this message.\" The next day the officer received the\nsame message. On the third day the irony of the conqueror was\nslightly changed.\n{274}\nAfter the usual salutations, the page joyfully informed the\ncaptive that \"Mamma had succeeded in selling a dose of\n_koso_, and bought a loaf, which Kasa sends him.\"\n\nA few days after, I heard these details at Gondar. The\nnews-mongers praised the mockery; but they only half-smiled, for\nthe flower of society had fallen into misfortune. Then they\nregretted the good king Yohannis, and suspected the still\nundeveloped wickedness of the character of Kasa, the adventurous\nrebel of Quara. I saw Kasa, or Theodore, frequently at Gondar in\n1848. He was dressed as a simple soldier, and had nothing, either\nin his features or language, which presaged his high destiny. He\nloved to speak of fire-arms. He was about twenty-eight years old;\nhis face rather black than red; his figure slim; and his agility\nseemed to arise less from his muscular power than from that of\nhis will. His forehead is high and almost convex; his nose\nslightly aquiline, a frequent characteristic of the pure-blooded\nAmaras. His beard, like theirs, is sparse, and his thin lips\nbetray rather an Arabian than an Ethiopian origin. Kasa conquered\nall his competitors, became King of Ethiopia, and was consecrated\nby the abun, taking the name of Theodore, to verify an old\nprophecy current among the Jews and Christians, that a king of\nthis name should rule over the ancient empire of Aksum. But the\nEthiopians, like all people of mountainous regions, tenacious of\ntheir independence, and accustomed to liberty, did not yield at\nonce to an upstart usurper, who owed his success less to ability\nand valor than to good luck.\n\nIn the beginning of his reign he acted with much clemency, owing,\nit is said, to the happy influence exercised over him by his\nfirst wife. When she died, he caused her body to be embalmed,\naccording to the custom of the Ethiopian princes of the race of\nSolomon. Her coffin was carried after Theodore everywhere he\nmarched. A special tent was erected in the camp for her remains,\nand the conqueror of Ethiopia was often seen entering it to\nmeditate on his past happiness, and ask of God, as it was said,\nprudence and wisdom for the future. It is at this time that he\nhad real thoughts, though always eccentric, of a good government.\nCivil divorce, and the consequent confusion of marriage, are the\nplague-spot of Abyssinian society. They uproot the foundations of\nthe family, and are opposed to all ideas of order and stability.\nWithout understanding that a radical change in society cannot be\neffected by a mere proclamation, Theodore decreed the obligation\nof regular marriages, and the abolition of divorce. An able\nstatesman would have sought to destroy gradually, abuses of such\nlong standing. Another of his decrees did him equal honor, and\nmight have succeeded better, for he revived the old law of the\nEthiopians against the slave-trade.\n\nBut the heart of man is fickle. Prince Wibe, falling into the\nhands of the conqueror, recommended his daughter to the Dabtara\nand monks of Darasge, his favorite abbey, where he had his family\nburial vault. One day the faithful guardians of the spot saw a\nband of soldiers rushing toward them. They thought it was Tissu,\na recent rebel. They immediately concealed the sacred vessels,\nand for safety shut up the daughter of Wibe in the vault. Their\nsurprise was great when they found it was Theodore himself, who\nwas, according to custom, marching over his kingdom in quest of\ninsurgents.\n{275}\nHe wanted to see everything; and when they refused to open the\ncavern for him, maintaining that a tomb prepared for Wibe, who\nwas still a chained captive, could have no interest for his\nconqueror, Theodore suspected some plot, and caused the stone of\nthe sepulchre to be removed. His surprise was great when, instead\nof a coffin, he beheld a beautiful girl, bathed in tears, and in\nthe attitude of prayer. Theodore forgot his first love. He set\nWibe at liberty, and married his daughter. This union was not\nhappy. The _ytege_, or queen, having interceded to save the\nlife of a rebel whom she had known at the court of her father,\nTheodore refused at first her request, and becoming angry,\nfinally struck her. In order to humiliate her the more, he made a\ncommon camp follower his concubine. From this moment his decree\non Christian marriage became a dead letter, and the slave-trade\nwas renewed. Men must have stronger virtue than that of King\nTheodore, that their good thoughts may bear full fruit.\n\n\n    IV.\n\nLet us here give some account of the English missions in\nEthiopia; for they have helped to bring about and inflame the war\nnow pending. M. Gobat, a Swiss Protestant, went as far as Gondar\nabout forty years ago, and acquired a knowledge of the language\nof the country. After his return to Europe, he published a book\nof such seeming good faith, that it deceived me at first, as it\nmust have deceived the English projectors of the missions.\nCharity obliges me to write that M. Gobat, in giving an account\nof his sermons to the people, has rather described what he\ndesired to say and the answers he would like to hear, than what\nhe actually said or heard. Without citing other witnesses of this\nfact, that of an educated Dabtara will suffice, who was ignorant\nof the existence of the Protestant missions. \"Samuel Gobat,\" said\nhe, \"was a prepossessing person, who deceived one at first. I,\nwho followed him, can affirm that he was really an unbeliever, or\nthat he pretended to be so. He proposed frightful doubts and\nobjections in matters affecting the Christian religion, but under\nthe form of hypotheses. He always began his strange assertions by\nan _if_. Could he express them boldly? If he had, you know\nthat in Gondar, at least, he would not have been allowed to\ncontinue, and he would have been denied a residence in our city.\"\n\nThe missionary societies in England did not know this condition\nof the Ethiopian mind, and influenced by the specious arguments\nof M. Gobat, they sent him a re-enforcement of three ministers,\nwhom he left to return to Europe. They preached much more\nhonestly and openly than he in Adwa and Tigray, where they were\nestablished. They were expelled in 1838, fifteen days before my\narrival in the country. Two of them then went to Suria, from\nwhich they were also driven. With a perseverance worthy of a\nbetter cause, they returned again to Tigray, and again to Suria.\nAlways exiled, they had at last the prudence, in 1855, to make no\nfurther attempt at evangelizing the country.\n\nSeventeen years before this last date I met at Cairo a young\nLazarist priest, whom I persuaded to accompany me into Ethiopia,\nto found a Catholic mission. He preceded me, went to Adwa about\neight days before the first expulsion of the Protestant\nmissionaries; and as my project seemed to him sensible, requiring\nonly time and patience to realize it, I brought letters from him\nto Europe in 1838.\n{276}\nHis holiness, Gregory XVI., favored our attempt, and sent two\nmissionaries to Ethiopia under the charge of Monseigneur de\nJacobis, who soon became known all through that region by the\nname of Abuna Ya'igob. In spite of some imprudence, inevitable,\nperhaps, in a country where there are such strange contrasts, he\nsucceeded beyond my most sanguine hopes, and when I left the\ncountry in 1849, there were twelve thousand Catholics in it, and\nmany of the priests were natives. Last year an English account\ngives the number as sixty thousand; for the influence of true\ndoctrines could not fail to be extended among a people so\nintelligent as are the Abyssinians. Monseigneur de Jacobis helped\nmuch to obtain this result, by his unchangeable mildness, and by\nthat personal influence which is always exercised by a priest\ndevoted to incessant prayer.\n\nThe fate of the Protestant missions was different. The ministers,\ninstead of attributing their want of success to themselves, have\nblamed the Catholics as the movers of their expulsion from\nEthiopia. Even the English Consul Plowden in his official report\nsays that Theodore, after perusing the history of the Jesuits in\nAbyssinia, decided to allow no Catholic priest to teach in his\nstates. The English are fond of decrying the memory of the\nJesuits who taught in Ethiopia up to 1630. It is, however, very\nsingular that I never heard of this history, and that the most\nlearned anti-Catholic professors at Gondar never mentioned it to\nme in our controversies. On the contrary, they spoke of Peter\nPaez and his co-laborers with admiration mingled with regret, and\nquoted touching legends concerning them. A little further on in\nhis account, Plowden, who seems ignorant of the fact that sermons\nare unknown in Ethiopia, adds that Theodore prohibited all\npreaching contrary to the Copt Church. We cannot expect that an\nEnglish soldier, more or less Protestant, should comprehend fully\nreligious questions; but although he was a mere soldier, he ought\nto have known that Theodore was attached to one of the three\nnational sects, and had forbidden all other creeds, and condemned\nCatholics as well as Protestants.\n\nIt was in consequence of this decree that Monseigneur de Jacobis\nwas compelled to leave Gondar in 1855. This pious bishop went to\nMusawwa, and there continued to govern his mission, which has\nbeen left almost undisturbed by the natives for almost thirty\nyears. The chief proselytes of Gondar retired also to the shores\nof the Red Sea, and the Protestant ministers, always on the\nwatch, imagined they had at length found a good opportunity to\nteach in the capital. They went thither under the guidance of M.\nKrapf, who, in default of other qualities, has at least uncommon\nactivity and persistence, but which have been so far sterile of\nresults. At their first expulsion in 1838, the four Protestant\nmissionaries left but _one proselyte in the whole of\nEthiopia_. This was a quondam pilgrim. He was going to\nJerusalem with an Ethiopian priest, who, falling short of money,\nsold his companion into bondage. M. Gobat having ransomed him,\nhad no difficulty in inspiring him with hatred of the priests,\nand of all their doctrines. We can only regard this single\nconvert as an apostate induced to desert his faith by resentment\nand a spirit of revenge. Another young and intelligent Ethiopian,\nafter studying for years in the Protestant schools of Europe,\nwhen asked, answered me frankly that the numerous dissensions in\nreligion witnessed by him among Protestants, had destroyed all\nreligious belief in his mind.\n{277}\nReligious England always believing, though erroneously, ought to\nbe startled by the consideration that her missionaries, real\nmercenaries as they are, only succeed in propagating doubt and\nincredulity instead of spreading the gospel.\n\nM. Gobat, who was somewhat of a diplomatist, in writing to King\nTheodore, did not state his object to be the foundation of a\nProtestant mission. He merely announced that skilful mechanics,\ndesiring to improve the physical condition of the country, wished\nto settle in it. King Theodore, who was desirous of obtaining\nblacksmiths, gunners, and engineers, to make cannon and mortars,\nand build bridges and roads, gave his consent. M. Gobat hinted\nthat the workmen wanted the free exercise of their religion.\nTheodore referred the matter to the abun, who, knowing the tricks\nof his old teachers, bluntly told Mr. Sterne, one of the\nmissionaries, who spoke of his intention to convert the Talasa,\nor native Jews, as the sole object of his coming to Gondar, \"This\nmission to the Jews is only a pretext to plot against the faith\nof the Christians.\" Pretending not to take the hint, Mr. Sterne\nrepeated his assertion, and the king consented to receive the\nEnglish mechanics, who were to be the instruments in the hands of\nthe pious missionaries in \"evangelizing\" the barbarous\nEthiopians. But on the testimony of Mr. Sterne himself, and that\nof other Protestants, the scheme was a complete failure. Many of\nthe \"mechanics,\" or \"pious laymen,\" became as immoral as any of\nthe natives. Besides, in violation of their solemn promise made\nto the abun, the missionaries distributed, as Plowden informs us,\n\"hundreds of Bibles, and taught the great truths of salvation to\nmany pagans and Christians.\" We extract these facts from the work\nof the Rev. Mr. Badger, considered a most trustworthy witness in\nofficial circles in England. [Footnote 54] After a short stay at\nGondar, Mr. Sterne went to London, was made bishop, and published\na wordy volume containing but one fact worth noticing, namely,\nthe intrinsic proof that the author was ignorant of the most\nordinary customs of Ethiopia. By an imprudence which has cost him\ndear, Mr. Sterne related the story of the vender of _koso_\nin his book. A former student of the English missionaries\ninformed Theodore of the fact, and the Protestants had reason to\nfeel bitterly that a man's friends often prove to be his greatest\nenemies.\n\n    [Footnote 54: _The Story of the British Captives in\n    Abyssinia_, 1863, 1864. By the Rev. George Percy Badger.]\n\n\n   V.\n\nThe English government was indignant that its agent Plowden, as\nit is known, should have been massacred on the highway near\nGondar. Theodore avenged his death, however, by the barbarous\nslaughter of its authors and their associates. But the party of\nthe \"saints\" in England was not satisfied with this reparation.\nTheodore was weak, and no match for England. It was safe,\ntherefore, to insult him. Had he been as powerful as the United\nStates, England would have been as loath to touch him as she is\nafraid to refuse satisfaction to America for the ravages of the\nAlabama on the high seas. She, however, suppressed the consulship\nof Gondar, and sent Captain Cameron as her consul to Massowah,\nunder the protection of the Turkish flag. Captain Cameron was a\nbrave officer who had served in the Crimea, but he was no\ndiplomatist.\n{278}\nWe all know that, as much from lack of this quality as from the\nsemi-barbarous habits of King Theodore, who thinks himself\nall-powerful because he has been so successful in conquering\nrebels in his own kingdom, Cameron and five other English\nsubjects, among them M. Rassam--another unskilful English\nagent--and two Germans, were imprisoned at Magdala on the 8th of\nJuly, 1866.\n\nMagdala, where the prisoners still remain, is a stronghold in the\nAbyssinian highlands, 3,000 feet above the level of the sea, and\nthe climate there is less warm than in most parts of the torrid\nzone. There are a church, a treasury, a prison, and huts in the\nplace, and a population of about three or four thousand persons,\nof whom four hundred are prisoners of every description; a\ngarrison of six hundred sharpshooters and as many common soldiers\narmed with lance and shield. Although this fortress is considered\nstrong by the natives, one of the prisoners writes that a single\nshell would suffice to blow up a place which the Ethiopians have\nlooked upon as impregnable for three centuries.\n\nBesides the European prisoners at Magdala, Theodore keeps\nfourteen others, mostly German mechanics, near his own quarters.\nThese artisans, exported at the expense of a Protestant\nmissionary society as \"_pious laymen_\" began their\nevangelical labors as messengers of peace in a very extraordinary\nfashion, by fabricating mortars and other engines of war. As for\nthe spiritual welfare of the Christians of Ethiopia, they looked\nwell to it by distilling bad brandy; and as for the temporal,\nthey drove the profitable trade of slave-mongers. This is what M.\nRassam, an Arabian, who turned Protestant to get employment from\nthe English government, tells us. He was nine years at Aden as\n_lieutenant-governor_, and is considered one of the ablest\nEnglish agents in the East, if we are to believe the\nparliamentary eulogium passed on him in a recent debate in the\nHouse of Commons. The last account heard from this unfortunate\nambassador does not warrant the belief in his ability. The abun,\nSalama, having died, M. Rassam advises the English to choose\nanother abun in Egypt, and put him at the head of the invading\narmy as a kind of palladium! This advice, if put into execution,\nwould be as absurd as if, on the death of Pius IX., Premier\nDisraeli, imitating the policy of Pitt, and wishing to restore\nthe Marches to the Holy See, should send an army against the\nSardinians, with a pope at its head elected at Canterbury or\nelsewhere, Jansenist or Catholic, no matter which, and should\nexpect all the Italians to respect him as sovereign pontiff.\n\n\n    VI.\n\nEngland has undertaken the Abyssinian expedition to preserve her\n_prestige_ in the East, and she is determined to gain her\npoint. The dusky King Theodore, pretended descendant of Solomon,\ncannot complain that he has not received diplomatic notice. When\nthe German who brought him the British ultimatum, told him that\nif he did not deliver up the prisoners he would have both the\narmies of England and France against him--\"Let them come,\" said\nTheodore, \"and call me a woman if I do not give them battle.\" We\nknow not if there be more of folly or of intrepid valor in this\nproud answer. In fact, notwithstanding the narrations of some\ntravellers, naturally suspected of exaggeration, the Ethiopians\nhave no idea of the military power of the Western nations, and\ntheir king may believe that he is a match for them.\n\n{279}\n\nThe Bay of Adulis, usually so silent, is now swarming with ships.\nThere were in it, a short time ago, seventy vessels, without\ncounting those of the Arabians and East-Indians. The English have\nbuilt two quays to assist the debarkation of troops. The English\nhave the Snider gun, which they pretend to be superior to the\nChassepot rifle. They have even forty elephants to frighten\nTheodore. One of them, an elephant of good sense if ever there\nwas one, behaved himself so badly at the debarkation of the\ntroops, that he was sent back to Hindostan.\n\nEngland is determined to succeed. Instead of borrowing, she has\nlevied a tax of ten millions of dollars. She will need at least\nsix times that amount before the end of the war. Every English\nprisoner to be freed will cost at least ten millions. But her\nobject is not merely the freeing of the prisoners, though she\nasserts that it is. She has to provide water for sixty-five\nthousand men and many beasts on the plains of Zullah, where, in\ndefault of natural fresh water, the troops drink a distillation\nof sea water. They need every day one hundred and eighty thousand\nquarts to drink; and this quantity has been provided at the\nenormous cost of twenty thousand dollars for every twenty-four\nhours. To transport the munitions of war, mules were bought and\nbrought to Zullah from Egypt, Turkey, Spain, and France. The\nEnglish soldiers, not knowing at first how to manage them, tied\nthem with hay ropes. Many of the mules ate the ropes, escaped\ninto the desert, and were lost. A railroad has been built,\nrunning from the sea to Sanafe, the first border station of\nEthiopia, a distance of almost one hundred miles.\n\nThe line of march has been well chosen. The English could have\ncrossed the plains of Tigray, which are level and oppose no\nobstacle; and then crossed through Wasaya without meeting any\nnoteworthy difficulty except the river Takkaze, and Mount\nLamalmo. Farther on, at Dabra Tabor, where Theodore usually\nresides, they might have chosen either the plains of the Lanige,\nor the cool and verdant hills of the Waynadaga territory as the\nsites of their encampment. But this route is not the shortest.\nBesides, the Wasaya begins to be unhealthy in the month of May,\nand there is no forage as far as Wagara.\n\nThe shorter route, which the English have taken, is by Agame and\nWag. On those elevated plateaux they may keep all their energy,\nand they will find a territory less ravaged by civil war, and\ngood pastures. The distance from Zullah to Magdala is about the\nsame as from Paris to Lyons. But artillery is with difficulty\ntransported over many of the gullies on the route; and perhaps\nfor the elephants it will be found impracticable. But the leader\nof the expedition, Sir Robert Napier, will not balk at these\ndetails. He will push rapidly on to Delanta before the rainy\nseason, which begins about the 10th of July. According to the\nprisoners, if he should invest Magdala at the beginning of May,\nthe want of water would soon force the garrison to surrender. If\nthe first rains have fallen before his arrival, the English will\noccupy Tanta among the Wara Haymano, and from that point open\nfire on Magdala. Soldiers living in huts, without casemates or\ncaverns, could not stand a day against the English guns. In, any\ncase, Magdala, the great Ethiopian fortress, will be taken, and\nit will remain to be seen whether the troops will march to Dabra\nTabor to burn the camp of King Theodore, and kill him, or make\nhim prisoner.\n{280}\nNevertheless, the use of diplomacy will not be despised. When\nTheodore put M. Rassam in prison, with great protestations of\nfriendship, he promised him his liberty on the arrival of certain\nmachines and expert workers. England sent both to Massowah, but\nrequired first the liberation of the prisoners without having\nused any of those forms which render a contract binding in the\neyes of the Abyssinians. On his side, Theodore did not understand\nthe value of a simple signature. Besides, he had been deceived by\nPlowden, who denied his character of consul, and cheated by the\ndenials of the Protestant missionaries as to their attempts to\nproselytize the native Christians. He did not, therefore, believe\nthe protestations of the English. The want of a sensible agent\ncaused the failure of this negotiation, which might have\nsucceeded if more skilfully conducted. Moreover, the English\narmy, on entering the Tigray, issued a proclamation, of which the\n_Times_ published a literal copy, as ridiculous in\n_Amari\u00f1\u00f1a_ dialect as in English. Besides, the language used\nis almost unknown in Agama, where this document has been\npublished. The English officers do not seem to have known that a\nproclamation is never published in Ethiopia in a written form.\nBut what will King Theodore, the pretended descendant of Solomon,\ndo? It is difficult to answer this question. The natives report\nthat Theodore is often out of his senses when he drinks brandy,\nwhich the \"_pious laymen_\" of the Protestant mission\nzealously manufacture for his _spiritual_ comfort. From the\nvery beginning of his reign, Plowden informs us that he\nmanifested symptoms of insanity. The English prisoners tell us\nmore explicitly that Theodore himself informed them that his\nfather was insane, and that he believed himself attacked with the\nsame disorder. Several traits in his conduct toward the\nprisoners, and the massacre of one hundred of his own soldiers in\nhis camp, on mere suspicion, give gravity to the assertions. If\nthis be true, England has declared war against an adversary\nunworthy of her dignity. In case of defeat, the only refuge for\nTheodore is to retreat to his native province of Quara, on the\nborder of a terrible desert, breathing pestilence on all the\nregion around. Woe to the English soldiers if they attempt to\nfollow him thither!\n\nOf all the ancient empire of Yasu the Great, that Ethiopian Louis\nXIV., Theodore has only Quara, that he can call his own. His\ngovernors of the Tigra have been expelled by rebels, or have made\nthemselves independent of his authority. Gojjan has proclaimed\nits independence; Wag also has risen in arms; Suria is free, and\ngives asylum to all refugees. Yet these are regions but recently\nsubjected to the conquering arms of Theodore. Tissu Gobaze rules\nthe lower Tigray, Wasaya, Walguayt, Simen, Wazara, and as far as\nDambya, where Gondar stood before Theodore destroyed it.\n\nWhat then is left to this unfortunate tyrant, resisted at home by\nnumberless insurgents, and threatened by foreign force with\ndestruction? The Awamas, whose rights he has respected because\nthey know how to defend themselves, but who will seize the first\nopportunity to rebel; Tagusa, Acafar, Alafa, and Meca stretching\nalong the Tana, but which he has made solitudes by his systematic\npillage; and finally Bagemdir, that beautiful portion of the\ncountry, which obeys him with regret.\n{281}\nA disease, a slight cheek, or a courageous peasant, would be\nsufficient to destroy Theodore, that royal meteor, which, after\nshining for a few years, will soon be extinguished in the night\nof oblivion. Considering the greatness of the English\npreparations, we are led to suspect that she has the intention of\nholding Northern Ethiopia after conquering it. Appearances seems\nto favor this conjecture, and no matter what the English journals\nmay say, the idea is not of French origin. Plowden urged its\nrealization in his official letters thirteen years ago; Cameron\nis in favor of it; and General Coghlan timidly hints its\npracticability in his military monograph on Ethiopian affairs.\nThe English have been masters of Aden for the last thirty years,\nand they wish to make the Red Sea an English lake. They desire\nEthiopia; for from it they could invade Egypt, where \"King\nCotton\" would rule in all his glory. They allege the case of\nAlgiers annexed to France in justification of their project. But\nlet it be observed that Charles X., who ransomed at his own\nexpense, the Greek slaves sold in the markets of Constantinople\nand in Egypt, could not allow the Dey of Algiers alone to keep\nFrench, Spanish, and English Christians in bonds; while the\nEnglish have never done anything to prevent the slave-trade in\nAbyssinia. Many Christian slaves are annually bought within\ngunshot of the British ships on the Red Sea, to be brutalized in\nMussulman harems. _England has never made an effort to stop the\ntraffic there_. Can we blame King Theodore then, who,\naccording to his degree of intelligence and power, wished to put\nan end to this inhuman commerce, for saying with at least as much\nmodesty as her majesty's government has at command, \"Which of us\ntwo is the greater barbarian?\"\n\n----------\n\n      New Publications.\n\n\n  St. Columba, Apostle of Caledonia.\n  By the Count de Montalembert, of the French Academy,\n  New York: Catholic Publication House,\n  126 Nassau street. 1868.\n\nIrish ecclesiastical history is something unique in the world,\nand presents to us the spirit of Christianity run into an\nentirely new and original mould. The Celtic race, whose most\nperfect and completely actualized type exists in the people of\nIreland, is a singular specimen of humanity, as it used to be in\nthe primitive ages just after, and perhaps long before the flood,\npreserved, continued, and apparently incapable of being destroyed\nor changed, in the midst of other races of totally opposite\ncharacter. The sudden and entire conversion of this people to\nChristianity, and the invincible tenacity with which it has clung\nto its first faith, together with the marked individuality of the\nexpression which it has given to the Christian idea, form a\nphenomenon in history which cannot be too much studied or\nadmired. It was a happy moment for Ireland when that Chevalier\nBayard of Catholic literature, the Count de Montalembert, felt\nhis chivalrous soul moved by the story of her ancient princely\nmonks and dauntless, adventurous apostles, and set himself to the\ntask of writing a work which unites all the romantic, poetic\ncharm of the lyric strains of her bards, with the accuracy and\nminuteness of her monastic chronicles.\n{282}\nHis narrative, partly owing to the nature of his subject, and\npartly to his own genius, is like the _Scottish Chiefs_ and\nthe _Waverley Novels_. The most striking, original, and\ngrand of all the characters depicted by him in that part of the\n_Monks of the West_ which is devoted to Ireland, is St.\nColumba or Columbkill. This great man, who was by birth heir to\nthe dignity of Ard-righ, or chief king of Ireland, the founder of\nIona, and the apostle of Scotland, is the favorite saint of the\nIrish people after St. Patrick. He is a more thoroughly Irish\nsaint than the great apostle of Ireland, who was the father and\nfounder of the Irish people as a Christian nation, but was\nhimself, probably, by birth and extraction a Gallo-Roman. A\nwarrior, a poet, a chieftain, a monk, a statesman, an apostle,\nand, it is supposed, a prophet; the most intensely devoted and\npatriotic lover of his native island, perhaps, that ever lived;\nand yet sentenced by his stern old hermit confessor to perpetual\nbanishment from it; the life of Columba overflows with all the\nmaterials of the most romantic and heroic interest.\n\nThe Life of Columba, whose title is placed at the head of this\nnotice, is, as we have implied already, a monograph extracted\nfrom the great work on the _Monks of the West_, by\nMontalembert. It is a small book of only 170 duo-decimo pages,\nand therefore readable by almost everybody who ever reads\nanything better than newspapers and dime novels. It is, above all\nothers, a book for every one, young or old, who has\nCeltic-Catholic blood in his veins. It is time now to use that\nEnglish language which was forced by the haughty conqueror upon\nthe Irish people, from a cruel motive which God has overruled for\ntheir glory and his own, as the means of diffusing the treasures\nhidden hitherto, so to speak, under a _cromlech_. Those who\nput this unwilling people into a compulsory course of English,\nlittle thought what a keen-edged weapon they were placing in\ntheir hands, and training them to use. They could not foresee\nwhat use would be made of it by Curran, O'Connell, Thomas Moore,\nBishop Doyle, and Father Meehan. The possession of the English\nlanguage places the Irish people in communication with the whole\ncivilized world, without depriving them of their rich patrimony\nof traditional lore, legend, and song. It is incumbent on all who\nlove the faith, and sympathize with the wrongs and hardships, of\nthe Irish people, to strain every nerve to increase the number\nand diffuse the circulation of books, in which this religious and\npatriotic tradition may be perpetuated. Wherever the Irish people\nare, in Ireland, England, America, Australia, they are deriving\ntheir intellectual nutriment more and more from English books;\nand thus, in proportion as they become readers, are coming under\nthe influence of writers who write in the English language. It is\nmost important, therefore, for those who are charged with the\nresponsibility of watching over their religious, moral, and\nintellectual culture, to see to it that their minds are not\nflooded with an excess of purely secular literature, which has in\nit no mixture of the Catholic tradition. The greatest danger and\nmisfortune of our rising generation of Catholics in America is\nthe lack of this tradition in historical, poetic, and romantic\nliterature. Even those who are the descendants of parents and\nprogenitors of the old Catholic stock, must necessarily lose by\ndegrees all vivid sentiment of any other nationality than the\nAmerican, and be more influenced by the _genius loci_ than\nby any other genius, whether Celtic or Teutonic. The danger to be\nguarded against is a peril of becoming so much Americanized as to\nbe reduced to a _caput mortuum_ in the process. An American\ncitizen, without faith and religion, even though he may be born\nand live in Boston, is involved in the consequences of original\nsin as well as others. It is no gain to transform a poor, simple,\nbelieving, fervent Catholic immigrant, in the second or third\ngeneration, into an intelligent, well fed, healthy animal, with a\ncomfortable farm and the elective franchise, but with no more\nsoul than the man with the muck-rake in the _Pilgrim's\nProgress_, or those dirty heathen in the suburbs of the holy\ncity of New York, who spend their Sundays in weeding cabbages.\n{283}\nThis deleterious change must be prevented, not only, by purely\nspiritual means, but also by preserving and fostering as much as\npossible the natural bonds which connect our youth of Catholic\norigin with the traditions of their ancestry. Hence, we are in\nfavor of multiplying and circulating as much as possible those\nbooks which relate the history of the Catholic Church of Ireland,\nof her saints and prelates, her gallant chieftains and noble\nmartyrs, her sufferings and persecutions. The English Catholic\ntradition, and the Scottish, are unfortunately broken. A dreary\ngap of three centuries intervenes between the present and the\nCatholic past; but in Ireland the continuity is perfect from the\nfifth century to the present moment. This is the great artery of\nlife to the Catholic Church of the British empire and its\ncolonies, and it must not be severed. There is an intense\nsympathy between the people of the United States and the people\nof Ireland. This is chiefly a sympathy with their oppressed\ncondition as a people, and with their just demands for expiation\nand redress for the wrongs they have suffered from the hands of\nthe British government. It would be prudent for the gentlemen of\nthe English parliament to take note of this, and to be wise in\ntime, by conceding all those rights and privileges at once with a\ngood grace, which Ireland is sure to obtain sooner or later,\nwhether parliament is willing or unwilling. This merely political\nsympathy will, we trust, prepare the way for a higher and holier\nsympathy with the faith, the constancy, the invincible fortitude\nof the Irish people as a Catholic nation, the Spartans of a\nsacred Thermopylae, who have immolated themselves to save the\nfaith. It is time that the American public should learn what is\nthe _Irish Version of the History of the Reformation_. This\npresupposes a previous knowledge of the first planting and\ncultivation of Christianity. When it is seen that the Irish\nfought and died for the very same religion which was planted\namong them by their first apostles, it will be easy to judge of\nthe claims which the religion of Elizabeth and Cromwell had upon\ntheir submission. The labors of Montalembert are therefore\ninvaluable, as bringing to light the hidden treasures of Irish\necclesiastical history, and in all his great work there is no\nchapter to be found more charming than the biography of the great\npatriarch of Iona. We conclude with the eulogium which Fintan, a\ncontemporary monk, pronounced upon St. Columba in an assembly of\nwise and learned men, and which is justified by the history of\nhis life. \"Columba is not to be compared with philosophers and\nlearned men, but with patriarchs, prophets, and apostles. The\nHoly Spirit reigns in him; he has been chosen by God for the good\nof all; he is a sage among all sages, a king among kings, an\nanchorite with anchorites, a monk of monks; and in order to bring\nhimself to the level even of laymen, he knows how to be poor of\nheart among the poor; thanks to the apostolic charity which\ninspires him, he can rejoice with the joyful, and weep with the\nunfortunate. And amid all the gifts which God's generosity has\nlavished on him, the true humility of Christ is so royally rooted\nin his soul that it seems to have been born with him.\"\n\n----\n\n  Ecce Homo. By the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone.\n  Strahan & Co., London. G. Routledge & Sons,\n  416 Broome street, New York. 1868.\n\nOn the day of writing this notice, Mr. Gladstone is introducing\nhis motion for overthrowing that monstrous iniquity, the Irish\nEstablishment. We feel, consequently, especially well-disposed\ntoward him. Nevertheless, with all our respect for his talents\nand character, we cannot help being reminded of his illustrious\ncountryman, that great ornament of the sea-faring profession.\nCaptain Bunsby. Our English brethren, when they take up solid\ntopics, appear to think laborious dulness and tedious obscurity\nthe evidence of deep learning and sound judgment. Their essays\nare like those of collegians, who affect to write on political or\nphilosophical subjects in an extremely old-mannish,\nold-cabinet-minister-like style.\n{284}\nThis is remarkably the case with the venerable university dons\nwho advocate rationalistic opinions. The style of arguing adopted\nby these worthy and dignified gentlemen bears a striking\nresemblance to the movements of one who is carefully wending his\nway among eggs. As an instance, we may cite the _Essays and\nReviews_, perhaps the dullest book ever written, unless the\n_Treatises on Sacred Arithmetic and Mensuration_, by Dr.\nColenso, may be thought worthy to compete for the prize. The\n_Ecce Homo_ is not to be placed in precisely the same\ncategory. It is, nevertheless, in our humble opinion, a very\nvague, wearisome, and unsatisfactory book. We cannot account for\nits popularity in any other way than by ascribing it to the\nrestless, sceptical, misty state of the English mind on religious\nsubjects; the uneasy desire to find out something more than it\nknows about Christianity and its author. After eighteen centuries\nhave rolled by, the question. Who is Jesus Christ? still remains\na puzzle to all those who will not submit to learn from the\nteacher commissioned by himself. The author of _Ecce Homo_\nhas endeavored to throw himself back to the time and into the\nperiod of the disciples of Christ, to examine with their eyes his\nwords and actions, and from these to abstract a mental conception\nof his true character. What that conception is, remains as much a\npuzzle as the gospels themselves are to a rationalist, or the\nExodus to Dr. Colenso. The language of _Ecce Homo_ is\ncertainly irreconcilable with the definitions of the Catholic\nChurch respecting the divine personality of Christ. Some of its\nstatements respecting the nature of the work accomplished by him\non the earth, and the evidence thereby furnished of his divine\nmission, are forcible and valuable, and perhaps to rationalists,\nUnitarians, and doubters, the work may be useful. No one,\nhowever, who understands Catholic theology, and believes in the\ntrue doctrine of the Incarnation, can read it without a strong\nsentiment of repugnance and dissatisfaction. Mr. Gladstone,\nnevertheless, although professing to accept the Catholic doctrine\nof the Incarnation, undertakes the defence of the book, and even\napologises for its most offensive passages. By doing this he\nshows that he himself does not grasp the full meaning of the\nformulas to which he gives his assent; and although he is not a\nrationalist, yet, from perpetual contact with them, and the\ninfluence of that halting, inconsequent state of mind produced by\nAnglicanism, he has acquired something of that dark-lantern style\nof which we have spoken above. There are gleams of light and\npassages of beauty here and there, especially on those pages\nwhere the author treats of the Greek Mythology as an imperfect\neffort to realize the idea of Deity incarnate in human form. As a\nwhole, the essay, which is a mere review of another book, was\nwell enough for a magazine article, but not of sufficient\nimportance to warrant its publication in book form. Every person\nwho acknowledges the true divinity of Jesus Christ while\nrejecting the authority of the Catholic Church, stands in a\nposition logically absurd, and is therefore incapable of\nadequately advocating the cause of Christ and Christianity\nagainst the infidelity of the age. No one but a Catholic, endowed\nwith genius, and fully imbued with the spirit of Catholic\ntheology, can ever write in a satisfactory manner upon the Life\nof Christ, so as to meet that demand which causes the abortive\nefforts of unbelievers and half-Christians to find such an\nextensive circulation.\n\n----\n\n  On the Heights. A Novel.\n  By Berthold Auerbach.\n  Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1868.\n\nThis volume, professing to be a translation from the German, is\nmost thoroughly permeated with German _mysticism_; one can\nhardly give it the dignified name of theology. It carries one\nback in its bewildering metaphysics to the days of _The\nDial_, when every girl of eighteen belonging to a certain\nclique, was devouring Bettina's correspondence with Goethe, and\nlistening with rapt soul to lectures on \"Human Life,\" from the\noracular lips of a favorite seer; discourses utterly beyond the\ncomprehension of the maiden's papa, but which she understood\nperfectly.\n\n{285}\n\nWe are led to wonder, in our republican ignorance, if people in\ncourt life converse and act in the stilted, theatrical manner in\nwhich they are here represented; every person being what in these\ndays would be called \"highly organized.\" In this particular, and\nin the tedium and repetition of court detail, we were forcibly\nreminded of the voluminous works of Miss M\u00fchlbach, with this\ndifference, that _On the Heights_ makes no historical claim.\n\nThere are, however, very many sweet touches of nature in the\nbook, gems of thought; and now and then a rare pearl of good\ncounsel, near which, in reading, one involuntarily draws a\npencil-line, that they may be found again. Maternal love is\nbeautifully portrayed, both in high and low life, in the queen,\nand in the foster-mother of the prince.\n\nThe author evidently, knows but little of the Catholic faith, and\nless of its results, since the life of the _religieuse_ is\ncontinually referred to (with a slight sneer) as \"_a life in\nwhich nothing happens_.\"\n\nWe close this volume with a sensation of weary sadness; there\nseems to run through its pages \"the cry of that deep-rooted pain,\nunder which, thoughtful men are languishing,\" like the distant\ntones of an AEolian harp wafted on the night breezes. There is a\nreaching forth in these mystic yearnings for the good, the true,\nand the _enduring_, which the priceless gift of faith alone\nbrings to the weary and heavy-laden, in submission to God's\nappointed teacher, the church.\n\nThe mechanical execution of the work is excellent, the type\nclear, and the double-columed pages furnish a vast amount of\nreading in a small compass.\n\n------\n\n  Chemical Change in the Eucharist.\n  From the French of Jacques Abbadie.\n  By John W. Hamersley, A.M.\n\nJacques Abbadie was born in Switzerland, in 1654; \"studied at\nSaumur,\" writes Mr. Hamersley in his preface, \"was doctorated at\nSedan, and installed pastor of the French (Huguenot) Church of\nBerlin, at the instance of Count d'Espence.\"\n\nHe left his pastorate, became chaplain to Marshal Schomberg, and\ncame to England with William of Orange in 1688. After Schomberg's\ndeath, in the battle of the Boyne, Abbadie was presented to the\ndeanery of Killaloo, in Ireland, where he died in 1727.\n\nHis book against transubstantiation in the Eucharist, is such as\nmight be expected from the literary leisure, taste, learning, and\npiety of one of Schomberg's exemplary camp-followers. We read the\nbook with the hope of finding some objection in it worth a\nrefutation; but we have found nothing but the stale, oft-refuted\narguments of Protestants against the real presence. Led by the\ntitle of the work, _Chemical Change in the Eucharist_, we\nexpected to meet some profound chemical discoveries that should\nat least seem to contradict Catholic belief. But there is not\none. There is not even an allusion which would show the author to\nbe conversant with chemistry or any of the natural sciences.\nAbbadie argues against the Catholic exegesis of the sixth chapter\nof St. John, and against the words of consecration, \"This is my\nbody,\" in the usual Protestant way. He insists that Christ's\nwords are to be taken figuratively; while Catholics claim that\nthey are to be taken literally.\n\nOne general answer will do for all heterodox interpretations of\nScripture on this and on other points. If Protestants urge that\nprivate reason is the supreme judge of Scripture, how can they\ndeny to Catholics the right to use it? And if the private\njudgment of Catholics finds that Christ spoke of a real presence\nin the Holy Eucharist, and that his words are to be taken in\ntheir plain, literal signification, why should Protestants\nobject? In point of fact, Catholics do admit private judgment,\nproperly understood, in the interpretation of Scripture. They\naffirm that the interpretation of the church or of the fathers is\nidentical with the rational exegesis.\n{286}\nThe interpretation of Protestants is _not_ a rational\ninterpretation, and does not give the true sense of Scripture.\nThey misinterpret the Scriptures by an _abuse_ of private\njudgment. They gratuitously assume that Catholic interpretation\nis contrary to the rational sense of the Bible; while Catholics\nhold that their interpretation alone is rational. As a prudent,\nsensible man, when he meets with a difficult passage in Homer or\nSophocles, consults the best commentators to aid him in\ndiscovering the true sense; so, for a much greater reason, should\na Christian seek an authoritative explanation of those hard\npassages of Holy Writ \"which the unstable and unlearned wrest to\ntheir own destruction.\" One who denies that there are difficult\ntexts in Scripture can never have read it. From the first text of\nGenesis to the last in the Apocalypse, the Scripture is replete\nwith difficulties, which even the most learned commentators do\nnot always succeed in explaining.\n\nAll Abbadie's scriptural arguments against the real presence may\nbe, therefore, met with one remark. He explains certain texts in\na figurative sense. Catholics, however, interpret them to mean\nwhat they plainly and literally express. Catholics do not need in\nthis case to appeal to the authority of the church or to the\nfathers. Christ says, \"This is my body;\" Catholics believe him.\nChrist says, \"My flesh is meat indeed;\" Catholics believe his\nwords. Abbadie and his sect admit that Christ says, \"This is my\nbody;\" that he affirms his flesh to be meat indeed; yet they will\nnot believe him. Who authorizes them to contradict the express\nwords of Christ? We ask _impartial_ reason to judge between\nCatholic and Protestant in this controversy.\n\nBut where Abbadie shows his complete ignorance of the first\nelements of the higher sciences is in \"Letter Fourth\" of his\nbook, p. 98. We quote from Mr. Hamersley's translation. \"_All\nour ideas of faith rely solely on sense;_ and their value to\nus is measured by its certainty; and to faith, which is a\nconviction of divine truth, there are four essentials: God\nexists; he is truthful; he has revealed himself; each mystery of\nour faith appears in such revelation. Sir--it is noteworthy--that\nthe _senses are the sole channels of all those truths, and\ntheir_ SOLE _vouchers_.\" Again, \"Thus the _senses are\nthe media of all evidence_.\" (P. 99.) The materialism of\nd'Holbach, Cabanis, Helvetius, and Condillac is identical with\nthis doctrine of the doughty dean of Killaloo. If the senses\n\"_are the sole channels of truth_,\" instead of being the\nmere occasions of reflection, then the whole order of\nintelligible ideas, the ideas of God, spirit, and cause, are\nillusions. The senses can only tell us the sensible or\nphenomenal. Now, as the ideas of God, cause, spirit, truth,\njustice, goodness, substance, etc., are all supersensible, they\ncannot come from the senses. If the senses \"_are the media of\nall evidence_,\" the only things we can know are modes or\nphenomena, colors, forms, sounds, etc. The senses tell us nothing\nmore. We must, therefore, deny the existence of God, of truth, of\ngoodness, cause, substance, etc.; and turn atheists, pantheists,\nsceptics, or materialists, as all who logically follow out\nAbbadie's or Locke's metaphysics really become. The philosophy of\nthe warlike chaplain of Schomberg's army is thus shown to be\nessentially immoral.\n\nDid Mr. Hamersley know this when he translated the book? We think\nnot, for he is evidently too innocent of logic and too ignorant\nof truth to be able to understand fully even the arguments of the\nsuperficial dean of Killaloo.\n\nWe shall make good our assertion by quoting a few of Mr.\nHamersley's own references: \"In 1845, the pope made the\nImmaculate Conception a part of the Roman creed and a condition\nof salvation.\" (P. 113.) The gentleman probably was thinking of\nthe pope's decree of 1852.\n\n\"A.D. 597, Gregory I. instructs St. Augustine to accommodate the\nceremonies of the church to heathen rites.\" (P. 125.).\n\n\"The Maronites, _originally Monothelites_, protected by the\nEmperor Heraclius, are now incorporated in the church of Rome.\"\n(P. 126.)\n\n{287}\n\n\"A.D. 1295, Boniface VIII. confines ex-pope Celestine V. in _a\ncell about the size of his body_, lest he may elect to resume\nthe pontificate he has resigned--guards him night and day with 6\nknights and 30 soldiers. Celestine dies of cruelty.\" (P. 129.)\n\n\"Gregory VII. threatens to anathematize all France, unless King\nPhilip _abandons simony_. (P. 135.) This was one of\nGregory's _crimes_ in the judgment of Mr. Hamersley.\n\n\"Alexander VI. (Borgia) is elected pope--his Holiness is\nforthwith _adored by the cardinals_:\" (P. 143.) What\nidolatry!\n\n\"_Penance--a sacrament by which venial sins, committed after\nbaptism, are forgiven._\" (P. 146.)\n\n\"The Nestorians were excommunicated A.D. 431, for holding, among\nother views, two natures of Christ.\"\n\n\"The Council of Chalcedon, A.D. 451, confirmed the doctrine of\nthe two natures of Christ, which the church had repudiated.\" (P.\n148.)\n\nAs instances of schisms in the church, the _learned_\ntranslator cites the following: \"Dominicans and Franciscans--on\nimmaculate conception.\" \"Thomists and Scotists--efficacy of grace\nand immaculate conception.\" \"Jesuits and Jansenists--on the\ndoctrine of grace.\" (P. 150.)\n\n\"Dec. 17, 1866, the _leading Romanists of the Council of\nBaltimore_ invite the pope by letter to visit the United\nStates.\" (P. 157.)\n\n\"Jesuit pestilence.\" (P. 159.) \"_Plague-spots--Roman Catholic\nchurches and institutions_.\" (P. 160.) This is a good instance\nof Mr. Hamersley's rhetoric.\n\n\"The Papal Church in the United States _has recently adopted\nthe title of Roman Catholic_.\" Evidence: \"It appears in large\niron gilt letters over the gate of the asylum in Fifth avenue,\nNew York--_Roman Catholic Male Orphan Asylum_.\" (P. 160.)\n_This is one of the plague-spots_!\n\nThese are but a few of the literary beauties to be found in Mr.\nHamersley's additions to Abbadie. A Catholic could afford to\nsmile at both the original and his translator, if, unfortunately,\nthere were not found many persons so credulous as to believe\ntheir falsehoods. The original work of Abbadie is tolerable. He\nattempts to argue; and we have no doubt his military logic was\nsatisfactory enough to the square-headed soldiers of Schomberg's\narmy. Besides, when Abbadie wrote, civilization had not arrived\nat such a degree of progress as it has now attained. But Mr.\nHamersley writes his falsehoods _now_. His ignorance and\nfanaticism, of which we have culled but a few of the many\ninstances in his book, _are of our own day_. We cannot\nunderstand why he should repeat them, since there is hardly any\nmoderately educated Protestant who does not know that most of his\nallegations are false. If there be any so dull or fanatical as to\nbelieve them, we feel for them more of pity than contempt.\n\nIn conclusion, we regret that the translator does not show as\nmuch good sense or taste in choosing the subject as the\npublishers manifest in the binding and printing of the work. We\nare sorry to see such fine print wasted on a bad, worthless book.\nMr. Hamersley could have found nobler themes in foreign\nliterature, even though they might be the productions of\nProtestants, to exercise those talents as a translator which he\nhas failed to show as a lover of truth, a logician, or a man of\ngood sense.\n\n------\n\n  Life in the West; or, Stories of the Mississippi Valley.\n  By N. C. Meeker, Agricultural Editor of the New\n  York _Tribune_. New York: Samuel R. Wells.\n\n\"A long residence in the Mississippi Valley, frequent journeys\nthrough its whole extent, and years of service as the Illinois\ncorrespondent of the New York _Tribune_, have furnished the\nmaterials for the following stories.\" Hence, it is almost\nunnecessary to state that their claim to our careful\nconsideration rests upon something more substantial than the fact\nof their being pleasingly told, varied in incident, and\nunobjectionable in tone. Their real worth, and it is not slight,\narises from this, that they are made the agreeable medium of\nconveying much valuable information concerning \"life in the\nWest;\" no less the hardships unavoidably to be endured by the\nemigrant, the difficulties to be overcome, and the dangers to be\nencountered, than his almost assured ultimate triumph.\n\n{288}\n\nOf general interest, but designed especially for those intending\nto emigrate, is the appendix, containing a brief description of\nthe soil, climate, products, area, and population of each State\nand territory lying in the great Valley of the Mississippi; and\nalso the locations of the several land-offices where application\nmust be made and all needful information can be obtained.\n\n----\n\n  Mozart: A Biographical Romance.\n  From the German of Heribert Rau.\n  By E. R. Sill. New York: Leypoldt & Holt. 1868.\n\nA poor translation of a frothy production. On the first page, the\nchild, Mozart, is called a \"three-years-old son.\" Mr. Sill\nevidently does not know that a three-year-old is English for\ncolts and heifers. Mozart's sister is also denominated a\n\"seven-years-old.\" The writer, if Mr. Sill has translated him\ncorrectly, is exceedingly ignorant, or worse. On page 54 we read:\n\"They sought the pope's chair,\" (that is, the worshippers\ncrowding to St. Peter's for the services on Maundy-Thursday,)\n\"partly because it was the fashion, partly because they wanted to\nbe on hand to see everybody else do it, and partly because, to an\nItalian, a hundred days' absolution in advance is always a\npleasant and convenient thing to have.\" The recitation of the\nTenebrae, in the evening, is called, on page 58, \"the performance\nof Mass.\" Would it not be well for our enterprising publishers in\nthis enlightened country, to employ a proof-reader who has\nreceived a passable education?\n\n------\n\n  The Great Day; or, Motives and Means of Perseverance\n  after First Communion.\n  Translated from the French by Mrs. J. Sadlier. New York, 1868.\n\nA pretty and good little volume, intended for a gift to children,\nas a memento of the happy day of their first communion. We have\nonly one criticism to make, which is, that its tone of thought is\ntoo foreign. We wish that the accomplished translator had made\nuse of the original French only, as matter from which to compile\na delightful little book under this title, (a task which she\ncould so admirably perform,) suitable, in the freshness of its\nthought, to the minds of American children. In lieu, however, of\nthe wished-for better book of Mrs. Sadlier's, we heartily\nrecommend this present volume to the attention of all pastors,\nparents, and superintendents of Sunday-schools, who will find in\nit, we are sure, just what very many of them have long desired to\nprocure as a worthy memento for \"The Great Day.\"\n\n------\n\n  Tales from the Diary of a Sister of Mercy.\n  By C. M. Brame.\n  New York: Catholic Publication Society. 1868.\n\nWe all remember _Passages from the Diary of a Late\nPhysician_, by Dr. Warren, and the intense interest everybody\nfelt in these sketches of the tragic scenes with which the\npersons whose profession leads them among the sick, the\nsuffering, and the dying are familiar. This book is on a similar\nplan, and is composed of graphic descriptions of what a Sister of\nMercy may be supposed to see and observe in her charitable\nministrations. The light of the Catholic religion thrown in among\nthese painful, tragic scenes, relieves their shadows, and leaves\na more healthful impression on the mind; in short, becoming their\npathetic effect. Those who love sensation stories will find their\ntaste gratified in this volume, and, at the same time, may be\nable to derive from it some good moral and religious lessons.\n\n------\n\nWe regret that a notice of _The First Report of the Catholic\nSunday-School Union_ was crowded out of the columns of this\nnumber. It will appear in our next.--Ed. C. W.\n\n-----------------------\n\n{289}\n\n         The Catholic World.\n\n   Vol. VII., No. 39.--June, 1868.\n\n--------\n\n         Edmund Campion.\n\nIn the spring of 1580, Elizabeth being then queen of Great\nBritain, and England being in the midst of the turmoil which\naccompanied the final establishment of Protestantism as the\nreligion of the realm, two expeditions set out from Rome, to\nrestore the faith in the British isles. One consisted of two\nthousand armed soldiers, enlisted as a sort of crusaders, and\nanimated by the papal blessing and the promise of indulgences,\nnot to speak of the visions of worldly glory and profit which\neven soldiers who fight under consecrated banners are apt to find\nalluring. The other was composed of less than a score of\nmissionaries, Jesuits, secular priests, and others, whose most\nenticing prospect was one of martyrdom. The soldiers were to land\nin Ireland and help the rebellion of the Geraldines. The\nmissionaries were to penetrate in disguise into England, and\nexercise the ministry of the proscribed and persecuted faith in\nthe secrecy of private houses and hidden chambers.\n\nLooking at the history of those times in the light of subsequent\nexperience, it seems hard to account for the policy which could\nimperil not only the lives of the missionaries, but the cause of\nthe church, by complicating the peaceful embassy of the priests\nwith the mission of war and insurrection. For it was no secret\nthat the troops came from Rome, and that large subsidies from the\nRoman treasury were sent with them. Associated with them, too,\nwent an eminent ecclesiastic. Dr. Saunders, with the functions of\na legate. We must remember, however, that the accession of\nElizabeth had never been popularly acquiesced in. Her legitimacy\nhad never been generally acknowledged. Her reign thus far had\nbeen a series of rebellions. The party which opposed her had a\nfair title to the character of belligerents, and the continental\npowers which espoused their cause were only doing what, by the\ncustoms of the age, they had a perfect right to do. The pope had\nissued a bull, excommunicating the queen, absolving her subjects\nfrom their oath of allegiance, and even forbidding them to obey\nher; and although he had afterward so far modified the bull as to\npermit the English people to recognize her authority, _rebus\nsic stantibus_, \"while things remained as they were,\" he had\nnever ceased, in conjunction with other European powers, to\npromote attempts in Ireland and elsewhere to overthrow her and\nplace the Queen of Scots upon the throne.\n{290}\nAt this distance of time, with a line of successors to ratify\nElizabeth's title to the crown, and the fact of their failure\narguing against the insurgents, it is easy to condemn the papal\npolicy; but we must remember that affairs bore a different aspect\nthen; that Elizabeth's right to the throne was open to question;\nand that the Catholic faith which she was striving to suppress\nwas still the faith of a large majority of the English people.\n\nWe have little to do, however, with this Irish expedition. It was\na miserable failure, and its only effect was, to aggravate the\nsufferings of the Catholics and expose the missionaries to\nincreased danger. Our purpose in this article is rather to trace\nthe history of the more peaceful and strictly religious embassy,\nso far as it bore upon the life of the illustrious martyr from\nwhom it derives its chief renown.\n\nEdmund Campion, [Footnote 55] the son of a London bookseller, was\nborn on the 25th of January, 1539, (O. S.,) the year which\nwitnessed the commencement of the English persecution, of which\nhe was destined to be a victim, and the solemn approval of the\nSociety of Jesus, of which he was to be the first English martyr.\nAt St. John's College, Oxford, where he was educated and obtained\na fellowship, he was so much admired for his gift of speech and\ngrace of eloquence, that young men imitated not only his phrases\nbut his gait, and revered him as a second Cicero. It was the year\nafter he obtained his fellowship that Queen Mary died and\nElizabeth succeeded to the throne. The new sovereign allowed but\na few weeks to pass before she manifested her preference for the\nProtestant doctrines; yet there was no attempt at first to force\nthe heresy upon the university of Oxford, her Majesty wisely\ntrusting to the insidious influences of time, persuasion, and\nhigh example to bring the students and professors over to her\nviews. It is no great wonder, perhaps, that Campion, intoxicated\nby the incense of adulation and enervated by the worldly comfort\nof his position, shut his eyes to the dreadful gulf of heresy\ninto which the English Church was drifting, and seemed hardly to\nrealize the necessity which was being forced upon him of choosing\nbetween God and the queen. He was not required for some years to\ntake any oath at variance with his fidelity to the church. So he\ngave up the study of theology, to which he had hitherto devoted\nhimself, and applied his mind to secular learning. He was a\nlayman, and controversy might be left to the priests. When he\ntook his degree in 1564, he was induced to subscribe to the oath\nagainst the pope's supremacy, and by the statutes of his college\nhe was also compelled to resume the study of divinity; yet he\nstill managed to stave off important questions and to confine his\nreading to the old settled dogmas which had no direct bearing\nupon the questions of the day.\n\n    [Footnote 55: _Edmund Campion: A Biography_.\n    By Richard Simpson. 8vo, pp. 387. London:\n    Williams & Norgate. New York:\n    The Catholic Publication Society.]\n\n{291}\n\nThe time came, at last, when the theological neutral ground had\nbeen thoroughly explored, and Campion turned to the Fathers. In\ntheir venerable company he seemed to grow more thoughtful and\nconscientious. The problem of his life now was not how he could\npostpone serious considerations, and shake off religious\nresponsibility, but how he could reconcile true principles with\nfalse practice; how he could remain in the Established Church of\nEngland, and yet hold to all the old Catholic doctrines which the\nEstablishment denied. His position, in fact, was almost identical\nwith that of the modern Tractarians, and his college at Oxford\nwas the home of a party which entertained nearly the same\nopinions. There was one of the Elizabethan bishops, Cheney of\nGloucester, who, having retained a good deal of the orthodox\nfaith, sympathized heartily with Campion's aspirations and\nperplexities. He was the actual founder of the school represented\nin later times by Newman and Pusey, and he had fixed upon Campion\nto continue and perfect the work after he himself had passed\naway. The bishop persuaded our young scholar to take deacons'\norders, so that he might preach and obtain preferment. But the\neffect of this step upon Campion was such as Cheney little\nanticipated. Almost immediately troubles beset his mind. He found\nhis new dignity odious and abominable. The idea of preferment\nbecame hateful to him. He wished rather to live as a simple\nlayman, and in 1569 he resigned his appointments at the\nuniversity and went to Dublin, where it seemed that a more\nagreeable career awaited him. A project was then afoot for\nrestoring the old Dublin university founded by Pope John XXI.,\nbut for some years extinct. The principal mover in the matter was\nthe Recorder of Dublin and Speaker of the House of Commons, James\nStanihurst, a zealous Catholic, and the father of one of\nCampion's pupils. In his house Campion received a generous\nwelcome, and there he remained for a while, leading a kind of\nmonastic life, and waiting for the opening of the new seminary,\nin which he hoped to find congenial employment. The scheme fell\nthrough, however, and the chief cause of its failure was the\nsecret hostility of the government to Stanihurst, and the\nLord-Deputy, Sir Henry Sidney, who were most actively concerned\nin it, and to Campion, who was to have the principal share in its\ndirection. Campion was not yet reconciled to the church, but he\nwas already distrusted as a papist, and only saved from arrest by\nthe protection of Sidney. Such protection, however, could not\navail him long. The rebellion of some of the English Catholic\nnobles, the publication of the pope's bull against Elizabeth\nwhich Felton had posted on the Bishop of London's gates, and the\ndesigns of the king of Spain upon Ireland, had roused a\npersecution, and Campion was one of those especially designated\nto be arrested. The Lord-Deputy found means to warn him a few\nhours before the officers arrived, and he saved himself by\nflight. For two or three months he dodged the pursuivants about\nIreland, lurking in the houses of his friends, and working, in\nthe intervals of the pursuit, at a _History of Ireland_,\nwhich he had begun while lodging with Stanihurst. At last, seeing\nthat he must soon be captured if he remained on the island, and\nfearing to compromise the friends who gave him shelter, he\nresolved to return to England, and accordingly, in the disguise\nof a lackey, took ship at the little port of Tredagh, near\nDublin. The officers came on board to search for him, and\nquestioned everybody on the vessel except the fugitive himself.\nThey seized the manuscripts of his history, and then went away,\ncursing \"the seditious villain Campion.\" He reached England in\ntime to witness the trial of Dr. Storey, who was executed for the\nfaith in June, 1571.\n{292}\nWe are told nothing of the progress of his conversion after he\nleft Oxford, but by this time it was complete, and he had\nresolved to repair to the English college at Douai, there to fit\nhimself for more effective labors in the Catholic cause. In\nmid-channel the ship in which he had taken passage was overhauled\nby an English frigate, and Campion, having no passport, and\nbeing, moreover, suspected and denounced by his fellow-passengers\nas a papist, was taken off and carried back to Dover. The captain\nappropriated all his prisoner's money, and then set out to\nconduct him to London. It was soon evident, however, that the\nofficer cared more for the purse than the captive; and without a\nword being said on either side, Campion understood that he might\nrun away provided he said nothing about the money. This was\nenough. He escaped in one direction while his guard pretended to\npursue him in another; and having obtained a fresh supply of\nmoney from some of his friends, succeeded at last in making his\nescape over to France.\n\nHe staid long enough at Douai to complete his course of\nscholastic theology and to be ordained sub-deacon. After the\nlapse of a little more than a year, he resolved to go to Rome\nwith the purpose of becoming a Jesuit. His biographers generally\nattribute this determination to the remorse which he still felt\non account of his Anglican deaconship; but Mr. Simpson is\ninclined to lay rather more stress upon a disagreement between\nCampion and Dr. Allen, the president of Douai College, upon\npolitical questions. The friendly and even affectionate relations\nof these two eminent men were never interrupted; but Dr. Allen\nhad many opinions which his disciple could not share. Campion,\ndevoted as he was to the church and the Holy See, was always\nloyally obedient to the civil powers of his native country, save\nwhen the laws were in conflict with his conscience. Allen, who\nhad been many years in exile, was a devoted servant of Philip of\nSpain, and was thick in the plots for the overthrow of Elizabeth\nand the various schemes for foreign invasion. It is not\nimpossible that a divergence of sentiment on some such point as\nthis may have influenced Campion's decision, if not wholly, at\nleast in part. However it was, the two friends bade each other an\naffectionate farewell, and the future martyr, in the guise of a\npoor pilgrim, set out afoot for Rome. In shabby garments, dusty\nand footsore, he entered the holy city in the autumn of 1572,\nonly a few days before the death of St. Francis Borgia, third\ngeneral of the Society of Jesus. A successor to the saint was not\nchosen until April, 1573, and meanwhile Campion had to wait. He\nwas the first postulant admitted by the new general. Father\nMercurianus, and soon afterward he was sent to Br\u00fcnn in Moravia\nto pass his novitiate. In a letter which he wrote to his brethren\nthere, after he had taken his vows, we find a pleasing picture of\nthe humble and happy life which he spent in that retreat. \"O dear\nwalls!\" he exclaims, \"that once shut me up in your company!\nPleasant recreation-room, where we talked so holily! Glorious\nkitchen, where the best friends--John and Charles, the two\nStephens, Sallitzi, Finnit and George, Tobias and Gaspar--fight\nfor the saucepans in holy humility and charity unfeigned! How\noften do I picture to myself one returning with his load from the\nfarm, another from the market; one sweating stalwartly and\nmerrily under a sack of rubbish, another under some other toil!\n...\n{293}\nI have been about a year in religion, in the world thirty-five;\nwhat a happy change if I could say I had been a year in the\nworld, in religion thirty-five!\" There is something very touching\nand instructive in the record of his first years in the Society\nof Jesus; and the chroniclers of his order, who reckon it among\nthe chief glories of the brotherhood in Bohemia that the English\nmartyr received his religious training among them, and taught\nthem at the same time by his illustrious example, have set down\nthat record with careful and affectionate minuteness. How the man\nwhom Oxford had revered as a guide was content in a moment to\nbecome the humblest of pupils; how he by whom the young nobility\nof England had set the fashion of their thought, their reading,\ntheir elocution, their very walk and manner, was happy in the\nprivilege of being allowed to put on a dirty apron, roll up his\nsleeves, and scour saucepans in the scullery--these are the chief\npoints in the story of his life at Br\u00fcnn, and afterward at\nPrague, whither he was sent to teach rhetoric. It is a strange\nlife to read about, yet it probably differed little from the\nordinary life of his brethren in religion, and hundreds of Jesuit\nhouses to-day exhibit no doubt the same model of industry,\ndevotedness, and humility. For a certain number of hours daily he\nwas in the class-room; when his pupils went to play, he went to\nwash dishes in the kitchen. He was called upon for poems,\norations, and sacred dramas, to celebrate the college festivals;\nfor funeral discourses on the death of great persons. He taught\ncatechism to the children; he visited the hospitals and prisons;\nhe preached; he heard confessions; he spent incredible pains in\npreparing the young Jesuits for the work of disputing\nsuccessfully with heretics when they should be sent out to their\nvarious fields of duty. His brethren were amazed that any one man\nshould have strength to carry so many burdens. He seems, however,\nto have borne up well under them. \"About myself,\" he writes to\nFather Parsons, \"I would only have you know that from the day I\narrived here I have been extremely well--in a perpetual bloom of\nhealth, and that I was never at any age less upset by literary\nwork than now, when I work hardest. We know the reason. But,\nindeed, I have no time to be sick, if any illness wanted to take\nme.\" It was while Campion was thus occupied at Prague, that Sir\nPhilip Sidney, who had known him at Oxford, came over from\nEngland as ambassador. The young nobleman had many an interview\nwith his old friend, and seems to have awakened in Campion a\nstrong hope of his conversion--a prospect to which his friends\nand political associates were by no means blind; for they watched\nhim so closely that the interviews between the ambassador and the\nJesuit were not managed without a great deal of difficulty.\nCampion writes to one John Bavand, commending \"this young man, so\nwonderfully beloved and admired by his countrymen,\" to the\nearnest prayers of all good Catholics. He saw what an effect upon\nthe faith in England the conversion of a nobleman of Sidney's\nbrilliant parts and distinguished position must have, and the\nre-establishment of the faith in his native island was something\nwhich he had especially at heart. His letters are full of anxiety\non this score. He speaks of catching and subduing his recreant\ncountrymen \"by the prayers and tears at which they laugh;\" but we\nfind no political allusions, and it is plain enough that, in the\nvarious schemes for Catholic insurrections and for foreign\ninvasions, he had neither share nor heart.\n{294}\nHe had been between five and six years at Prague when he was\nsummoned to Rome to take part in the mission about to be sent\nforth for the conversion of England. The little band of heroes\ncomprised Dr. Goldwell, Bishop of St. Asaph, who had long been\nresiding on the continent, several English secular priests, old\nmen who had been in exile, and young men fresh from their\nstudies, a few zealous laymen, and three Jesuits, Campion,\nParsons, and a lay brother named Ralph Emerson. To assist them in\ntheir labors, collect alms for them, and find safe hiding-places,\na Catholic Association had just been organized in England by\nGeorge Gilbert, a young man of property, whom Father Parsons had\nconverted in Rome the preceding year. The Jesuits were furnished\nwith a paper of instructions for their guidance.\n\nFather Parsons was a younger man than Campion, and had been a\nshorter time than he in the Society; yet there were good reasons\nwhy he should be appointed the superior in the mission. He was\nnot only zealous and devout, but he had a good knowledge of men\nand affairs, he was well versed in the ways of cities; he was\nadroit, versatile, and prudent; and he was somewhat familiar with\nthe schemes of the pope and other Catholic powers against the\ngovernment of Elizabeth. A knowledge of these secret designs\nwould have been but a sorry safeguard had he fallen into the\nhands of the authorities of the crown, and the consciousness must\nhave heightened his sense of the danger incurred in the\nexpedition; but Parsons had all the courage of a martyr, though\nhe did not win a martyr's crown. The party left Rome on the 18th\nof April, 1580, and were not more than fairly started on their\njourney when the English Secretary, Walsingham received from his\nspies a full description of them and a list of their names.\n\nPassing through Geneva, they resolved to have an interview with\nTheodore Beza; and the account of it gives a curious picture of\nthe state of society in those times, and of the manner in which\ntheological controversy mingled with the ordinary affairs of\nlife. The travellers made no secret of their religion, though\nthey disguised their persons and calling. Campion dressed himself\nas an Irish servant, waiting on Mr. John Pascal, a lay gentleman\nof their party, and the only one who failed in the final day of\ntrial. Sherwin, one of the secular priests, used to relate with\nuncontrollable merriment how naturally Campion played his part.\nBeza, under one pretext or another, got rid of them as politely\nas possible, and promised to send to their inn an English scholar\nof his, the son of Sir George Hastings. Instead of young\nHastings, there came his governor, Mr. Brown, and a young\nEnglishman named Powell, and we have a strange account of the\npriests disputing hotly in the streets of Geneva with the two\nProtestants until almost midnight, and challenging Beza to a\npublic controversy, with the proviso that he who was justly\nconvicted in the opinion of indifferent judges should be burned\nalive in the market-place! Powell had known Campion at Oxford, so\nthe _soi-disant_ servant kept out of his sight, and when the\nformer gentleman offered to accompany the missionaries a little\nway on their road next morning, Campion was sent forward in\nadvance. But meeting on the road a minister studying his sermon,\nthe temptation was too strong for the enthusiastic Jesuit, and he\nbuckled with him at once.\n{295}\nThe rest of the party came up while they were still at it, hammer\nand tongs, and Powell recognized Campion, and saluted him with\ngreat affection. After that, the missionaries made a pilgrimage\nof eight or nine miles over difficult paths to St. Clodovens in\nFrance, by way of penance for their curiosity.\n\nWe have said that Parsons was privy to some of the political\nexpeditions against England; but he had no knowledge of the one\nwhich set out about the same time that he did, and the news,\nwhich he learned on his arrival at Rheims, filled him with\ndismay. The queen had issued a proclamation which plainly\nindicated a purpose to proceed against the Catholics with\nincreased severity, and the peril of the undertaking had become\ngreater than ever. It does not appear, however, that one of the\ncompany faltered. Dr. Goldwell had been obliged to turn back and\ndefer his voyage--which, indeed, he never made at all; but others\njoined the mission, and among them was a fourth Jesuit, Father\nThomas Cottam. At Rheims, the party broke up to find their way\nacross to England by different routes. Campion, Parsons, and\nBrother Ralph Emerson were to go by way of St. Omer, Calais, and\nDover. Parsons crossed first, disguised as a soldier returning\nfrom the Low Countries, and in his captain's uniform passed\ninspection so easily and was so well treated by the searcher at\nDover that he bespoke that officer's courtesy for his friend,\n\"Mr. Edmunds, a diamond-merchant,\" who was shortly to follow him.\nHe reached London without trouble; but his dress was outlandish,\nand people were unusually fearful and suspicious, so he was\nturned away from the inns. He knew of a Catholic gentleman,\nhowever, who was held in the Marshalsea prison for his faith, and\nhe applied to see him. Through him he was brought into\ncommunication with George Gilbert and the Catholic Association,\nwho had apartments in the house of the chief pursuivant, where up\nto this time, thanks in part to the connivance of influential\nfriends, they had managed to have a daily celebration of Mass.\n\nFather Parsons had induced the friendly searcher at Dover to send\nover a letter for him to \"Mr. Edmunds,\" at St. Omer, bidding him\nmake haste to London with his diamonds, and Campion, as soon as\nhe received it, set out with Brother Ralph. But, in the mean\ntime, the English officers had grown more strict; the searcher\nhad been reprimanded for letting certain persons pass who were\nsupposed to be priests; and there was a report, moreover, that a\nbrother of Dr. Allen was coming over, and his description agreed\npretty well with Campion's appearance. The two Jesuits were\naccordingly arrested and taken before the mayor; but they were\ndismissed after a short detention, and the next day were welcomed\nby the association in London.\n\nThis pious club was such an admirable illustration of the truth\nthat the salvation of souls is not the exclusive duty or\nprivilege of the priesthood that we may spare a moment from our\nsurvey of Campion's life to glance at its history and character.\nThe missionary career is open to all. Members of religious\norders, secular priests, men of the world, soldiers, lawyers,\nshop-keepers, doctors, laborers, farmers, the beggars on the\nstreet, the fashionable lady in her carriage--we can all do\nsomething for the advancement of the great cause; and if we only\nknew how to systematize our efforts, how to economize our zeal,\nthe Catholic Association of Campion's day is an evidence of the\nenormous service we might render to the church.\n{296}\nThe founder of the association, George Gilbert, had been anxious,\nimmediately after his conversion, to expend his first fervor in a\npilgrimage to Jerusalem; but Father Parsons persuaded him rather\nto return to England and spend his money there in advancing the\nCatholic cause. He drew together a number of young men of his own\nrank in life and with somewhat of his own spirit. They hired\nrooms together; they bribed officers whose vigilance they could\nnot elude; they gave shelter to priests; they furnished places\nfor the celebration of Mass; they kept the Catholics in\ncommunication with each other; they supplied the missionaries\nwith money; and they organized the tours which the priests made\nthrough the country. The Catholics were beset with spies, and the\ngovernment held out strong inducements to weak brethren to betray\ntheir pastors. It was necessary, therefore, that the priests\nshould be extremely cautious to whom they trusted themselves; and\nsince they could not carry credentials, it was necessary, too,\nthat the gentlemen who harbored them should be quite sure whom\nthey were receiving. This perfect intelligence could only be\nobtained by a thorough organization of the Catholic gentry; and\nit was not the least part of the duty of the association to see\nthat, whenever a priest travelled, some one should be with him as\nat once an endorser and a guide. It was their part, likewise, to\nundertake the preliminary work of converting heretics. In those\nfearful times a doubting Protestant could not be admitted to see\na priest until he had given some evidence of the sincerity of his\nsearch after truth. The members of the club took him in hand\nfirst, and brought him to the priest when they felt it to be\nsafe.\n\nWhen Campion reached the asylum of their rooms in London, Parsons\nhad already gone on a tour in the country, leaving word for his\ncompanion to await his return. There was a great desire among the\nCatholics who had learned of the arrival of the missionaries to\nhear the famous preacher with whose eloquence years ago Oxford\nhad resounded, but it was no easy matter to find a place where he\nmight speak in safety. At last, arrangements were made for a\nsermon in the servants' hall of a private house, and there, while\ntrusty gentlemen watched all the avenues of approach, Campion\ndelivered a discourse with which all the Catholic circles of\nLondon were soon ringing. The faithful and the wavering rushed to\nhim in crowds. The government got wind of what was going on, and\nredoubled their exertions to entrap him. Several priests were\ncaptured, and many Catholics were thrown into prison. The danger\nof remaining in London soon became too pressing to be\ndisregarded. So, after a council had been held, several questions\nof discipline settled, and each man's special work assigned, the\npriests all went away to different parts of the kingdom.\n\nThe pursuit was much hotter after Campion than after any of his\nbrethren, and it was intensified by the imprudence of a Catholic\nlayman who had allowed a document entrusted to his care by the\nmissionary, to be made public. This was a paper drawn up by\nCampion on the eve of the separation of their little company,\nsetting forth the reasons of their coming to England, and\ninviting the Protestants to a public conference. It was intended\nto be used only in case he should be arrested; but Thomas Pounde,\nto whom, for greater surety, he had given a copy, thought it too\ngood to be kept entirely secret, and thus it soon came to the\nhands of the government.\n{297}\nThis, of course, increased their anxiety to capture a man whom,\nby his personal influence, his eloquence, and his still brilliant\nreputation at Oxford, they felt to be especially dangerous.\nProclamation followed proclamation; the pursuivants were\nunceasing in activity; spies were sent into every quarter of the\nkingdom; some of the Catholics themselves were corrupted;\nwatchers were set about the houses of the principal Catholic\ngentlemen. Many a time was the Mass or the sermon interrupted by\nthe coming of the officers and the priest compelled to take\nrefuge in the woods. Once, when the pursuivants came upon him\nsuddenly at the house of a private gentleman, a maid-servant, to\nmake them think he was merely one of the retainers, affected to\nbe angry with him and pushed him into a pond. The disguise was\neffectual, and the good father escaped.\n\nAll this while he was engaged in writing his famous book against\nthe Protestants, known as the _Decem Rationes_. It was\nfinished about Easter, 1581, and sent to London for the approval\nof Parsons, who had a private printing-press in a hidden place,\nwhereat he had already published certain writings of his own. By\ngreat efforts a number of copies were got ready for the\ncommencement at Oxford in June; and when the audience assembled\nat the exercises, they found the benches strewed with the books,\nto the reading of which they gave far more attention than to the\nperformances of the students. The title-page bore the imprint of\nDouai, but the government was not long in ascertaining by the\nexamination of experts that the work had been done in England.\n\nCampion had gone to London while his book was passing through the\npress, to superintend the correction of the sheets; but the\ndanger was now so imminent that Parsons ordered him away into\nNorfolk, in company with Brother Ralph Emerson. The two fathers\nrode out of the city together at daylight on the 12th of July,\nand, after an affectionate farewell, parted company, the one\ngoing to the north, the other back into the town.\n\nThe Judas who was to betray him, however, was on the alert. This\nwas one George Eliot, formerly steward to Mr. Roper in Kent, and\nlatterly a servant of the widow of Sir William Petre. He was a\nCatholic, but a man of bad character, and had been for some time\na paid informer to the Earl of Leicester. How he knew of\nCampion's visit to Lyford is not certain; but he had been looking\nfor him at several Catholic houses in the neighborhood, and on\nthe 16th, armed with a warrant and attended by a pursuivant in\ndisguise, he presented himself at the gate just as Mass was about\nto begin, and applied for admission. One of the servants knew him\nfor a Catholic, but little suspected his real character; so with\nmuch ado he got leave to pass in, having first sent off the\npursuivant to a magistrate for a _posse comitatus_. He heard\nthe Mass, he heard Campion's sermon; but he was afraid to make\nthe arrest until the magistrate arrived. As soon as the service\nwas over, he hurried off. The company--comprising some sixty\npersons besides the members of the household--were at dinner when\nword was brought that the place was surrounded by armed men.\nAfter a long search, Campion and three other priests were found\nconcealed in a closet, and taken prisoners.\n\n{298}\n\nThe prisoners were carried up to London and committed to the\nTower, making their entrance into the city through the midst of a\nhooting mob, Campion leading the procession with his elbows tied\nbehind him, his hands tied in front, his feet fastened under his\nhorse's belly, and a placard on his hat, inscribed \"_Campion,\nthe seditious Jesuit_.\" The governor, Sir Owen Hopton, at\nfirst placed Campion in the narrow dungeon known as\n\"Little-ease,\" in which one could neither stand nor lie at\nlength. He remained there until the fourth day, when, with great\nsecrecy, he was conducted to Leicester's house, and courteously\nreceived by the earl and several other persons of mark, and\nshortly found himself in the presence of the queen. He gave a\ntruthful account of his motives in coming to England; he\nsatisfied Elizabeth, as it would appear, of his loyalty; and\ncould he have accepted the conditions proposed to him, he might\nhave been dismissed with honors and riches. As it was, Hopton\nreceived orders to treat him more leniently. It was now the\npurpose of the government to coax him into compliance.\n\nFailing to shake his constancy, the next thing was to destroy his\nreputation. It was given out that he was on the point of\nrecanting; that he had betrayed his friends; that he had divulged\nthe names of the gentlemen who harbored him. To give color to\nthese charges, a great many Catholics were arrested, in\nconsequence, it was said, of Campion's confession. For a while\nthese infamous charges, fortified with plausible confirmation,\nwere generally believed; but it was soon ascertained that the\nbetrayal had been wrung from some of Campion's companions on the\nrack. To render the missionary contemptible, it was thought\nnecessary to answer his challenge for a public disputation in\nsome way or another, and a large number of the most eminent\nAnglican divines were appointed to meet him in a public hall and\ndiscuss the chief points of controversy. They had all the time\nthey wanted to prepare, free access to libraries, and every\npossible favor. Campion was not informed of the arrangement until\ntwo hours before the assembly opened. Then, with his limbs still\nsmarting from the torment of the rack, he was placed in the\nmiddle of the room, without books, without even a table to lean\nupon, with no assistance whatever, except the assistance of\nheaven. The dispute continued several days. It was distinguished,\nas might have been supposed, by gross unfairness and bad language\non the part of the Protestants, while Campion conciliated all\nhonest-minded listeners, not only by the acuteness of his\nanswers, but by his mild and affectionate spirit. Though he had\nbeen educated to a familiarity with dialectics, and lived in a\nday when controversy was an almost universal passion, he was far\nfrom being a disputatious man, and the _odium theologicum_\nhad no place in his warm and tender heart. With all the advantage\ngiven to the Protestant side, it was evident that the Catholics\nwere profiting by the conferences, and the government abruptly\nclosed them. But it was too late. Campion's fame was restored;\nthe slanders against him had been refuted; and the popular\nenthusiasm broke forth in ballads, of which Mr. Simpson gives a\nsample.\n\nNothing remained now but to try him for treason. It was first\nproposed to indict him for having on a certain day in Oxfordshire\ntraitorously pretended to have power to absolve her majesty's\nsubjects from their allegiance, and endeavored to attach them to\nthe obedience of the pope and the faith of the Roman church; but\nthis was too plainly a religious prosecution.\n{299}\nA plot was therefore forged, which it was pretended that Campion,\nAllen, Morton, Parsons, and fourteen priests and others then in\ncustody, had concerted at Rome and Rheims to dethrone the queen\nand raise a civil war. On this charge Campion, Sherwin, Cottam,\nand five others, were arraigned at Westminster Hall on the 14th\nof November. When Campion was called upon, according to custom,\nto hold up his hands in pleading, his arms were so cruelly\nwounded by the rack that he could not lift them without\nassistance. The trial took place on the 20th. The principal\nwitnesses for the crown were George Eliot and three hired\nwretches named Munday, Sledd, and Caddy, who pretended to have\nobserved the meetings of the conspirators at Rome; but their\ntestimony was so weak, and the answers of Campion so admirable,\nthat when the jury retired it was generally believed in court\nthat the verdict must be one of acquittal. Court and jury,\nhowever, had been bought beforehand. The prisoners were all found\nguilty, and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. Then\nCampion broke forth in a loud hymn of praise, \"_Te Deum\nlaudamus_\" and Sherwin and others took up the song, until the\nmultitude were visibly affected.\n\nAfter he had been remanded to the Tower, the traitor Eliot came\nto his cell, and Campion received him so sweetly, forgiving his\noffence, and offering to provide for him an asylum with a\nCatholic noble in Germany, whither he might escape from the odium\nand danger which haunted him at home, that the keeper, who\nwitnessed the interview was induced by it to become a Catholic.\nThe few days which intervened between conviction and death were\npassed by the holy man in fasting and other mortifications. The\nexecution was appointed for the 29th of November. Campion,\nSherwin, and Briant were to suffer together. At the execution\nCampion was interrupted by a long dialogue respecting his alleged\ntreason, and subjected to a great deal of questioning. Somebody\nasked him to pray for the queen. While he was doing so, the cart\nwas drawn away, amid the tears and groans of the multitude, and\nhis body left dangling in the air.\n\nSo ended the good fight. Sherwin and Briant met their fate with\nlike joy and constancy, and many another good priest and devoted\nlayman trod afterward in the same awful but glorious path. And as\nit has been since the days of St. Stephen, the blood of the\nmartyrs proved the seed of the church. Henry Walpole estimated\nthat no fewer than ten thousand persons were converted by the\nspectacle of Champion's death. That is probably an exaggeration;\nbut it is certain that the execution had a marked effect upon the\nprogress of the faith in England, and covered the Anglican clergy\nwith an odium from which they were long in recovering.\n\nOf the life by Mr. Simpson, upon which we have so freely drawn\nfor the materials of this hasty sketch, we must not close without\na word of praise. Written originally for a monthly periodical,\nand long interrupted by the failure of that publication, it lacks\nthe neat finish and compactness which the author would probably\nhave given it, had it been composed under more favorable\ncircumstances. But it has evidently been prepared with great\nindustry; it is written in a good style; and with a little\njudicious pruning and rearrangement, it will make one of the most\ninteresting of modern religious biographies.\n\n----------\n\n{300}\n\n    The Catholic Sunday-School Union. [Footnote 56]\n\n    [Footnote 56: _First Report of the Catholic Sunday-School\n     Union_, of the city of New York. January 1, 1868.]\n\n\nFew of the evidences of the zealous spirit which is stirred up in\nthese latter days, have given us more unfeigned pleasure than the\ninformation which this report conveys. The Sunday-School Union\nbegan as all Catholic works begin, has prospered thus far as they\nprosper, and will share in their triumph. A few earnest souls,\nobserving how much more good could be accomplished in the\ncatechism-classes if the exercises and methods of teaching were\nmade more systematic and co-operative, met together, on the\nevening of July 9th, 1866, debated the subject, formed\nresolutions, went to work, and now the catechetical education of\nthe 20,237 children reported from eighteen Sunday-schools of this\ncity, (about one half of the whole number,) is practically under\nthe control of this admirable association. The good fruits of\ntheir labors are already noticeable in the more regular\nattendance of the children, the conferences of teachers for\nmutual instruction and encouragement, the better regulated\nprogramme of exercises, and the increased interest manifested in\nthe schools by all who are in any way connected with them.\n\nThe competent knowledge which our people, as a mass, have of\ntheir religion, of the dogmas of faith--knowledge which they are\nbound to have under pain of sin--and that other \"knowledge unto\nsalvation\" which is shown in the faithful performance of their\nChristian duties, depends, as all know, upon the catechetical\ninstruction they receive in youth. Priests may preach sermon\nafter sermon, and each and every such discourse may be well\ncalculated to enlighten the mind and move the heart; but as a\nrule, all sermons nowadays suppose the hearers to be already in\npossession of Christian principles, and disciplined to the\npractices of a Christian life. Sound and thorough catechetical\ninstruction is, then, one of the primary duties of a pastor of\nsouls. That each pastor should assume the whole of this labor to\nhimself is simply impossible. Those of the laity who by their\ncharacter and education are fitted to be his coadjutors in this\npastoral duty, must therefore be called upon to aid him in it.\nThe time when it is feasible to assemble children together for\nreligious instruction is on Sunday. Hence the Sunday-school and\nits corps of lay teachers; both of necessity, as experience has\nshown, for every parish, if the people are to have, as they ought\nto have, a befitting knowledge of their religion--if they are to\nbe indoctrinated with its spirit, and receive its ministrations\nby a devout, conscientious attendance upon its worship, and a due\nappreciation of, and worthy preparation for, the holy sacraments.\n\nThe first thought which naturally presents itself in reference to\nthese lay coadjutors of the clergy, is that of their competence\nand fitness to teach. We do not care to send our children to be\neducated by any and every schoolmaster. We not only ask, Is he\ncapable? but we ask, Who is he, and what is he? If these\nquestions may be very properly put concerning a teacher of\ngeography and arithmetic, we may be pardoned for asking them\nconcerning one who professes to teach Christian doctrine and\nmorality.\n{301}\nIs he well versed in the truths of faith himself, and, if you\nplease, what is his own moral character?\n\nThe Sunday-school is an excellent institution, a necessary\ninstitution in our times; but if it is to be of any value,\nteachers, who are in the first place competent for the task, and\nwho in the second place are practical Christians, must be\nsecured. In small parishes, the pastor may possibly find a\nsufficient number who possess all the requisite qualifications,\n(although, so far, our experience has been to the contrary,) but\nin large and populous parishes, such as are found in all our\ncities, it is plain that a sufficient number are not easily\nobtained for the purpose, nor will those who are in all respects\nfitted for the work and are ready to answer the call of the\npastor, be able to control and reduce the heterogeneous elements\nof a city Sunday-school to any order or regular observance of\nrules laid down by the pastor, or devised by themselves, without\nmutual co-operation, counsel, and a systematic organization.\nBesides, into a corps of such teachers, who are not themselves\nsubjected to some organized form of association, persons wholly\nincompetent or deficient in moral standing will intrude, and\nprove either a hinderance to others, or do positive harm.\n\nWhen chance-comers offer their services as teachers in his\nSunday-school, it is difficult if not impossible for the pastor\nto examine them in order to test their knowledge before accepting\nthem, and it may be equally difficult for him to find out what\nmay be their moral worth. Their daily lives are, as a rule,\nbetter known to the members of his congregation than they are to\nhim. In the ill-regulated voluntary system which has hitherto\nbeen so common amongst us, many evils have resulted from this\nwhich were unavoidable. Teachers of religion ought to be\nthemselves good exemplars of it. Children learn at the\nSunday-school a good deal more than the verbal answer to as many\nquestions as are printed in the catechism. Those who occupy the\noffice of teacher exert a moral influence over the children.\nExample is the master-teacher, and bad example will teach (we are\nsorry to say) quite as well as good example. You cannot gather\ngrapes from thorns, or figs from thistles. During the time that a\nman or woman is engaged in conversation with children, much of\nhis or her own character is infused into the minds of their\nyouthful companions by words, gestures, looks, and manner. Shall\nI permit my children to be thus placed one whole hour every week,\nunder the influence of an ignorant man, a non-practical Catholic,\nand possibly a person of vicious habits and of vulgar demeanor--a\nperson whom I could not allow my children to converse with at\nall, in the street or elsewhere, outside of the Sunday-school\nroom? Certainly not. I must have some guarantee that my children\nshall have such associations as I can approve of, as well in the\nSunday-school as in any other place where they may happen to be.\n\nOne who might make such reflections as the foregoing need occupy\nno higher position in society than that of being a good\nChristian, watchful over the souls of his little ones, and\nanxious to guard them from contamination with persons ignorant of\nthe faith in which he wishes them to be educated, or such as by\ntheir personal want of piety are certain to damage the growth of\nit in the souls of\nthe children he presumes to instruct.\n\n{302}\n\nIf we mistake not, these considerations were in part those which\nanimated the zealous and worthy founders of the Sunday-School\nUnion, whose first report lies before us. This appears to us in\nthe pages of the report, especially under the head of \"objects.\"\nWe quote:\n\n  \"The objects of the Sunday-school Union are of a religious,\n  educational, and social character. The fundamental object is,\n  of course, the benefit and improvement of the Sunday-schools;\n  the secondary end is the association of the Catholic young men\n  of the city, in a manner sanctioned by religion, for purposes\n  of mutual acquaintance and improvement, and the creation of a\n  common tie of sympathy and interest, such as should exist\n  between them as members of the same, One, Holy, and Universal\n  Church. By the comparisons of systems, and experience, and\n  through the increased opportunities of receiving advice and\n  counsel from the clergy, improvements have been introduced in\n  many of the schools, and the teachers have been led to take\n  greater interest in their duties.\"\n\nWe need only quote to ourselves the trite old proverb, that\n\"Birds of a feather,\" etc., to feel assured that the \"Union\" will\nremove in great part the dangers arising from incompetence and\nunfitness on the part of teachers, to which we have alluded. The\nleading spirits of an association of this kind will impress their\nown character upon the whole body, and we have the utmost\nconfidence that such persons will be of the right stamp, young\nmen of solid piety, of sufficient knowledge, and animated by the\nhighest and purest motives. They will draw to them other young\nmen of like character and dispositions with themselves.\nAssociation will stimulate exertion, promote harmony, and be\nproductive of the best and happiest results; not only for the\nchildren, but, what is of no little moment to us, for the young\nmen themselves.\n\nUnder their intelligent direction the Sunday-school will assume a\nhigher standard of religious education. It has too long been\ndeemed sufficient to teach the children the catechism as one\nteaches parrots, getting them to repeat a certain answer to a\ngiven question, without stopping to consider if the scholars have\nany intelligent apprehension of the meaning of either question or\nanswer. We remember being present in a Sunday-school when the\nfollowing instruction was overheard by us:\n\n  Sunday-School Teacher.\n    \"Are we bound to obey the commandments of the church?\"\n\n  Boy.\n    \"A--a, because--a--\" (gives it up.)\n\n  Teacher, (speaking as rapidly as a clerk of the Senate, and\n  looking everywhere but at the pupil.)\n    \"Yes, because Christ has said to the pastors of his church,\n    he that hears you hears me, and he that despises you despises\n    me.\" (Then with a savage look at the child,) \"Now, sir!\"\n\n  Boy,(whining.)\n    \"Yes, sir--because--here's you and here's me. He despises you\n    and he despises me.\"\n\nBoy's ears cuffed with the catechism.\n\nYet it must be confessed that the recitation of the answer by the\nteacher was pretty faithfully imitated by the child, who aimed at\ncatching a certain number of sounds and repeating them, without\nthinking of their meaning.\n\nIt is very well that the children should learn to recite portions\nof the catechism which they have learned by rote; but this will\nnot suffice to give them an intelligent comprehension of the\ntruths of religion. There is hardly a question and response in\nthe catechism which does not need some additional explanation and\nillustration suited to their capacities.\n{303}\nThis is no easy task, and one that might well engage the highest\ncultivated minds. Teachers must therefore themselves be taught.\nNo one can impart that which he does not possess. We are glad,\ntherefore, to see that one of the objects of our Sunday-School\nUnion is of an \"educational\" character.\n\nThe object which is denominated \"religious\" is also of primary\nimportance. The Sunday-school teacher is a teacher of religion in\nmore senses than in imparting a mere verbal knowledge of the\ndoctrines of religion. It comes properly within his sphere to\nedify his pupils by holy words, good counsel, and good example.\nIf he does not so edify them, he will infallibly do the contrary.\nOur experience leads us to assert that there is no middle term\nhere between edification and disedification. He who has no words\nof holiness and sweet Christian counsel in his mouth, is pretty\nsure of having words and counsel which smack of the world and its\nungodly principles. Let no one imagine that he can assume for the\ntime and occasion the tone, speech, and manner of a good, pious\nChristian, if he be not one in reality. Children have the keenest\nscent for hypocrisy. They instinctively mark and loathe a\nPecksniff or a Chadband. The lessons of piety, the words of\nkindly warning or encouragement, the appeals to their Christian\nsentiment, falling from the lips of men who have no solid piety,\nand whose ordinary daily life is little better than that of a\nrespectable heathen, if as good, will have no other effect than\nto excite the sceptical sneers of youths who are not to be\ndeceived by sham appearances.\n\nOur Sunday-schools, therefore, urgently demand the aid of\n\"religious\" teachers; we mean teachers who are practical\nChristians themselves, and carry out in their lives the lessons\nthey are desirous of teaching others. They need teachers who are\nmore than Catholics by profession. In a Sunday-school which is\nfortunate enough to possess teachers of religion who are men of\nliving faith, devout, prayerful, scrupulous, and exact in the\nperformances of their religious duties, exhibiting in their\nmanner a deep reverence for holy things, modesty, patience,\nbenignity, earnestness, and zeal for the glory of God, there will\nthe children also be found exact types of their spiritual\ninstructors.\n\nThe Sunday-School Union will form a corps of just such men. It\nwill find itself composed of members who are moved by the Holy\nSpirit of God to take some part in this important work, and who\nwill engage in it as a labor of love, in the spirit of sacrifice\nand apostolic zeal. They will, for the most part, bring hearts\nwell prepared for it; but the Union will itself do much toward\nsustaining and advancing the spiritual good of its members. The\nmost noble spectacle to be presented in this world of temptation\nand sin, is a band of young men, strong in the faith and loyal to\nthe holy traditions of religion emulating each other in the\npractice of virtue and works of Christian charity. Such is the\nspectacle which this association is striving to present to our\neyes, and our prayers should not be wanting that God may\nstrengthen them and enlarge the sphere of their holy labors.\n\nThe third object spoken of is the \"social\" character which the\nUnion proposes. We think we understand this, and have already\nhinted at it. They aim at making the tone of their association\nhigh and select. And this is a point worthy of our reflection.\nChildren naturally imitate the manners of their elders,\nparticularly of those with whom they are associated in the\ncapacity of pupils.\n{304}\nLet the teacher be rough, boorish, and uncouth in his deportment,\nnegligent in his personal appearance, unceremonious and\nirreverent in the church, unguarded in his language, of an\nungoverned temper, tardy in his attendance, and distracted in his\ninstructions, you will find that the class of which he has\nunfortunately the charge will very soon be an exact copy of\nhimself. We commiserate the Sunday-school where even one such\nteacher is to be found. He and his ill-regulated and\nworse-behaved class are a positive hinderance to the good order\nof the whole school, and the sooner he is got rid of the better.\nThe Union, by its power of associating like to like, will\neliminate this worthless class of individuals, and substitute in\ntheir stead punctual, earnest, courteous, self-denying, and\nreverent-minded teachers, whose very presence in the\nSunday-school will be an example of deportment becoming the\nChristian and the gentleman, commanding respect, obedience, and\nattention on the part of all the scholars, and the esteem of his\nfellow-teachers. What affection, too, the children instinctively\nbestow upon such!\n\nThe love for these young souls, of which their heart is full, is\nabundantly reciprocated, and the influence for good which such\nteachers have is beyond measure. They are regarded by these\nlittle ones of Christ in their true light, as coadjutors of the\npastor, and their admonitions are received with humble and loving\nobedience. \"O ma!\" says a little child to its parent on returning\nfrom Sunday-school, \"we have the nicest teacher in the world,\n_so_ good, and he knows _so_ much, and he is _such a\ngentleman!_\" Yes; children are quick of observation--none\nquicker; and when they have found one who presents all the\nqualities which should distinguish a worthy teacher, they from\nthat moment begin to count the hours which will intervene until\nthey shall have the happiness of meeting him again. If we aim at\nhaving first-class Sunday-schools, which will not only teach the\nchildren their catechism, and encourage them in the practice of\nvirtue, but also elevate and refine their manners, and educate\nthem in that, for which, after all, Catholic children are\nremarkable, namely, Christian politeness, we must secure teachers\nwho, like the teacher of the little child mentioned above, are\n_so_ good, know _so_ much, and are _such\ngentlemen!_ We have every confidence that the Sunday-School\nUnion, by its \"social\" character, will bring this about.\n\nWe are making no invidious reflections, and would feel pained to\nthink we should be thus adjudged. We presume to speak from\nexperience. We know something of Sunday-schools, and of their\nworking in small and large parishes, in the city and in the\ncountry. We have had to feel the many difficulties which a pastor\nhas to surmount in this matter. We aim at encouraging and bidding\nGod speed to an enterprise which we know is needed, and which we\nare certain cannot fail of producing incalculable good.\n\nAmong other works which the Union proposes, is that of\nestablishing Sunday-schools for colored children. That zealous\nand apostolic priest, the Rev. Father Duranquet, of the Society\nof Jesus, did not shrink from adding this to his many other\nlabors when it presented itself to him in the course of his\nministry. But just such a power was needed as the Sunday-School\nUnion affords to reach these much-neglected children, and bring\nthem under the influence of the Catholic religion, to care for\nthose of that class who are of her household, to insure a lively,\npersonal, loving interest being taken in them, and thus to show\nthat our holy church is the church of all the people, of white\nand black, of bond and free.\n{305}\nWe bless God for this effort of theirs. It is very near and dear\nto our own heart. The world sneers and scoffs at them, but there\nis no caste in the Catholic Church, and they are, as well as we,\nsouls for whom Christ died.\n\nThe Catholic priest and the Catholic Sunday-school teacher can do\nmore for them, we know, than all the so-called philanthropists\nfrom Dan to Beersheba. God forbid that we should turn aside from\nthis labor and leave these precious souls to perish!\n\nThe Sunday-School Union is formed exclusively of men. \"The female\nteachers,\" says the report, \"are invited to all the public\nlectures and discourses, and to participate in as many of the\nundertakings of the Union as possible.\" This is all very proper.\nWe know, however, that the ladies have hitherto taken rather the,\nshall we say, lion's share in the hardest of the undertakings to\nwhich the young men of the Sunday-School Union can possibly\ndevote their energies, which is, the work of teaching. In most\nparishes they have far outnumbered the male teachers. We refrain\nfrom making any comparison of their efficiency. For ourselves, we\nsay we do not know how we could possibly have got along without\nthem, nor do we see how their aid can be dispensed with in the\nfuture. We are not aware that the Sunday-School Union has any\nsuch intention. The ladies do a good by their presence which we\nof the stronger, rougher sex may not hope to accomplish, besides\nbeing the fittest persons to teach the female classes. We are\nsure that they will cheerfully abide by any rules and regulations\nlaid down by the Union, and do their utmost to carry out any\nsuggestions made to them for the better conducting of their\nclasses. We are not afraid of their resisting the powers that be.\nBut why may they not also meet together for mutual encouragement,\ninstruction, and edification? We shall look for some movement of\nthis kind before long.\n\nAs for the Union itself, we look upon it not as a simple local\nexpedient to meet a local want. It has a national interest, and\nsooner or later must find imitation in all our large cities and\ntowns. We hope soon to hear that such has been the case in many\nother places, and then the influence of such associations will be\nincreased in the ratio of the union of their separate and\ndistinct bodies, at least, such an union as we trust and pray\nwill soon be exhibited in all great Catholic works in this\ncountry--the assembly of their members for mutual acquaintance,\ncooperation, and debate, in a National Catholic Congress. The\ngood that is done, the power that is elicited from assemblies of\nthis kind, is well known to all our readers who have perused our\narticles on the Catholic Congress of Malines, in former numbers\nof _The Catholic World_. The Sunday-School Union would do\nwell to consider this matter in the light of their own interest.\nIn their union they have found strength. Let them seek to extend\ntheir efforts by encouraging, in so far as they are able, any\nsuch associations as may be started, or are in operation, in\nother places, inviting a correspondence and offering all their\naid, looking forward, at the same time, to a union with them on a\nlarger and general basis, and to the discussion of their mutual\ninterests in a grand congressional assembly.\n\n{306}\n\nWe trust that our remarks will be received in the spirit in which\nthey are meant. They have been prompted by the deep, heart-felt\ninterest which we feel in the subject, and the entire sympathy\nwhich we have for the noble, holy, Christian work to which our\nfriends have devoted their energies. They have not begun too\nsoon. Every year thousands of our children, in this city of New\nYork alone, leave school to engage in various occupations, where\nthey are thrown into the society of youths of all religions and\nof no religion. Protestantism has practically no influence over\nchildren, and generally leaves them to shift for themselves, and\npick up what scraps of religion they may.\n\nUnfortunately, the mass of them, being totally ignorant of the\nblessings and comfort of the Catholic faith, and not having had\nany very cheerful experience of religion as it has been presented\nto them by the bald, repulsive, unchild-like nature of\nProtestantism, break away from its restraints, and run wildly\ninto the deserts of rationalism or infidelity. Poor children! our\nhearts bleed for them. But, while we pity them, let us not forget\nthat they are to be the daily associates of our own lambs of the\nflock. How necessary, then, that we should strive by every effort\nto prepare ours for the dangers to which they will be exposed by\ngiving them, while we may, a thorough knowledge of their holy\nfaith, and send them forth guarded by a panoply of virtue,\naccustomed to a regular attendance upon the divine offices of the\nchurch, and to a frequent reception of the Holy Sacraments. Let\nit be our aim to dismiss each and every child from our\nSunday-schools a loyal, devout, intelligent Catholic, whose faith\nis firm as a rock, and whose soul is bright and pure with the\nindwelling grace of God. Our blessed Lord, the lover of little\nchildren, will not fail to remember our care of those of whom He\nsaid: \"Of such is the kingdom of heaven.\"\n\n--------------\n\n    Sonnet On \"Le Recit D'une Soeur,\"\n        By Mrs. Augustus Craven.\n\n\n  Whence is the music? Minstrel see we none;\n  Yet, soft as waves that, surge succeeding surge,\n  Roll forward--now subside--anon emerge--\n  Upheaved in glory o'er a setting sun,\n  Those beatific harmonies sweep on:\n  O'er earth they sweep from utmost verge to verge,\n  Triumphant Hymeneal, Hymn, and Dirge,\n  Blending in everlasting unison.\n  Whence is the music? Stranger! These were they\n  That, great in love, by love unvanquished proved:\n  These were true lovers, for in God they loved:\n  With God these spirits rest in endless day.\n  Yet still, for love's behoof, on wings outspread\n  Float on o'er earth betwixt the angels and the dead.\n\n                                 Aubrey de Vere.\n\n-----------\n\n{307}\n\n             Nellie Netterville;\n          or, One Of The Transplanted.\n\n\n    Chapter VI.\n\nThe party from the tower came on meantime at a rapid rate; and,\npeeping cautiously from behind her hiding-place, Nellie saw that\nthey had already reached the foot of the hill where she and her\ngrandfather stood awaiting their approach. The lady--even at that\ndistance Nellie fancied she could see that she was young and\npretty, and, though clad in the saddest and strictest of\nPuritanic attire, anything but a Puritan in her looks and\nbearing--rode in front, with the military-looking personage,\ndescribed already, upon one side, and a younger cavalier, with\nthe air likewise of a soldier, on the other, while a couple of\nfollowers brought up the rear. At first the three foremost of the\nparty rode abreast, but, as the up-hill path began to narrow, the\nlady pushed her horse ahead so as to lead the way, and Nellie\ncould hear one of her companions shouting to her to ride\ncautiously until she had turned the sharp corner of rock behind\nwhich Nellie herself was at that moment standing. The warning\ncame, as warnings often _do_ come, too late by a single\nsecond. It could have scarcely reached the lady's ears ere she\nhad dashed round the corner, and her horse, wild and unmanageable\nenough already, plunged violently at the unexpected apparition of\nNellie and her grandfather on the other side. If the path had not\nwidened considerably at that spot, the struggle must have ended\nfatally, and even as it was, Nellie expected every moment to see\nboth horse and rider roll over the edge of the precipice to which\nthe heels of the former were in such fearful proximity.\n\nThe lady, however, sat him to perfection, and after a short,\nsharp struggle for the mastery, she succeeded in forcing him to\nrush at a wild gallop straight down the path leading to the\nvalley, the only safe course of action she could possibly have\nadopted.\n\nHer companions had by this time reached the spot where Nellie had\nwatched the contest, and the younger of the two was about to spur\nhis horse on to the rescue, when his older and wiser companion\nshouted to him to forbear.\n\n\"Let her be, Ormiston! Let her be!\" he cried. \"She knows well\nenough what she is about, my Ruth. And you will but infuriate her\nhorse by following at his heels.\"\n\nThus adjured, the young man, addressed as \"Ormiston,\" had no\nchoice but to remain quiet. He drew in bridle, therefore, beside\nhis chief, and watched as patiently as he could the down-hill\ngallop of the lady. The result fortunately justified the\nconfidence of the elder horseman. No sooner had she reached the\nwide bottom of the glen below, than she checked her horse\nsuddenly, and turning him almost before he had time to suspect\nher intentions, galloped him up the hill again with such right\ngood-will that he was glad enough to stop and breathe of his own\naccord by the time she had rejoined her companions.\n\nRelieved from all anxiety on her account, the old Cromwellian\nofficer, for such his scarf and embroidered shoulder-belt\nannounced him, turned the vials of his wrath, as even the best\nmen will upon such occasions, upon those who, however\nunwittingly, had been the cause of the disaster.\n{308}\nIn the present case Nellie and her grandfather were only too\nevidently the offenders, and the storm was accordingly sent full\nupon their heads. They were still standing in the recess formed\nby the shoulder of the retreating bank, and as Nellie, by an\nunconscious movement of girlish timidity, had retired behind Lord\nNetterville, he formed for a moment the chief figure in the\ngroup. Thoroughly roused and wakened up at thus finding himself\nunexpectedly face to face with his arch enemies, the old man\nstood out upon the foreground like a picture, his eyes sparkling,\nhis white hair falling on his shoulders, and a grave and noble\npride in his very attitude which belied alike the meanness of his\napparent station and the disfigurement of his stained and\ntravel-worn attire. The latter indeed consisting entirely of the\nso-called \"Irish weeds,\" the Cromwellian officer naturally enough\nconcluded him to be a native, and addressed him, accordingly, in\nsuch terms of contemptuous abuse as it was too often the Saxon\nfashion of those unhappy times to bestow upon the Celt.\n\n\"How now, thou 'Irish dogg'? How hast thou dared, thou and thy\nwench, to cross our path, and so put the life of the Lord's elect\nin danger? Give place at once and let us pass, if thou wouldst\nnot that I should do unto thee as I did at Tredagh, where my\nsword, from the rising even to the setting of the sun, wrought\nthe vengeance of the Lord on an idolatrous and misguided people.\"\n\nLord Netterville, during this agreeable harangue, had stepped\nright into the centre of the path, so that the other could hardly\nhave passed him without a struggle, and he barely awaited its\nconclusion ere, with eyes flashing fire, he violently retorted:\n\n\"'Irish dogg!' sayest thou? Learn, thou unmannerly Saxon churl,\nthat my blood is as English perhaps more so than thine own; and\ncertainly from a nobler fountain! I am of the English pale,\" he\ncontinued, drawing himself up to his full height, and gaining in\ndignity what he lost in passion, \"and one of no mean standing in\nit either--a Netterville of the old Norman race, since the days\nof the first Plantagenet.\"\n\n\"Lord Netterville--father!\" said the young Amazon in a low voice,\npushing her horse forward and touching the officer's shoulder\nwith her riding-whip in order to attract his attention. \"It must\nbe the Lord Netterville of whom there was some question, I\nremember, when you were in negotiation for these lands.\"\n\n\"Ha, wench! thou also to blaspheme!\" he cried, turning furiously\nupon her. \"Knowest thou not that there is but one Lord, and that\nthe pride of them that assume his titles stinks in his nostrils\nlike the burning pitch of Tophet? And thou,\" he added, addressing\nhimself to Lord Netterville, \"in vain dost thou boast of thy race\nor lineage; for whatever they once were, they have, I doubt not,\nbeen so often renewed in the blood of the Irish as to have little\nor naught left of English honesty or honor to bestow upon their\nowner.\"\n\n\"Little or much!\" cried the old lord furiously, \"if thou, black\ndog of Cromwell as thou art, will but dismount and bid one of thy\nlackeys put a sword into my hands, I will show thee that, in\nspite of my seventy years and odd, I have still enough of English\nmanhood left to chastise impertinence, wherever or in whomsoever\nI may chance to find it.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" cried Nellie, terrified at the turn affairs were taking,\nand placing herself between the disputants, \"there is no need for\nall these taunting words and bandying of harsh challenges.\n{309}\nIn peace have we come hither, and we do but seek to possess our\nown in peace--their honors, the commissioners at Loughrea, having\nassigned to us our residence amidst these mountains.\"\n\n\"Residence!\" cried the officer, roused at once into a far more\nbitter and personal feeling than the sort of proud contempt,\nwhich was all that he had hitherto deigned to bestow upon the\nstrangers. \"Residence among these mountains, dost thou say? Nay,\nthen, young maiden, thou hast mistaken thy mark, and that most\nwidely, since all these lands, as far as the eye can see--even\nthis land of Murrisk, which we English call the 'Owles,' with its\nupper and its lower barony as well--have been made over to me\nalready, as mine own inheritance, the land which the Lord hath\ngiven (for the laborer is worthy of his hire) as the fruit of\nlong service in the battle-field.\"\n\n\"This is my grandfather. Lord Netterville, and we are, as he has\nrightly told you, of the old English of the pale,\" said Nellie,\nmaking one step nearer in order to present her certificate. \"At\nfirst, in common with the other inhabitants of Meath, we were to\nhave been sent into the more eastern baronies of Connaught; but\nthe numbers set down for transplantation to those parts having\nbeen found greater than could be accommodated on the land, we\nwere assigned at last our portion in the same barony of Murrisk.\"\n\nThe officer looked at first as if greatly inclined to refuse the\npaper which she held up for his acceptance; but suddenly changing\nhis intention, he snatched it rudely from her hand, and ran his\neye over the contents.\n\n\"Humph! ha!\" he continued to mutter as he read; and then turning\nto Nellie, he said in a voice in which, toned down as it was to\nan affectation of cold indifference, her quick ear detected,\nnevertheless, a lurking tone of triumph.\n\n\"This certificate bears a date, as I see, of some three months\nearlier in the year. How, then, is it, maiden, that it was not\npresented sooner?\"\n\n\"It is five months to-day since we left our home--our pleasant\nhome in Meath,\" said Nellie sadly; \"and \"much of that time was\nspent perforce at Loughrea. At first we were kept there in sore\nsuspense as to the settlement of our just claim for land, and\nafter that we were detained by sickness. Our servant fell ill and\ndied of the plague; my grandfather suffered also much from the\nsame malady, and he has in some measure recovered from it; it\nhas, alas! reduced him from a hale and hearty old age, to the\nwreck--mind and body--that you see before you. In this way our\nscanty stock of money was soon exhausted, and when at last he was\nfit to travel, we had to sell our horses and the best part of our\nwearing apparel, in order to satisfy the debts incurred during\nhis illness; after which there was nothing for it but to finish\nthe journey as best we could on foot.\"\n\n\"How marvellous are the mercies of the Lord--the mercies which he\nhas laid up for them that fear him,\" cried the officer, turning\ntriumphantly toward his companions, and yet shrinking, in spite\nof himself, beneath the angry glances shot at him from the blue\neyes of his daughter. \"Surely his hand and his wisdom are visible\nin this matter,\" he added, in a less openly exultant manner; \"for\nlook ye, maiden, had you and the man you call Lord Netterville\ncome hither at the time when, according to the date of your\ncertificate, you should have done, you might, peradventure, have\nfound no one to dispute possession with ye.\n{310}\nBut behold! instead of that, the Lord hath vexed and troubled ye;\nhe hath forced ye to tarry, even as he forced his rebellious\npeople to tarry in the wilderness; he hath afflicted ye with\nsickness; he hath even visited ye with death, in order that I,\nhis servant and soldier on the battle-field, might go up and take\npeaceable possession of that land which ye vainly fancied to be\nall your own.\"\n\n\"But are not these the very lands--a portion of the barony of\nMurrisk--which are set down in our certificate?\" said Nellie, not\neven yet comprehending thoroughly the greatness of the impending\nblow. \"How, then, noble sir, do you speak of them as yours?\"\n\n\"Yea, and indeed,\" replied the officer, \"these are of a certainty\nthose very lands. Nevertheless, maiden, thou hast yet to learn\nthat, if thou hast a certificate, I also am provided with a\ndebenture, signed and delivered to me two months ago.\nConsequently, my order on the estate being of a later date, doth\noverride and make void thine own, which, moreover, on looking\ncloser, I do perceive to be merely a _de bene esse_, a poor\nmake-shift for the time being, until something more permanent\ncould be assigned thee.\"\n\n\"God help us, then!\" cried Nellie; utterly overwhelmed by this\nlast announcement. \"God help us, then, and pardon those who have\ntrifled so cruelly with our fortunes! Strangers we are, and\nwithout a place whereon to lay our heads; what then is to become\nof us in these deserted mountains?\"\n\n\"Thou shouldst have looked to all that ere coming hither,\" he\nanswered harshly; \"as matters are at present, I would counsel\nthee to return to Loughrea at thy quickest speed, and to seek\nsome other grant of land from their honors the commissioners, ere\nall that which is left in their hands has been absolutely\ndisposed of.\"\n\n\"We cannot,\" said Nellie in a tone of hopeless sorrow, which,\nsave that of the old fanatic himself, touched the hearts of all\nwho heard her. \"Look!\" she added, turning, and with a sudden wave\nof the arm indicating Lord Netterville, who, utterly exhausted by\nhis late excitement, was leaning against the bank in a half state\nof stupor. \"Look at that old man, and tell me how is he to\nretrace his footsteps? Hope, indeed, aided him on his journey\nhither, but what hope is left to give him courage to go back?\"\n\n\"As I have already said, thou shouldst have looked to all that\nere undertaking such a journey,\" he answered shortly, and\npreparing to ride forward; for he saw that in his daughter's face\nwhich made him feel sure that she would not remain much longer\nsilent. \"And now get you both hence at once, I counsel ye; for my\ncholer is apt to rise in the presence of the enemies of the Lord,\nand I may not much longer be able to restrain my hand from\nstriking--\"\n\n\"Strike, if you will, but hear me!\" cried Nellie, springing\nforward so suddenly that she had caught hold of his bridle-rein\nere he was even aware of her intention. \"If yonder tower is\nindeed your home, give him a night's shelter in it--only one\nnight--a single night--that he may rest from his weary travels.\"\n\n\"Nay, by the sword of Gideon, not even for an hour!\" he cried\nfuriously. \"Let go, maiden, let go! or I will strike thee as if\nthou wert a mad dog in my path.\"\n\nBut Nellie was by this time driven to desperation, and she would\nnot let go. She clung to the bridle-rein, crying out, \"Only one\nnight--one little night.\n{311}\nGod is my witness that if there was but so much as a peasant's\nhut within reach, I would die sooner than ask such a favor at\nyour hands.\"\n\nNearly as frantic with passion as she was with despair, he forced\nhis horse to rear again and again, in order to compel her to let\ngo; but finding, at last, that he could not shake her off, he\nraised his riding-whip, and it would have fallen heavily on her\nshoulders if, by a similar and almost simultaneous movement,\nOrmiston and his daughter had not hastily interfered.\n\n\"Major Hewitson!\" cried the former in a warning voice--and,\n\"Father, you shall not! you dare not!\" cried the girl, spurring\nher horse eagerly forward, and utterly regardless of the fact\nthat its heels were actually grazing the edge of the precipice as\nshe tried to wrest his whip from her father's grasp.\n\nAll the tenderness of the man's heart was wrapt up in his\ndaughter, and even in the midst of that moment of mad passion he\nsaw her danger, and cried out:\n\n\"Have a care, child, have a care! or you and your horse will be\nover the precipice ere you know what you are doing.\"\n\n\"Throw away your whip then, or I will back him over it with my\nown hands,\" she cried passionately; \"for I would sooner perish at\nonce than see my own father strike a helpless girl like myself.\"\n\n\"Send the Irish beggar hence at once then, will you?\" he answered\nfuriously, flinging away his whip as he spoke, and, tearing his\nrein by main force from Nellie's grasp, he galloped rapidly down\nthe hill.\n\nInstead of following him, the girl backed her horse further into\nthe recess in order to make room, and then waved her hand with\nthe gesture of an empress to the others to pass on. With the\nexception of Ormiston they all obeyed, and no sooner had they got\nto a little distance than she flung herself off her horse, and,\ntossing the reins to her companion, threw herself into the arms\nof the astonished Nellie, exclaiming:\n\n\"O my God, my God! and these are the deeds that we do in thy\nname! When wilt thou arise and come to judgment?\"\n\n\"Nay, grieve not thus, dear lady,\" said Nellie, generously\nforgetting her own great wrongs at the sight of such voluntary\nhumiliation. \"You at any rate have no cause to grieve, for\nwillingly you have done no wrong.\"\n\n\"Call me not lady; I am but a girl, a woman like yourself; only\"--she\nadded with a touch of pride so like humility that it was\nalmost as beautiful--\"only, probably, of meaner nature, and\ncertainly of less lofty lineage. What can I do for you? Alas!\nalas! why do I ask, for what _can_ I do? Shelter, except in\nmy father's house, I have none to offer; and in that, after what\nhe has said just now, I could not even ensure your lives.\"\n\nHere the young officer, who had by this time dismounted and\napproached the girl, endeavored to insinuate his purse into her\nhands; but she shook her head impatiently, and said, \"Money!\nmoney! of what use can money be in such wilds as these?\"\n\nNevertheless, on second thoughts, she took the purse, and would,\nperhaps, in a hesitating, shame-faced sort of way, have offered\nit to Nellie, if the latter had not said decidedly:\n\n\"As you say, dear lady, it would be worse than useless. Neither\nare we beggars. We did but seek what we thought to be our own.\nAnd now,\" she added sadly, \"we ask still less--even that which\nthe very beggars are thought to have a right to claim--but a\nshelter for a single night.\"\n\n{312}\n\n\"And even that I cannot give you,\" said the girl disconsolately;\n\"but at least,\" she added suddenly, in a brighter tone, \"I think\nI can tell you where to find that.\" She pointed with her whip to\na narrow path branching off a little lower down the hill, and\nleading apparently in the direction of the sea. \"Follow that\npath--it is neither long nor difficult--and it will lead you to\nthe waters of the creek below. At the very foot of the hill,\nwhere the path ends, you will find a hut; if empty, it will at\nleast give you shelter; if otherwise, its owner will, I doubt\nnot, make you welcome. He ought at least,\" she added quickly,\n\"for he also has lost something. Trust me, you are not the only\nones whom we have robbed for the achievement of our own\ngreatness. Farewell! and if ever you pray for your enemies, put\nus among the worst and foremost.\"\n\nShe turned to her horse as she finished speaking. Her companion\nwould fain have aided her to mount; but putting him pettishly on\none side, she leaped into the saddle without assistance, and\ngalloped back by the road which she had come. The officer, thus\nrepulsed, bowed respectfully to Nellie, and then, remounting his\nown horse, followed in the same direction. She cantered on,\nhowever, as if unconscious of his existence, merely urging her\nhorse to a quicker speed, in order to escape him--a manoeuvre\nwhich he took care, by imitating, to render useless. Finding, at\nlast, that he would not be shaken off, she pulled up suddenly,\nand said angrily, and without even deigning to look round:\n\n\"Why do you follow me? Why do you dog my footsteps? Ride back to\nmy father, will you? He is of your own creed and calling, and\nwill better appreciate your society that I can.\"\n\n\"Nay, Ruth,\" he was beginning, but she interrupted him almost\nfiercely--\n\n\"Call me by my own name if you wish that I should answer you. To\nyou at least, and to the world, I will still be Henrietta, though\nat my father's hands I am compelled to submit to this mummery of\na change of name.\"\n\n\"Well, then, Henrietta,\" he answered quietly, but very gravely,\n\"believe me, I did not mean to anger you. I said 'Ruth,' because\nthat name is so often on your father's lips that it has begun to\ncome almost naturally to mine. I would not willingly anger you at\nany time, and least of all, just now, when, in spite of what I\nmust call your unkind waywardness toward myself, I love and\nworship you, as I never did before, for that nobleness of nature\nwhich recoils, at any cost, from all that savors of injustice.\"\n\n\"Carry your love and worship elsewhere, then, for I will have\nnone of it,\" she said, evidently in nowise mollified by his\napology. \"What should I care for your good opinion? Do you not\nfeel in your heart of hearts, or must I tell you, that we are\ndivided, as far as the north pole from the south, in our most\nintimate convictions, and that what you and my father call\nreligion I consider as fanaticism--or that something which is\nworse than fanaticism, or almost than crime--hypocrisy.\"\n\n\"You cannot believe what you are saying,\" he answered, now\nindignant in his turn; \"you know how well and truly I have loved\nyou, and you cannot believe that I am a hypocrite; you\ncannot--you could not--you would not so dishonor me in your\nthoughts--you who have promised to be my wife!\"\n\n{313}\n\n\"I retract that promise, then,\" she answered passionately,\n\"wholly and entirely I retract it. Never, so help me God, will I\nbecome the mother of a race of fanatics, who will find, for such\ndeeds as we have seen done today, their pretext in religion.\"\n\n\"Henrietta!\" he cried, the blood rushing to his temples, \"you\ncannot be in earnest!\"\n\n\"See if I am not!\" she answered coldly. \"Ride back to my father\nnow, and let me go my ways alone to the tower.\"\n\n\"I will go to him, Henrietta; but it will only be to tell him\nthat I am about to return to my appointment in Dublin--unless,\nindeed,\" he added, with a lingering hope of\nreconciliation--\"unless, Henrietta, you retract.\"\n\n\"I never retract,\" she answered shortly.\n\n\"Then, farewell!\" he said, with a half movement, as if he would\nhave taken her hand.\"\n\n\"Farewell!\" she answered, affecting not to see his offered hand,\nand shaking the reins loose on her horse's neck.\n\nOrmiston turned his horse's head in the opposite direction, and\nwent forward a few paces; then he stopped and looked after his\nlate companion. She was moving on, but slowly, and like one lost\nin thought. Stirred by a sudden honest impulse of regret, he\nturned and followed her. Henrietta heard him, and instantly\nchecked her horse, as if determined not to suffer him to ride any\nlonger at her side.\n\n\"Henrietta!\" he said.\n\n\"What would you?\" she asked sullenly.\n\n\"Only unsay that one word, 'hypocrisy,' and let things be as they\nwere before.\"\n\n\"I never unsay what I have said,\" she answered coldly.\n\n\"Neither do I,\" he retorted, now angry in earnest; \"and I swear\nto you that I will see you no more until under your own hand and\nseal you retract, of your own accord, what you have said to-day,\nand tell me to return.\"\n\n\"Farewell, then, for ever,\" she replied, with rather a bad\nassumption of indifference--\"for ever, if so it must be.\"\n\n\"Farewell,\" he answered, without, however, as even in that moment\nHenrietta noticed, adding the ominous \"for ever.\" \"Farewell, and\nGod forgive you for so trifling with the honest heart that loves\nyou, and has loved you from your childhood. Some day--too late,\nperhaps--you will do me justice.\"\n\nAnd so they parted.\n\n\n    Chapter VII.\n\nLeft to herself, Nellie Netterville sat down to collect her\nscattered senses. The situation in which she found herself\nneeded, in truth, a calm sense and courage, not often the\nheritage of petted girlhood, in order to bear up successfully\nagainst its difficulties. Happily for herself, the brave Irish\ngirl was possessed of both in no common degree, and the trials\nand troubles of the last few months had ripened these faculties\ninto almost unnatural maturity. The tale she had just told to\nMajor Hewitson was free of the smallest attempt at exaggeration,\nbeing, in fact, rather under than over the measure of the truth.\nLord Netterville, in common with many another unfortunate\ngentleman of the English Pale, had been kept dancing attendance\non the commissioners at Loughrea until both hope and money failed\nhim.\n{314}\nThe absence of home comforts told heavily upon a frame already\nweakened by age and sorrow; and just at the moment when he could\nleast bear up against it, he was attacked by the plague, or some\ndisease analogous to the plague, which at that very time was\nmaking most impartial havoc among the native Irish and their\nfoes. Thanks to an iron constitution, he recovered, but he rose\nfrom his sickbed, if not absolutely a child in mind, yet as\nutterly incapable of aiding Nellie by advice, or of steering his\nown way unassisted through the troubled waters on which his ill\nfate had cast him, as if he had been in very deed an infant. His\nservant was already dead, therefore the whole responsibility of\ntheir future movements devolved upon his granddaughter. She\nproved herself, fortunately, not altogether unequal to the\noccasion, never losing sight for a moment of the purpose which\nhad brought her to Loughrea, and tormenting the commissioners\nuntil, less moved by her youth and helplessness than by a desire\nto rid themselves of her troublesome importunities, they gave her\nthe certificate which she had shown to Major Hewitson, and which,\nas he had instantly perceived, was rendered worse than useless to\nits possessor by the fact of its being merely a temporary\narrangement. Ignorant alike of Latin and law language, Nellie\nhad, naturally enough, supposed it to be a permanent appointment;\nand, selling their horses and every article of value in her\npossession, in order to pay the debts contracted at Loughrea, she\nhad made the rest of the journey on foot, leading, soothing, and\nencouraging the old man as if he had been a child, and buoying up\nhis courage and her own by fanciful descriptions of that home in\nthe far west, where she trusted his last days might be passed in\npeace. She had tried to deceive _him_; she never attempted\nto deceive _herself_ as to the nature of their future\nprospects; yet unpleasant as her anticipations had been, they\nwere so much more agreeable than the terrible realities upon\nwhich she had just stumbled, that she felt for a few moments, as\nshe sat there alone among the hills, as if the very gates of an\nearthly Paradise had been closed against her. But it was no\nmoment for the indulgence of such natural regrets. She looked at\nher grandfather, and felt that his life was in her hands. She\nremembered, too, her promise to her mother to be son as well as\ndaughter to his age; and sternly and tearlessly, for tears were\ntoo weak an expression for such desolation as she was feeling\nthen, she set herself to consider what her next move ought to be.\nFood and shelter for the old man--(and it needed not another\nglance at his pale face to tell her how much both were needed)\nfood and shelter--these must be her first object. It would be\ntime enough after they had been secured to decide as to the\nfeasibility of a return journey to Loughrea. She rose, and\ndrawing her hood, which, in her struggle with Major Hewitson, had\nfallen back upon her shoulders, once more over her head, she took\nher grandfather by the hand, and led him quietly and silently\ndown the path pointed out to her by Henrietta. It had originally\nbeen a sheep-path, and proved far less difficult than she had\nexpected, winding gradually round the hills until it reached a\nsort of creek or estuary formed by the inrushing, for a couple of\nmiles, of the waters from the bay beyond. It was a lonely, but a\nlovely spot, and Nellie's heart beat more calmly as she paused to\nlisten to the soft rocking of the waters in their inland bed, and\nto feel the fresh breeze which they brought from the ocean\nplaying on her heated brow.\n{315}\nThere were no visible signs near her of that human habitation of\nwhich Major Hewitson's daughter had so confidently spoken; but at\nlast, after having searched the landscape steadily in all\ndirections, she thought she saw something like a blue curl of\nsmoke rising out of a sort of mound, which, at first sight,\nseemed neither more nor less than a cairn of unusually large\ndimensions, nearly hidden by clumps of gorse and heather at least\nsix feet high, and bushy and luxuriant in proportion. On nearer\ninspection, however, it proved to be a hut, such a hut as even to\nthis day may be sometimes seen in the wildest parts of the wild\nwest, rounded at the gables, built of rough stones, rudely yet\nsolidly put together, and with a roof laid on of fern and\nshingle, carefully secured from the violence of the western winds\nby bands of twisted straw. A hole in this roof stood proxy both\nfor window and for chimney, and the doorway was literally\ndoorless. A sort of grass mat hung across it from the inside,\nbeing evidently considered by the inhabitants as ample protection\nagainst cold and wet, the only foes which extreme poverty has got\nto boast of.\n\nFor five seconds, at the very least, Nellie stood gazing on this\nfrail barrier with a feeling as if it would require more than\nhuman courage to announce her presence to the human beings (she\nknew not whether they were friends or enemies) who might be\nstowed away behind it. At last, with a shaking hand, she drew\nback a small corner of the matting, and, without daring to look\nin, saluted the possible inmates, as the natives of the country\nsalute each other to this day in Irish, \"God save all here!\"\nThere was no answer, and, lifting the curtain a little higher,\nshe looked in.\n\nThe hut was empty, though a few embers burning on the floor gave\nsufficient evidence of its having been recently inhabited. Of\nfurniture, save a single wooden settle, Nellie could discover\nnone; but a gun was standing upright against the opposite wall,\nand near it hung a very Spanish-seeming mantle, looking as much\nout of place in that miserable abode as its owner would probably\nhave done if he had been there to claim it. The solitude, and the\nsight of that gun and mantle, made her feel far more nervous than\nshe would have felt if a dozen of the natives of the soil had\nbeen congregated within. It seemed to imply some mystery, and, to\nthe helpless, mystery always has a touch of fear about it.\nMoreover, it made her suddenly conscious that she was an\nintruder, an idea which would never have come into her head if\nher possible hosts had been of that frank-hearted race to whom\nthe virtue of hospitality comes so easily that it does not even\noccur to them to call it \"virtue.\" On the other hand, her\ngrandfather's pale face and sunken features seemed to plead with\nher against all unseasonable timidity. Hastily, therefore, and as\nthough she were about to commit a theft, she put aside the\nmatting, drew the old man inside, and then replaced the screen as\ncarefully as if she hoped in this manner to hide her audacious\nproceedings from the owner of the hut--or rather, if the truth\nmust be told, from the owner of the mysterious mantle. This first\nstep fairly taken, Nellie suddenly grew brave, and resolving to\nmake the most of their impromptu habitation, she drew the settle\nnearer to the fire, and made Lord Netterville sit down upon it.\n\n{316}\n\nThe sight of the embers seemed to revive the latter, less perhaps\nfrom any need he felt of its warmth on that bright sunny day than\nfrom the home-like associations which it awakened in his mind. He\nsmiled a wintry smile, with more of old age than of gladness in\nit, and stretched forth his withered hands to warm them in the\nblaze. Then, as if suddenly waking up for the first time to a\nperception of his being foodless, he asked Nellie if supper would\nsoon be ready, for that in truth he was well-nigh starving.\nStarving he must have been, that poor Nellie knew well enough\nalready; for they had exhausted their scanty stock of food that\nvery day, and he had tasted nothing since the early dawn. She\nsoothed him, however, and besought him to have yet a little\npatience, and then, with a desperate resolution to appropriate to\nhis use whatever of food the hut might happen to contain, she\ncommenced a careful examination of its hidden nooks. There were,\nof course, neither shelves nor cupboards, or anything, indeed,\nwhich even suggested the idea of provisions having been ever kept\nthere; but at last, when she had almost begun to give up the\nsearch in despair, she espied something like the handle of a\nbasket peeping out from beneath a bundle of firewood which lay\nheaped in one corner of the hut upon the floor. Pouncing upon\nthis at once, she discovered that it contained a couple of\nsea-trout, upon which the owner of the mansion had probably\nintended making an early dinner, for they were already prepared\nfor broiling. With renewed energy Nellie took a handful of dried\nbrushwood, and threw it upon the half-extinguished fire, after\nwhich she proceeded, in her new character of cook, to lay, in a\nvery leisurely and scientific manner, the fish upon the embers.\nSo engrossed was she in this occupation, that she never perceived\nthat the mat curtain over the doorway had been once more lifted\nup, and that some one was watching her proceedings from the\noutside. This some one was a man, apparently about twenty-five or\nthirty years of age, with a figure rather above than below the\nmiddle height, and a face which, full of energy and expression as\nit was, was by no means regularly handsome, though the large,\nMurillo-looking eyes by which it was lighted up deceived casual\nbeholders into a conviction that it was.\n\nHe was clad in a garb which might have belonged to the native\nfishermen of the coast, yet no one could have mistaken him for\nother than a gentleman and soldier, as he stood there, holding\nback the screen of matting, and gazing, with a look curiously\ncompounded of amusement and annoyance, at the scene presented by\nthe interior of the cottage. The latter feeling, however, was\nevidently in the ascendant--so much so, indeed, that he had\nactually made a half-movement, as if to retreat and leave the hut\nto its uninvited occupants, when something--was it a glimpse of\nNellie's delicate profile, as she stooped over the glowing\nembers?--induced him to change his mind, and stepping quietly\nover the threshold, he dropped the screen behind him with an\nenergy and good-will which seemed to indicate that, instead of\nhis premeditated flight, he had made up his mind to accept with a\ngood grace, and perhaps even to enjoy, this unexpected addition\nto his society. The sound of the falling mat warned Nellie of the\nadvent of a stranger, and, crimson with shame and fear, she stood\nup to receive him. He gazed upon her steadily, the half-feeling\nof annoyance, still visible on his clouded brow, yielding\ngradually to a look of intense but reverent admiration, and\nremoving his fisherman's cap from his head, he bowed courteously,\nand said in English:\n\n{317}\n\n\"God save all here, and a hundred thousand welcomes also, if, as\nI apprehend, you are fugitives like myself from tyranny and\ninjustice.\"\n\nThere was an indescribable tact and courtesy in the way in which\nhe combined this announcement of his being the master of the hut\nwith a frank and ready welcome to his unknown visitants, which\nmade Nellie feel at once that she had to do, not only with a man\nof gentle birth but of high and polished breeding also. Yet this\nfact seemed for the moment rather to add to her difficulty than\nto decrease it, and secretly wishing that the fish could be made,\nby some magical process, to disappear from the embers upon which\nit was comfortably broiling, she placed herself as much as she\ncould between it and the stranger as she stammered out her\napology for intrusion. Did he see the fish? and did he guess at\nthe petty larceny she had just committed? Nellie fancied she saw\nsomething like an amused look in his eye, which made her feel hot\nand cold by turns with the consciousness of discovered guilt, but\nthe rest of his features wore no smile, nothing but an expression\nof kind and courteous sympathy as he eagerly interrupted her\nexcuses--\n\n\"Say no more, dear lady, say no more, trust me I have not now to\nlearn for the first time to what dire straits the sad necessity\nof these days of woe may bring us. And, therefore, to all who\ncome to this poor hut, but more especially to those who, for\nhonor and for conscience sake, have laid down wealth and power\nelsewhere, I have but one word--one greeting, and that is the\nold Irish one, of a hundred thousand welcomes.\"\n\n\"A hundred thousand welcomes!\" repeated a feeble, quivering voice\nclose to the stranger's elbow. He turned and looked for the first\ntime steadily at Lord Netterville, of whose presence up to that\nmoment he had been barely conscious. The old man had risen from\nhis seat, and stood smiling and bowing courteously, evidently\nthinking he was doing the honors of a home, of which--however\nhumble--he was yet the undoubted master.\n\n\"Our house is poor, sir,\" he went on, \"once, indeed, we boasted\nof a better; but let that pass. Such as it is--such as our\nenemies have made it--you may reckon assuredly upon meeting an\nIrish welcome in it.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" whispered Nellie through her tears, fearing lest the\nstranger might break in too rudely on the old man's delusion. \"He\nis old--he has been ill--he fancies he has reached his home; you\nmust excuse him.\"\n\nThe unknown turned his eyes upon the girl with a look so full of\nreverent sympathy, that it went straight to her heart, never\nafterward to be effaced from thence. She felt that her\ngrandfather would be safe in such kindly hands, and was turning\nquietly away when Lord Netterville, still enacting his fancied\ncharacter of host, threw a handful of dry wood upon the fire, and\nthe blaze that instantly ensued fell full upon his features,\nwhich had hitherto been barely visible in the gloom. The stranger\nstarted violently.\n\n\"Good God!\" he cried, in a tone of irrepressible astonishment.\n\"Is it possible that I see Lord Netterville, and in such a\nplight?\"\n\n\"You know my grandfather, then?\" cried Nellie joyously, feeling\nas if the stranger must have been sent by Providence especially\nto help her in the hour of her utmost need. \"You know my\ngrandfather?\"\n\n{318}\n\n\"I ought, at any rate,\" he answered, with a sad smile, as he took\nLord Netterville's proffered hand. \"For we fought together and\nwere beaten at Kilrush; my first battle, and, as I suppose, his\nlast.\"\n\n\"Ha!\" cried the old man, \"Kilrush! Kilrush! who speaks to me of\nKilrush? Were you there, sir? Time must have played sad tricks\nupon my memory then, for, truth to say, I do not recognize you.\"\n\n\"Nay, my good lord,\" said the stranger soothingly, \"it would be\nstranger still if you had done so, for I was but a beardless boy\nin those days. Nevertheless, I remember _you_, Lord\nNetterville, and surely you cannot have altogether forgotten the\ncheer we gave when you, a tried and veteran soldier, rode up to\nserve with us as a volunteer in the regiment of your gallant\nson.\"\n\n\"I remember! I remember!\" cried the old man eagerly. \"It was a\nbright and glorious morning, and we charged them gallantly--a\nbright and glorious morning, but with a sad and bloody ending.\nAlas! alas!\" he added, his voice falling suddenly from its\ntrumpet-like tone of exultation to an old man's wail of sorrow.\n\"Alas! alas! how many of the best and bravest that we had among\nus lay dead and trampled in the dust, as we withdrew from that\nfatal field.\"\n\nHe bowed his head upon his breast, and remained for a little\nwhile absorbed in thought, and Nellie took advantage of the pause\nto say:\n\n\"You knew my father, sir? You must have known him if you were\nnear Lord Netterville at Kilrush; for father and son charged side\nby side, and were seldom, as I have since been told, ten minutes\nout of each other's sight during the whole of that bloody\nbattle.\"\n\n\"Knew your father? Yes, dear lady--if your father was, as I\nsuppose, Colonel Netterville--I knew him well. He was the bosom\nfriend of my uncle and namesake, Roger Moore of Leix, who placed\nme in his regiment when I joined the Irish army.\"\n\n\"Roger Moore of Leix,\" cried Nellie, a flash of enthusiasm\nlighting up her face; \"Roger Moore--the brave--the gifted--the\nfirst leader in a noble cause, whose very name was a battle-cry,\nand whose followers rushed into fight, shouting for 'God--our\nLady--and Roger Moore!' Yes, yes; he was my father's friend. I\nremember even when I was a child how he used to talk about him.\nAnd _you_,\" she added, with a sudden change of voice and\nmanner, and placing both her hands in his, \"_you_, then, are\nthat Roger Moore, the younger, in whose arms my poor father\ndied.\"\n\n\"At the battle of Benburb,\" said Moore, in a low voice; \"a\nglorious battle--well fought, and well won, and yet for ever to\nbe regretted, for the loss of one of Ireland's bravest and most\nfaithful soldiers.\"\n\n\"Grandfather,\" cried Nellie, suddenly withdrawing her hands from\nRoger, and blushing scarlet at the inadvertence of her own action\nwhich had placed them in his, \"this is Captain Moore, who bore my\nwounded father out of the press of battle, and to whom we are\nindebted for that last and loving farewell which he sent to us in\ndying.\"\n\nBut instead of replying with an eagerness corresponding to her\nown, Lord Netterville gazed vacantly upon the stranger, evidently\nwithout the slightest recollection of his name or person, and\nrepeated, in a low mechanical voice, his previously-muttered\nwelcome.\n\n\"He does not remember!\" said Roger. \"Alas! alas! for that bright\nintellect, once cloudless as a summer's noon!\"\n\n{319}\n\n\"Hush, hush!\" whispered Nellie. \"Recollection is beginning to\nreturn.\" And Lord Netterville did, in fact, seem to be making a\nlanguid effort at gathering up his scattered thoughts, for he\nlooked at Roger, and said feebly:\n\n\"You knew my son, sir?--you knew my son?--then, indeed, you are\nvery welcome. He was a brave boy, and fought for his king and\ncountry--fought and fell--on the field of--the field of--the\nname--which I thought never to forget--has almost escaped me.\"\n\n\"Benburb,\" Roger ventured to interpose.\n\n\"Benburb! Ay, that was the very name--Benburb!--my memory does\nnot fail me, sir; but I have been much tried of late--or we rode\ntoo far this morning--for I feel very faint.\"\n\nHe tried to draw back from the fire as he spoke, but he tottered,\nand would have fallen if Roger had not caught him by the arm, and\nmade him sit down upon the settle.\n\n\"He is faint for want of food,\" said Nellie hastily; \"we have\nbeen wandering all day among the hills, and he has not broken his\nfast since morning.\"\n\nRoger did not answer, but signing to her to support Lord\nNetterville, he went straight to some invisible cranny in the\nwalls of the hut, and drew thence a bottle of strong cordial.\nPouring a little of this into a broken mug, he made the old man\nswallow it, and then stood beside him, anxiously watching the\nresult. Happily it was favorable--in a few minutes Lord\nNetterville revived, the color returned to his wan cheek, and\nturning to Nellie, he asked her, in a half-whisper, \"if supper\nwould soon be ready?\" Shyly, and blushing scarlet, Nellie nodded\nan affirmative, and forgetting all her previous shame in anxiety\nfor her grandfather, she was about to resume her office as cook,\nwhen, with a half-smile on his face, Roger Moore put her quietly\naside.\n\n\"Nay, Mistress Netterville, remember that I am master here, and\nthat I forbid you to lay hands upon that fish? I have always been\ncook in my own proper person to the establishment, and I cannot\nallow you to supersede me in the office.\"\n\n\"Forgive me!\" said Nellie, tears starting to her eyes, and half\nfancying in her confusion that he was angry in earnest. \"I could\nnot help it, for he was starving.\"\n\n\"Do not misunderstand me, I entreat you,\" said Roger, in a voice\nof deep and real feeling; \"I should be a brute if I objected to\nanything you have or could have done; I only meant that I\nobjected to your continuing in that office; for so long as the\ndaughter of my old colonel is under my roof, (even though it be\nbut a poor mud sheeling,) she shall do no work, with my\ngood-will, unfit for the hands of a princess.\" He busied himself\nwhile speaking in drawing forth, from that same recess in which\nhe had found the cordial, some thin oaten cakes, a few wooden\nplatters, and one or two knives and spoons of such massive\nsilver, that Nellie could not help thinking they were as much out\nof keeping with the rest of the furniture as Roger himself\nappeared to be with the hut, of which he was doing the honors in\nsuch simple and yet such courtly fashion. He would not even let\nher hold the platter upon which he placed the fish as he took it\nfrom the embers, and he himself then brought it to Lord\nNetterville, and pressed him, as tenderly as if he had been a\nchild, to partake of this impromptu supper.\n\n{320}\n\nThe old man yielded, nothing loath, and so, indeed, did his\ngrandchild; for, though very fair to look at, no goddess was poor\nNellie, but a young and growing girl with the healthy appetite of\nsixteen. She accepted, therefore, Roger's invitation without the\nsmallest affectation of reluctance, and sitting down on the floor\nbeside her grandfather, shared the contents of his platter with\ninnocent and undisguised enjoyment. With all her sense and\ncourage, she was as yet in many things a perfect child, yielding\nas easily as a child might do to the first ray of sunshine that\nbrightened on her path, and accepting the happiness of the\npresent moment as unrestrainedly as if never even suspecting the\nshadows that were lurking in her future. Now, therefore, that she\nfelt her grandfather was in safe and helpful keeping, she threw\noff the sense of responsibility which had weighed her down for\nmonths, and became almost gay. Color rose to her wasted cheek,\nlight sparkled in her eyes, and she responded to Roger's efforts\nto make her feel comfortable and at home, with such innocent and\nunbounded faith in his wish and power to befriend them, that he\nvowed an inward vow never to forsake her, but to guard her, as if\nshe had been in very deed his sister, through the trials and\ndangers of her unprotected exile. When their meal was over, and\nwhile her grandfather slumbered in the quiet warmth of the\npeat-fire, she told Roger Moore her story, simply and briefly as\nshe might have told it to a brother, beginning at her departure\nfrom her ancestral home, and ending with her encounter with the\nEnglish strangers among the mountains.\n\n\"It is Major Hewitson,\" said Roger, \"in whose favor I have been\ndespoiled of my old home. Major Hewitson and his pretty daughter\n'Ruth,' as he chooses to call her, in order to blot out the fact\nthat her name is Henrietta, and that she had a popish queen for\nher godmother. She forgets it not herself, however,\" he added,\nwith a smile; \"for her mother was of noble race, and they say\nthat she is a true cavalier at heart, and pines like a caged bird\nin the network of demure fanaticism which her father has twined\naround her.\"\n\n\"She has a lovely face and a kind and honest heart, for certain,\"\nsaid Nellie. \"She knows you also, now I think of it; for she it\nwas who directed me to this hut, with a hint that I should here\nfind a friend.\"\n\n\"Did she?\" said Roger, with genuine fervour. \"Nay, then, for that\none good deed I needs must pardon her, that she, or her father\nfor her, have robbed me of my inheritance. And now I think of\nit,\" he added, with a touch of sly malice in his smile, \"you\nalso, if you came hither to seek land, must have been bound on\nthe same errand; for both these baronies, 'Umhall uaghtragh' and\n'Umhall ioghtragh,' is the country of the O'Mailly's, and, in\nright of my grandmother, my own.\"\n\nNellie blushed scarlet. \"Alas!\" she said, \"I knew not whither or\nto whom they sent us; but sure am I, at all events, that we never\nwould have accepted of any home at the expense of its rightful\nowners.\"\n\n\"Nay,\" said Roger, \"I did but jest. Would indeed that it was to\nyou I had been compelled to yield it! In spite of that fact you\nshould have had, I promise you, a right royal welcome. And now I\nmust needs explain. This sheeling, you must know, is not really\nmy home. It is but a temporary refuge, of which I have two or\nthree along the coast; for I have fought battles enough against\nEngland's new-fangled government to have deserved the honors of\noutlawry at her hands.\n{321}\nMy life consequently has been none too safe at any time these six\nmonths past, and now that yonder gray-haired fanatic, who would\nask nothing better than to seal his title in my blood, has got\npossession of these lands, it is of course less secure than ever.\nMy most permanent home, however, is on an island, facing the bay\non this side, and washed by the waters of the Atlantic on the\nother. It is poor enough, God knows, yet capable of giving better\naccommodation than such a hut as this is. Will you and your\ngrandfather be content to share it with me?\"\n\nTears rushed into the dark eyes of Nellie.\n\n\"Providence is good,\" she answered simply--\"Providence is very\ngood, and gives us friends when we least expect them.\"\n\n\"Well, then, it is a bargain,\" cried Roger gayly; \"and now.\nMistress Netterville, come and see the craft in which you will\nhave to make the voyage.\"\n\nHe pulled down the \"mysterious mantle\" as he spoke, and Nellie\nsaw that, instead of covering the bare wall as she had imagined,\nit merely concealed an opening into an inner and smaller portion\nof the hut, built right over the creek, and made to answer the\npurpose of a boat-house. Into this the water rushed, so as to\nform a basin deep enough for the floating of a boat, and one\naccordingly lay safe within it, concealed by the overhanging roof\nfrom observation on the outside.\n\nIt was not flat-bottomed like the native craft, but had been\nevidently built both for strength and speed by one who understood\nhis business, and its chief cargo at this particular moment\nseemed to be a quantity of luxuriant heather.\n\nTo this Roger pointed with a smile. \"If I were a Highlander,\" he\nsaid, \"you might suspect me of second-sight; for I have gathered,\nwithout thinking of it, double the usual quantity of heather,\nthat which we outlaws perforce use for bedding. I hope you will\nnot mind roughing it a little.\"\n\n\"I have roughed it a good deal within the last few months,\" said\nNellie, \"and I do not think you will find me difficult to please.\nIs the boat quite safe? I have never been out on the real sea\nbefore.\"\n\n\"Safe!\" said the young man, with a little pardonable pride in his\ndark eyes. \"I built her myself, and she has weathered more than\none bad storm since the first day that I sailed her. I call her\nthe 'Grana Uaille,' after the stout old chieftainess whose island\nkingdom I inhabit, and which, with the other lands of which Major\nHewitson has robbed me, I inherit from my grandmother. But the\nsun is getting low. Do you not think we had better start at once,\nand get the voyage over before night-fall?\"\n\nTo this Nellie gladly assented, and between them they conducted\nLord Netterville to the boat. Roger arranged the heather so as to\nform a sort of couch, and, with the mantle thrown over him to\nprotect him from the damp, the old man found himself so\ncomfortable that he settled himself quietly for slumber. Then\nRoger put up his sail, and with a fresh and favorable wind they\nglided down the creek.\n\nNellie would not lie down, but she sat back in the boat with a\nlazy kind of gladness in her heart, which, rightly interpreted,\nwould probably have been found to mean perfect rest of body and\nmind. Such rest as she had not felt for months! The waters\nwidened as they approached the bay, and Nellie marked each new\nfeature in the scene with an interest all the keener and more\nenjoyable, that everything she saw was so unlike anything she had\never seen before.\n{322}\nAccustomed as she had been to the tamer cultivation of her native\ncountry, the savage grandeur of that wild west, with its poverty\nin human life, its wealth in that which was merely animal, took\nher completely by surprise, and she gazed with unwearied\ninterest, now on the undulating ranges of blue mountains which\ncrossed and recrossed each other like network against the sky,\nthen on the broad, black tracts of peat and bog land which\ncovered the country at their feet like a pall; listened now to\nthe bittern and plover as they answered each other from the\nmarshes, then to the shrill screams of the curlews as they rose\nbefore the boat, darkening the air with their uncounted numbers;\nor she watched a heron sweeping slowly homeward from its distant\nfishing-ground--or a grand old eagle soaring solemnly upward, as\nif bent on a visit to the departing sun; and her delight and\nastonishment at last reached their climax in the apparition of a\nseal, which, just as they cleared the creek, popped its head up\nabove the waves, leaving her, in spite of Roger's laughing\nassurances to the contrary, well-nigh persuaded that she had seen\na mermaid. The wind continuing steady, Roger shook out his last\nremaining reef, and, responding gayly to the fresh impulse, the\nboat sprang forward at a racing pace. They were in Clew Bay at\nlast, and Nellie uttered a cry of joy--never had she seen\nanything so beautiful before. Masses of clouds, with tints just\ncaught from the presence of the sun, soft greens and lilacs, and\npale primrose and delicate pearly white, so clear and filmy that\nthe evening star could be seen glancing through them, hung right\noverhead, shedding a thousand hues, each more beautiful than the\nother, upon the bay beneath, until it flowed like a liquid opal\nround its multitude of tribute isles. Opposite, right in the very\nmouth of the harbor, stood Clare Island, all alight and glowing,\nas if it were in very deed the pavilion of the setting sun,\nwhich, as it sank into the waves beyond it, wrapped tower, and\nchurch, and slanting cliff, and winding shoreline, in such a\nglory of gold and purple as made the old kingdom of Grana Uaille\nlook for the moment like a palace of the fairies. Nellie was\nstill straining her eyes for a glimpse of the Atlantic on the\nother side, when the deep baying of a hound came like sad, sweet\nmusic over the waters, and Roger slightly touched her shoulder.\nThey were close to the island; in another moment he had run his\nboat cleverly into the little harbor and laid her alongside the\npier. A huge wolf-dog, of the old Irish breed, instantly bounded\nin, nearly oversetting Nellie in his eagerness to greet his\nmaster.\n\nRoger laid one restraining hand on the dog's massive head, and\nremoving his cap with the other, said, smiling courteously:\n\n\"You must not be afraid of Maida, Mistress Netterville, she is as\ngentle as she is strong, and has only come to add her voice to\nher master's, and to bid you welcome to the outlaw's home.\"\n\n\n    Chapter VIII.\n\nNellie slept that night the peaceful slumbers of a child; but the\nhabits of long weeks of care were not to be so easily shaken off,\nand the first ray of sunshine that found its way through the\nnarrow window of her chamber roused her from her well-earned\nrepose.\n{323}\nHer first impulse was, as it had ever been of late, to spring\nfrom her couch with a painful sense of hard duty to be\naccomplished that very day; her next was to thank God with all\nthe fervor of a young and innocent heart for the haven of safety\ninto which he had guided her at last. Then she lay back upon her\npillow, and, yielding to the delightful consciousness that there\nwas now no immediate call upon her for exertion either of body or\nmind, glanced languidly round the dimly-lighted room, and\nendeavored to make a mental inventory of its contents. It was a\nsquare chamber, forming the second story of the old tower in\nwhich Roger had taken up his abode, and which was all that was\nyet remaining of the old stronghold of Grana Uaille. The\napartment had evidently no furniture of its own to boast of, but,\nhaving been used as a sort of lumber-room, was abundantly\nsupplied with articles brought hither from more favored mansions.\nNellie soon perceived that much of this so-called lumber was of\nthe costliest description, and represented probably the sum total\nof all that had been saved from the wreck of Roger's fortune.\nThere were cabinets of curious workmanship, a table carved in oak\nas black as ebony, a few high-backed chairs of the same material,\nornaments in gold and silver, some of ancient Celtic manufacture,\nothers in their more delicate workmanship bearing marks of\nartistic handling, which, even to Nellie's unaccustomed eye,\nbetrayed their foreign origin. There were pictures, too, most of\nthem with the dark shadow of a Spanish hand upon them, and\nswords, bucklers, weapons, and armor of all kinds, old and new,\ndefensive and offensive, piled up here and there in picturesque\nconfusion in the corners of the turret. Nellie had been amusing\nherself for some minutes scanning all these treasures over and\nover, and guessing at their various uses, when her attention\nbecame suddenly riveted upon a huge coffer with bands and\nmouldings of curiously-wrought brass, which stood against the\nwall exactly opposite to the foot of her bed. She was still quite\ngirl enough to be willing to amuse herself by imagining all sorts\nof impossibilities respecting the contents of this mysterious\nlooking piece of furniture, and she was watching it as anxiously\nas if she half expected it to open of itself, when the door of\nthe chamber was cautiously unclosed, and the old woman, who\nrepresented the office of cook, valet, and everything else in\nRoger's establishment, crept up to her bedside as quietly as if\nshe fancied her to be sleeping still.\n\n\"God's blessing and the light of heaven be on your sweet smiling\nface,\" she ejaculated, as Nellie turned her bright, wide-open\neyes with a grateful smile upon the old hag. \"Lie still a bit,\na-lannah, lie still, and take a sup of this fresh goat's whey\nthat I have been making for you. It will bring the color, may be,\ninto your pretty cheeks again; for troth, a-lannah, they are as\npale this morning as mountain roses, and not at all what they\nshould be in regard to a young and well-grown slip of a lassie\nlike yourself.\"\n\nNellie took the tempting beverage, which Nora presented to her in\nan old-fashioned silver goblet, readily enough; but checking\nherself just as she was about to put it to her lips, she said,\ngayly:\n\n\"Thanks, a thousand times, my dear old woman, but I do not feel\nthat I need it much, and this whey would be the very thing for my\npoor old grandfather. He was always accustomed to something of\nthe sort in the days when we were able to indulge ourselves in\nsuch luxuries.\"\n\n{324}\n\n\"Lord bless the child!\" said the delighted Nora. \"If she isn't as\ngay as a bird in its mother's nest this morning, for all the\nweary worry of her last night's travels. But there's no need to\nbe sparing of the whey, my honey, for sure I've a good sup of it\nleft on purpose for the old lord as soon as ever he awakens. So\ndrink up every drop of this, if you wouldn't have the master\nscold me; for he sent it up himself, he did, and it's downright\nmad he'd be if it came back to him and it not empty.\"\n\nSomething in this speech, or in old Nora's way of making it,\ncaused the blood, the absence of which she had been just\ndeploring, to rush once more into Nellie's cheek; and perhaps it\nwas partly to hide this weakness that she took the goblet without\nanother word, and drained it to the dregs, playfully turning its\nwrong side up as she gave it back to Nora, in order to show her\nhow thoroughly her directions had been complied with. Made happy\non this important point, the old woman trotted gayly out of the\nroom, and then Nellie rose, half-reluctantly, it must be\nconfessed, and commenced the duties of the toilet. They were\nsimple enough in her case, yet difficult, also, from their very\nsimplicity. Her hair, long and smooth and shining, was easily\nenough disposed in braids, which, folded tightly round her head,\ngave a grace and elegance to her appearance none of the fantastic\nhead-gear then in vogue could possibly have imparted; but when\nshe came to inspect the habiliments she had worn the day before,\nand which perforce she must wear again that day, she became\npainfully, and, perhaps for the first time, fully conscious of\nthe dilapidations which time and travel had wrought upon them. In\nvain she rubbed out mud and grass stains, in vain she plied her\nneedle. The garments absolutely defied her skill, and, painfully\nconscious of the fact, she was about perforce to don them as they\nwere, when Nora burst into the room with a look of gladness on\nher face, which vanished, however, to do her justice, as\ncompletely as if it had never been, at the sight of poor Nellie,\nshame-faced and sad, vainly trying to smooth her rags into\nsomething like decent poverty around her.\n\n\"God help you, a-cushla!\" she cried in a tone of unfeigned\ncompassion, laying at the same time her withered hand upon the\ntattered kerchief which Nellie was trying to fold round her\nstately shoulders. \"God help ye! and is this all that them black\nscum of Saxon robbers left ye when they turned ye out upon the\nwide world to seek your fortune?\"\n\n\"It cannot be helped,\" said Nellie with a little choking in her\nvoice, though she tried hard to veil it beneath an assumption of\nindifference. \"And after all, these rags do but make me seem what\nin fact I am--a beggar. Only I hope,\" she added, with a little\nnervous laugh, \"I hope that Colonel O'More\" (she had learned his\nmilitary rank and his real name, Moore being only its Saxon\nrendering, the night before from Nora) \"will not be utterly\ndisgusted this morning when he finds out to what a pauper he\nextended his hospitality last night.\"\n\n\"The colonel? Is it the master that you mean? The master be\ndisgusted! Ah! now, listen to me, asthore, and don't be filling\nyour head with them ugly fancies; for you may just take my word\nfor it, and don't I know every turn of his mind as well as if I\nwas inside of it? You may just take old Nora's word for it, that\nhe worships the very ground you tread on, and would, too, all the\nsame, if you had never a brogue to the foot or a kirtle to the\nback.\n{325}\nBeggar, indeed! Why, could not he see for himself last night that\nyou had been just robbed and murdered like out of your own by\nthem thieving Saxons, and wasn't it for that very reason that,\nbefore he went off to his fishing this blessed morning, he gave\nme the key of that big black box, and says--says he, 'Nora, my\nold woman, I have been thinking that the young lady up-stairs has\nbeen so long on the road that may be she'll be in want of a new\ndress like; so, as there is nothing like decent woman-tailoring\nto be found in the island, maybe she'll condescend to see if\nthere's anything in my poor mother's box that would suit her for\nthe present.' And troth, my darling,\" old Nora went on, \"it's you\nthat are going to have the pick and choice of fine things; for\nshe was a grand Spanish lady, she was, and always went about\namong us dressed like a princess.\"\n\nNora had opened the box at the beginning of this speech, and with\nevery fresh word she uttered, she flung out such treasures of\nfinery on the floor as fully justified her panegyric on the\ndeceased lady's wardrobe.\n\nNellie soon found herself the centre of a heap of thick silks and\nshiny satins, and three-piled velvets and brocaded stuffs,\nstanding upright by virtue of their own rich material, and of\nlaces so delicate and fine, that they looked as if she had only\nto breathe upon them in order to make them float away upon the\nair like cobwebs.\n\nShe was quite too much of a girl as yet to be able to resist a\nclose and curious examination of such treasures; nevertheless,\nher instinct of the fitness of things was stronger than her\nvanity, and there was an incongruity between these courtly\nhabiliments and her broken fortunes, which made her feel that it\nwould be an absolute impossibility to wear them. Selecting,\ntherefore, a few articles of linen clothing, she told old Nora\nthat everything else was far too fine for daily wear, and began,\nof her own accord, to restore them to their coffer. Not so,\nhowever, the good old Nora. That _any_ thing could be too\nfine for the adornment of any one whom \"the master\" delighted to\nhonor, was a simple absurdity in her mind; and she became so\nclamorous in her remonstrances, that Nellie was fain to shift her\nground, and to explain that she was bent at that moment upon\n\"taking a long ramble by the sea-shore, for which anything like a\ndress of silk or satin (Nora's own good sense must tell her)\nwould be, to say the least of it, exceedingly inappropriate.\"\n\nAt these words a new light seemed to dawn upon the old woman's\nmind, and, plunging almost bodily down into the deep coffer in\nher eagerness to gratify her _prot\u00e9g\u00e9_, she exclaimed, \"So\nit's for a walk you'd be going this morning, is it? and after all\nyour bother last night! Well, well, you are young still, and\nwould rather, I daresay, be skipping about like a young kid among\nthe rocks than sitting up in silks and satins as grave and\nstately as if you were a princess in earnest. Something plain and\nstrong? That's what you'll be wanting, isn't it, a-lannah? Wait a\nbit, will you? for I mind me now of a dress the old mistress had\nmade when she was young, for a frolic, like, that she might go\nwith me unnoticed to a 'pattern.' And may I never sin if I\nhaven't got it,\" she cried, diving down once more into the\ncoffer, and bringing up from its shining chaos a dress which,\nconsisting as it did simply of a madder-colored petticoat and\nshort over-skirt of russet brown, was not by any means very\ndissimilar to the habitual costume of a peasant girl of the west\nat the present hour.\n{326}\nNora was right. It was, as ladies have it, \"the very thing!\"\nStout enough and plain enough to meet all Nellie's ideas of\npropriety, and yet presenting a sharp contrast of coloring which\n(forgive her, my reader, she was only sixteen) she was by no\nmeans sorry to reflect would be exceedingly becoming to her\nclear, pale complexion, and the blue-black tresses of her hair.\nIt was with a little blush of pleasure, therefore, that she took\nit from the old woman's hand, exclaiming, \"Oh! thank you, dear\nNora. It is exactly what I was wishing for--so strong and pretty.\nIt will make me feel just as I want to feel, like a good strong\npeasant girl, able and willing to work for her living; and, to\nsay the truth, moreover,\" she added, somewhat confidentially, \"I\nshould not at all have liked making my appearance in those fine\nSpanish garments. I should have been so much afraid of the O'More\ntaking me for his mother.\"\n\nThe annunciation of this grave anxiety set off old Nora in a fit\nof laughing, under cover of which Nellie contrived to complete\nher toilette. Madder-dyed petticoat, and, russet skirt, and long\ndark mantle, she donned them all; but the effect, though\nexceedingly pretty, was by no means exactly what she had\nexpected; for Nora, turning her round and round for closer\ninspection, declared, with many an Irish expletive, which we\nwillingly spare our readers, \"That dress herself how she might,\nno one could ever mistake her for anything but what she really\nwas, namely, a born lady, and perhaps even, moreover, a princess\nin disguise.\" With a smile and a courtesy Nellie accepted of the\ncompliment, and then tripped down the winding staircase of her\nturret, took one peep at Lord Netterville as he lay in the room\nbelow, in the \"calliogh\" or nook by the hearth, which, screened\noff by a bent matting, had been allotted to him as the warmest\nand most comfortable accommodation the tower afforded, and having\nsatisfied herself that he was still fast asleep, stepped out\ngayly into the open air. She was met at the door by \"Maida,\" who\nnearly knocked her down in her boisterous delight at beholding\nher again, and she was playfully defending herself from the too\nrapturous advances of her four-footed friend when Roger ran his\nfishing-boat alongside the pier, and, evidently mistaking Nellie\nfor some bare-footed visitor of Nora's, called out in Irish:\n\n\"Hilloa, ma colleen dhas! run back to the tower, will you, and\ntell Nora to fetch me down a basket, and you shall have a good\nhandful of fish for your pains, for I have caught enough to\ngarrison the island for a week.\"\n\nGuessing his mistake and enchanted at the success of her\nmasquerade, Nellie instantly darted into the kitchen, seized a\nfishing-creel which was lying near the hearth, and rushed down to\nthe pier. Roger was still so busy disentangling the fish from the\nnet in which he had caught them, that he never even looked at\nNellie until he turned round to place them in her basket. Then\nfor the first time he saw who it was whom he had been so\nunceremoniously ordering about upon his commission. Had Nellie\nbeen rich and prosperous, he would probably have laughed and made\nexceedingly light of the matter; but poor, and almost dependent\non his bounty as she was, he flushed scarlet to the forehead, and\napologized with an eager deference, which was not only very\ntouching in itself, but very characteristic of the sensitive and\ngenerous-hearted race from which he sprung.\n{327}\n\"But, after all,\" he added, in conclusion, smiling and laying his\nfinger lightly on the folds of Nellie's mantle, \"after all, how\ncould I dream that, her weeks of weary wandering only just\nconcluded, Mistress Netterville would have been up again with the\nsun, looking as fresh and bright as the morning dew, and\nmasquerading like a peasant girl?\"\n\n\"But I am not masquerading at all,\" said Nellie, laughing, and\nyet evidently quite in earnest. \"I am as poor as a peasant girl,\nand mean to dress like one, ay, and to work like one too, so long\nas I needs must be dependent upon others.\"\n\n\"Not if I am still to be master here,\" said Roger, very\ndecidedly, taking the fishing-creel out of her hands. \"Like a\nwandering princess you have come to me; and like a wandering\nprincess I intend that you shall be treated, so long as you\ncondescend to honor me by your presence in this kingdom of barren\nrocks.\"\n\n\"But the fish,\" said the laughing and blushing Nellie; \"in the\nmeantime, what is to be done with the fish? Nora will be in pain\nabout it; for she told me last night that there wasn't a blessed\nfish in the bay that would be worth a 'thraneen' if only\nhalf-an-hour were suffered to elapse between their exit from the\nocean and their introduction to her kitchen.\"\n\n\"Nora is quite right,\" said Roger, responding freely to the young\ngirl's merry laugh; \"and it has cost me both time and pains, I do\nassure you, to impress that fact upon her mind. But Maida has\nalready told her all about it; and here she comes,\" he added, as\nhe caught a glimpse of the old woman descending leisurely toward\nthe pier. \"So now we may leave the fish with a safe conscience to\nher tender mercies, and, if you are inclined for a stroll, I will\ntake you up to yonder rocky platform, from whence you will see\nthe Atlantic, as unfortunately we but seldom see it on this wild\ncoast, in all the calm glories of a summer day.\"\n\n\n  To Be Continued.\n\n--------\n\n{328}\n\n         Mexico, By Baron Humboldt [Footnote 57]\n\n    [Footnote 57: _Essai politique sur le Royaume de\n    Nouvelle-Espagne_. 2 vols. fol. Chez F. Schoell. Paris.]\n\nSome old books, like some old married couples, deserve a second\ncelebration. Fifty years are surely long enough to wait for a\nrehearsal of nuptials; and a married pair who can for a\nhalf-century live at peace with themselves and the public,\nrespected and esteemed, receive a merited recognition and a\npleasing recompense. Books that have circulated with an equal\nlongevity and enjoyed universal appreciation, have also their\nrights for a share of the cakes and ale. If the old people have\nonly a new coat and a new gown, they look young again; if the old\nfavorite volumes are honored with a fresh binding, their\nbackbones seems strengthened. It is charming to witness an\nancient dame clinging to the side of her equally ancient husband\nfor time almost out of mind; and it has a home look to find two\nvenerable tomes, called Volume One and Volume Two, supporting and\ncomforting each other on the same shelf in the library. When one\nof the aged who have trudged on through life together drops off,\nhow soon the second follows after; and when one book is lost or\ndestroyed, its companion pines away in dust, if not in ashes,\ntill, finally neglected, it mysteriously disappears.\n\nBut Baron Humboldt's two folios on New Spain or Mexico indicate\nthat time, as yet, has written no wrinkles on their brow. They\nare good for another lease of life of equal length; their high\nstate of preservation has imparted a healthy appearance; and\nperhaps grandchildren hereafter will be delighted to make their\nacquaintance. On the present occasion, the compliments of the\nseason, and of the editor, must be extended to them. And in the\ninterchange of courtesies, let us hear what they have to say for\nthemselves. It is somewhat surprising in modern times that\nHumboldt's folios on Mexico should have retained so long their\npre-eminence. The baron wrote upon subjects wherein our knowledge\nis continually increasing, where important changes are daily made\nby new discoveries, and where a constant demand is kept up for\nnew books. His great essay is devoted to branches of political\nand social sciences, which in their nature are progressive\nsciences,--geography, topography, economical and commercial\nstatistics. But in the case of the baron, an exception is found\nin the general law in relation to the rise, reign, and fall of\nstandard authorities. His supremacy in the department of Mexico\nwas established in the first decade of the present age; it may\nnot be destroyed in the last. Yet one fact is truly remarkable:\nhis essay was published in 1811 in Paris, in the most imposing\nand expensive form, in two volumes in folio; it had been\nanxiously expected; it was instantly translated into all the\nmodern languages of Europe; it was received with eulogiums and\ncommendations; but no second edition was ever called for. This\nsingular fate of a performance so much extolled, and still\nquoted, needs some explanation; and in giving this, the interest\nmanifested abroad in the situation of Mexico must also be\nexplained; for in truth, the popularity of the essay was, for the\nmost part, due to the importance of and attention bestowed upon\nthat rich province of the king of Spain on the western shores of\nthe Atlantic.\n{329}\nMexico had been a resplendent gem in the Spanish crown from the\ntime of the conquest by Cortez in 1521; it had been the envy of\nrival nations, and often the prize which they desired to win from\nits rightful sovereign. England was eager to supply its market\nwith African slaves, in order to gain access to its ports, and\nthereby stimulate the contraband trade. France was perpetually on\nguard at the Bahamas to capture its bullion fleets, bearing their\nprecious cargoes from Vera Cruz to Cadiz. The Dutch defeated the\nbest of Spanish admirals, and carried off the richest spoils;\nwhile all three, English, French, and Dutch cruisers, partly\nprivateers, partly public armed vessels with their piratical\ncaptains and crews, in times of profound peace made private war\non every ship sailing under the flag of Castile. The capital of\nthat far-off country was described in the last century as one of\nthe wonders of the modern world. We read in _Spence's\nAnecdotes_, that a travelled gentlemen who had seen several of\nthe most splendid courts abroad, stated in the presence of Mr.\nPope, the poet, that he had never been struck so much with\nanything as by the magnificence of the City of Mexico, with its\nseven hundred equipages and harness of solid silver, and ladies\nwalking on the paseo waited upon by their black slaves, to hold\nup the trains, and shade with umbrellas their fair mistresses\nfrom the sun. But this New Spain had nothing attractive beyond\nits wealth; it had no arts, sciences, or history; no literature,\npoetry, or romance. With the death of Hernando Cortez, these had\ndied out. No one desired more on these subjects. But everybody\nwished to learn all that could be learned of its prolific\nrevenues, and of its enormous resources in the precious metals,\nthen supplying the commerce of all nations with coin. Nothing was\ntalked of, listened to, or considered, when discussing the\ncondition of that country, except its vast production of silver.\n\"Thank you,\" said Tom Hood, when dining with a London Amphictyon,\nwho was helping his plate too profusely, \"thank you, alderman;\nbut if it is all the same to you, I will take the balance in\nmoney.\" Interest in Mexico was taken in nothing else.\n\nIt must be remembered that credit in commerce is of recent\norigin, and paper currency of still more recent creation. Both,\ncomparatively speaking, were in their infancy at the close of the\nlast century. Precious metals were then the sole, or at least the\ngreat, medium of commercial exchanges; and consequently, silver\nand gold performed a more important part in the markets than they\ndo now. They were more highly appreciated and sought after. Then\nit was, that the Mexican mines yielded the far greater portion of\nthe total product; and, of course, the control of these mines was\nsupposed to afford the control of the commerce of the world.\nEconomists and statesmen, therefore, turned their gaze upon that\nstrange land beyond sea, as the only land in that direction\nworthy of their notice. But the notice bestowed upon it was\nabsorbing. Napoleon, availing himself of the imbecility of the\nking of Spain, and of the venality of the Prince of Peace,\nendeavored to divert the Mexican revenues from the royal House of\nTrado at Seville to the imperial treasury of France. Ouvrard,\nalso, the most daring speculator in the most gigantic schemes\nunder Napoleon, the contractor-general for the armies and navy of\nthe French empire, undertook, on his own responsibility, to enter\ninto a private partnership with the Spanish sovereign to\nmonopolize the trade of Mexico, and divide equally the profits.\n{330}\nNapoleon assented to this arrangement; English bankers took part\nin the negotiation; and the British government under William Pitt\ngave it their sanction and aid. Yet, strange to relate, all this\ntranspired while England was at war with France and Spain, and a\nBritish fleet blockaded the harbor of Vera Cruz. These hostile\nnations were drained of money, and wanted an immediate supply.\nFrance had anticipated the public revenues to meet the imperial\nnecessity; the Bank of England had stopped specie payments;\nMadrid was threatened with a famine from a series of failures in\nthe crops at home, and no funds were in the royal coffers to\npurchase wheat abroad. Thus all were clamorous for coin, which\nMexico only could produce. It was known that fifty millions of\nsilver dollars were on deposit in the Consulado of Vera Cruz,\nawaiting shipment to Spain; and it was well known, also, that, if\nshipped, the greater portion of the amount would soon find its\nway to Paris and London. In this state of affairs, the emergency\nbecame so pressing upon the belligerents, that their war policy\nwas compelled to succumb; the blockade was raised and the bullion\nexported. We shall not soon forget how a similar exigency in the\nlate war compelled the Lincoln administration to permit\nprovisions being furnished to the Confederates, in order to\nprocure cotton to strengthen our finances. Cotton was king of\ncommerce in 1864, Silver was king in 1804.\n\nEngland, at the same time, was meditating seriously upon the\nresources and riches of New Spain. Aware of the importance\nattached by the British cabinet to the subject, Dumouriez, the\ndistinguished French republican exile, then in London, addressed\nMr. Windham, the Secretary of War and for the Colonies, a paper\nadvocating its conquest. The general called attention to the fact\nthat, once in English occupancy, \"the commerce of the two seas\nwill be in your hands; the metallic riches of Spanish America\nwill pour into England; you will deprive Spain and Bonaparte of\nthem; and this monetary revolution will change the political face\nof Europe.\" It seems Mr. Windham entertained the project, and\nreferred it to Sir Arthur Wellesley. In the sixth volume of the\n_Wellington Supplementary Dispatches_, the proposition is\nexamined.\n\nWhile such was the state of public opinion in Europe, finding\nexpression daily in high quarters, and of which the above are\nonly isolated examples, Humboldt undertook his scientific\nexpedition to Spanish America, and was preparing his great essay\non New Spain. He landed in Mexico in March, 1803, and remained in\nthe country for one year, engaged in the study of the physical\nstructure and political condition of the vast realm, and in the\ninvestigation of the causes having the greatest influence on the\nprogress of its population and native industry. But no printed\nwork could be found to aid him in his researches with materials,\nand therefore he resorted to manuscripts in great numbers,\nalready in general circulation. He had also free, uninterrupted\naccess to official records; records which for the first time were\npermitted to be examined by a private gentleman. Finally, he\nembodied his topographical, geographical, statistical, and other\ncollections, into a separate work on New Spain, \"hoping they\nwould be received with interest at a time when the new continent,\nmore than ever, attracts the attention of Europeans.\"\n{331}\nThe original sketch was drawn up in Spanish for circulation, and\nfrom the comments thereon, he informs us, he \"was enabled to make\nmany important corrections.\" The _Essay_ reviews the extent\nand physical aspect of the country; the influence of the\ninequalities of surface on the climate, on agriculture, commerce,\nand defence of the coasts; the population, and its divisions into\ncastes; the census and area of the intendencias--calculated from\nthe maps drawn up by him from his astronomical observations; its\nagriculture and mines, commerce and manufactures; the revenues\nand military defences. But Humboldt very candidly confesses, as\nincident to such an undertaking, that, \"notwithstanding the\nextreme care which I have bestowed in verifying results, no doubt\nmany serious errors have been committed.\" It can be readily\nimagined what attention was given in Europe to the first rude\nsketch of statistics published by him in 1804-5, The cupidity and\nambition of merchants, statesmen, and military men were aroused\nby this first authentic revelation of Mexican revenues and\nresources. All nations were anxious to learn more; all classes of\npeople listened in wonder to this true account respecting the\nprodigious production of the precious metals. In this pleasing\nexcitement, Humboldt was preparing his complete _Essay_, to\nsatisfy the public desire. Having learned caution from the\ninaccuracies pointed out in his first rough publication, he was\nin no great haste to send forth the final result of his labors.\nThus, he waited for four or five years; and, unfortunately for\nhis own profit, he waited too long. The interest in Mexico had\ngone by; the golden visions of its boundless opulence had\nvanished; its fascinations, that had charmed for years, like some\ncastle raised by magic in a night, resplendent with gems of ruby,\namethyst, and jasper, had passed away; the spell of enchantment\nwas broken. For the rebellion burst out in 1810, and commerce,\nrevenues, industry, all perished in the general ruin it created.\nIt was now, in common estimation, one of the poorest colonies of\nSpain; and what cared the public for more Spanish poverty beyond\nthe Atlantic, when too much of it already was visible in the\npeninsula? The great _Essay_, therefore, when finally\npublished, was not purchased with impatient eagerness; it fell\nflat on the market. For Mexico was now ruined, the public\nthought; and so does the public continue to think, even unto the\npresent day. Thenceforth, Mexican antiquities only were\nattractive. The _Edinburgh Review_, in 1811, writing on the\nessay, commences: \"Since the appearance of our former article on\nthis valuable and instructive work, a great and, for the present\nat least, lamentable revolution has taken place in the countries\nit describes. Colonies which were at that time the abode of peace\nand industry have now become the seat of violence and desolation.\nA civil war, attended with various success, but everywhere marked\nwith cruelty and desolation, has divided the colonists, and armed\nthem for their mutual destruction. Blood has been shed profusely\nin the field and unmercifully on the scaffold. Flourishing\ncountries, that were advancing rapidly in wealth and\ncivilization, have suffered alike from the assertors of their\nliberties and from the enemies of their independence.\" The\n_Quarterly Review_ did not notice the _Essay_, making\nno sign of its existence.\n\n{332}\n\nIt is true, some learned gentlemen gave a look into the work, and\nscientific men studied it well. But the learned and scientific\nwere only a small, select number in the general mass of readers;\nand Humboldt had not designed his information for, and waited not\nthe approbation of, the select alone, but of all classes alike\nthat could read. Europe closed the map of Mexico when the\nrevolution broke forth, and shut out all further inquiry into its\npolitical and industrial condition. Then it was that, instead of\na cordial greeting with open arms at every fire side, which\nHumboldt reasonably anticipated for his production, the door was\nalmost rudely slammed in his face. He never forgot that treatment\nof the book; he never wrote more upon Mexico; never furnished to\nthe learned or unlearned a new edition, with emendations and\ncorrections, notes and new maps. As it went from the hands of the\nauthor then, we receive it now.\n\nAt the moment, however, when Europe closed the map, America for\nthe first time seriously opened it; and just in proportion with\nreceding time, as Mexico has faded into insignificance from\nEuropean view, in the same proportion with advancing time has\nMexico loomed up into importance with us. They refused to\nHumboldt then the high consideration his _Essay_ merited; we\nbestow upon him now more respect and veneration than his\n_Essay_ deserves. To the European mind, Humboldt's New Spain\nwas Mexico no more; to the American, Mexico is the same New\nSpain--changed, to be sure, but still the land for enterprise and\nriches. It was not altogether unknown to us before our\nrevolution. It had a consideration while the States were English\ncolonies; for Northern merchants sometimes smuggled into its\nports, and sometimes, too, our fillibusters buccaneered on its\ncoasts, like other loyal English subjects sailing under \"the\nbrave old English flag.\" When our revolution came, aid was\ninvoked from Spain as well as from France; for the Spanish\nsovereign had a personal insult to avenge on the British, and\nSpanish supremacy on the seas to maintain. But Spain, though\nwilling, had, first of all, to concentrate her fleets. One armada\nwas contending with the Portuguese in South America; another was\nacting as convoy for the galleons, with cargoes of silver,\nproceeding from Mexico to Spain. Treaties with Portugal were\nhastily patched up, and \"the ordinanza of free trade\" liberated\nthe convoy from protecting the ships laden with the silver. The\npolicy of that ordinance Humboldt, and many respectable Mexican\nwriters after him, have much misunderstood; and they are greatly\nmistaken in their estimate of its beneficial effects on mining\nprosperity. After the United States became an independent nation,\nSpain, in order to be rid of the Louisiana incumbrance, which was\ndependent upon the revenues of Mexico for support, transferred\nthat territory to France; and Napoleon, in turn, sold it to the\nAmerican government. But did its boundaries extend to the Sabine\nor the Rio Grande, on the south? And did they extend to the\nRussian Pacific possessions on the north? These were uncertain\nquestions, and hence from this purchase originated those many\ndiplomatic complications, and no less numerous domestic\ncontroversies, which have been the fruitful source of change in\ncabinets and of defeats of national parties, with the downfall of\nnot a few distinguished men. Hence, also, the first settlements\nin Texas; next the American colonists, and the question of\nannexation; the war with Mexico; the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,\nand the acquisition of California. Before these measures were\ndecided, however, Colonel Burr had already, with his band of\nadventurers, undertaken that mysterious enterprise in the same\ndirection, whose object seems to have been as vague as the\nboundaries to be invaded were uncertain.\n{333}\nOuvrard, also, had solicited and effected the co-operation of\nleading merchants in Northern cities, in his joint speculation\nwith the king of Spain, for the vast Mexican commercial scheme.\nAnd herein was given the great impulse to amassing those large\nprivate fortunes, by Mr. Gray of Boston, Mr. Oliver of Baltimore,\nMr. Girard of Philadelphia, and the Parish family. Subsequently\ncame the Mexican revolution, protracted for twelve years, during\nwhich period the commerce of that country, previously a Spanish\nmonopoly, was completely under the control of Americans. At the\nclose of the Napoleon wars Spain desired the monopoly restored,\nin order to transfer it to France. This movement called forth, in\nfavor of free commerce, the celebrated message announcing the\nMonroe doctrine. The message gave umbrage to Russia in reference\nto her American possessions, and fixed their ultimate destiny. It\nalso forced England to disclose her claim for the first time, and\nto exhibit her title to the Vancouver country south of the\nRussian--a title until then unheard of and unknown to American\nstatesmen. The Missouri Compromise grew out of the acquisition of\nLouisiana, and its repeal grew out of the acquisition of\nCalifornia. As a supplement to the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,\nwas concluded the treaty for the Messilla Valley, which\nnegotiation sprung from a mistake in Humboldt's maps, faithfully\ncopied by Disturnell, in giving a wrong location, in longitude\nand latitude, to El Paso on the Rio Grande. The invasion of\nMexico by France in 1862, nearly kindled a desolating war between\nthe United States and the French empire. Unforeseen obstacles,\nhowever, induced Louis Napoleon to pause in the conquest; for he\nhad, in its inception, been deceived respecting the condition of\nMexico and the Mexican people, and misled as to the easy\ndevelopment by France of the abundant resources of the country.\nThe moral support, moreover, extended to the liberal party by the\nAmerican government compelled the French to abandon an expedition\nwhich was properly appreciated in all its imposing magnitude by\nthe emperor, but which so many to this day do not comprehend.\n\nNo one can fail to be astonished in contemplating the large space\noccupied by Mexico in American affairs; the immense acquisition\nof territory made from within her ancient landmarks; the princely\nprivate fortunes accumulated from her commerce; the vast\ntreasures discovered in her former mines; the rich agricultural\ncrops gathered from her Louisiana valley, her Texas loamy soil,\nand her California plains; while, upon the margin of the\nMississippi river, a city, created by Mexican aid and\ncontributions, has grown into an opulent mart of commerce,\nsurpassing all other American cities in the value of its exports,\nin the happy era of our greatest prosperity. Nor can that\nprosperity ever return until New Orleans once more becomes the\nleading emporium for the outlet of the great staples of this\nrepublic. It is no less surprising to recall the fate of so many\nstatesmen, and others of mark, who have risen to distinction, or\nwho have been forced to retire, from questions growing out of\ntheir policy toward Mexico.\n{334}\nIt is no longer disputed that the first fatal error of the first\nNapoleon was his invasion of Spain, thereby to control the\nMexican revenues; perhaps it will soon be conceded that the first\nfatal error of Louis Napoleon was, in too closely following in\nthe footsteps, in the same direction, of his illustrious uncle.\nColonel Burr, the Vice-President of the United States, from his\nill-starred adventure, fell into disgrace and sunk into an\ninfamous notoriety. General Wilkinson, once upon the military\nstaff of Washington, was both the accomplice and ruin of Burr,\nand died in obscurity in a voluntary exile. The Missouri\nCompromise destroyed the aspirations of many Northern statesmen\nwho opposed its adoption, and shattered the popularity of others\nwho afterward advocated its repeal. The question of annexing\nTexas was the fatal rock upon which were wrecked the hopes of\nPresident Van Buren for renomination; it defeated Mr. Clay; it\nelected Mr. Polk. In succession to the presidency, were elected\nGeneral Taylor and General Pierce, from their distinguished\npositions in the war with Mexico. To the like cause, Colonel\nFr\u00e9mont was indebted for his popular nomination, nearly crowned\nwith success. Winfield Scott was made a Brevet Lieutenant-General\nfor his meritorious services in the Mexican campaign, and many of\nthe greatest generals in the recent strife, both Federal and\nConfederate, received their first practical lessons in the art of\nwar on the same distant field. To all of these historical\ncelebrities, the crude statistics or the elaborate _Essay_\nof Humboldt were well known; for Humboldt's publications were the\nonly source of authentic information on Mexico of much value.\nOther foreign authors, who followed after, copied extensively\nfrom him, and native writers have not failed to quote from the\nsame source. But although foreign authors have drawn more from\nthe _Essay_, they have been less circumspect in verifying\nthe accuracy of its statements; while the Mexican writers,\navailing themselves sparingly of extracts, sometimes, at least,\nfavor the public with interesting corrections. Travellers too\noften have given us too much of Humboldt. Indeed, it may be said,\nthey have fed upon him; they have imbibed him with their pulque,\nand taken him solid with their toasted tortilla. His _Essay_\nhas been pulled apart leaf by leaf, to be reprinted page after\npage in their, for the most part, ephemeral productions. Humboldt\nin pieces has been dished up to suit all customers. An oyster\ncould not be served in more varieties of style. Even foreign\nembassies have supplied some of these literary cooks. None of\nthem seemed to know that man, even in Mexico, must have more than\nHumboldt. In a fervid imagination, they thought he could be\nimproved upon, by reducing the _Essay_ to sublimated\nextracts. But Doctor Samuel Johnson hinted, long ago, that\nextracts from a work are as silly specimens of its author as was\nthat by the foolish old Greek, who exhibited a brick from his\nhouse as a specimen of its architecture. Mr. Prescott, on the\ncontrary, in his celebrated history of the Conquest, with his\nusual discriminating judgment, has properly availed himself of\nthe _Essa_y to afford his readers a vivid and veracious\npicture of the natural configuration of the country. And to\nunderstand the country properly, this is the primary lesson to be\nattentively studied. But it is much to be regretted that Mr.\nDuport, in his standard French work on the production of its\nprecious metals, was misled by errors existing in the maps\naccompanying the _Essay_. In consequence, he has made\nserious mistakes in describing its geological structure, in the\nrun and inclinations of the strata in the silver rock, in the\nsilver-bearing region.\n\n{335}\n\nWhoever desires to comprehend the political condition and the\nindustrial or commercial resources of Mexico, ought to commence\nas Humboldt commenced. It is only through a strict investigation\nof its material interests that Mexico can be understood. To begin\nwith an examination of its political history is to begin where\nthe labor should end. Mexico, for three hundred years, was a\ncolony, and, like other colonies, had no history, no policy of\nits own; no armies, no navies, no wars; nothing of statesmanship\npeculiar to itself; for all were absorbed in the history of the\nmother country. When emerging from a colonial chrysalis, it did\nnot become a nation; it may be somewhat doubted if it has even\nyet reached that position. As a republic, its federal government\nhas been without a policy, its administrations without stability,\nits finances without an exchequer; its armies unable to conquer\nabroad, or contend with foreign invaders at home; it has no navy;\nit is almost destitute of all the essential elements that\nconstitute a people. True, Mexico has had great vicissitudes of\nfortune, with changes, frequent changes, and for the most part\nviolent overthrows, of the federal rulers. But these convulsions\nhave produced no serious results. The storms passed over without\nindications of wide-spread disaster. Sunshine came again without\nany visible improvement; no signs of increasing intelligence, no\nsymptoms of decay to the superficial observer; for these petty\nconflicts originated in personal motives, and so ended. Having no\npolitical object, they are devoid of grave consideration, of any\ninterest or profit. Their civil wars have been of regular\nperiodical return, but these wars are of no more historical\nsignificance than the wars of the Saxon Heptarchy. Mexico, for\nmany reasons, must still be contemplated, while a sovereign\nnation, as she was viewed when a viceroyalty of Spain. The\ncountry now appears in Christendom as an enigma full of strange\nanomalies. In the erroneous estimation of most men, it is\nhastening on to ruin and decay: calamities that came upon the\npeople in their revolt from Spain, and which will cling to them\nuntil their race is extinct. The royal finger of scorn, too, is\npointed at the republic, as a reproach and warning to all\nrepublican governments of their ultimate failure. It would be\nvain to waste time on its political records, to elucidate Mexican\nquestions. These annals are dumb. But to the mountains, the\nmines, the mills, where the rich minerals are produced and\nindustry is developed, the inquirer must go to find out what\nMexico really is. In observing the people in their private\npursuits, he will imperceptibly be led to comprehend their\npolitical institutions. In daily contact with the distinct\nclasses, divided into castes, he will in like manner be soon\nconversant with the most noted men. Enigmas will vanish upon\nnearer approach and on closer inspection; anomalies will no\nlonger embarrass. Perhaps previously formed opinions may be\nshocked, rudely assailed, and demolished. He may see many\nlingering remnants of Astec superstition in one caste, where they\noften disobey the priest; and much affectation of infidelity in\nanother, where they kneel as suppliants at the confessional to\ncrave a blessing. He will perceive marks of seeming decay\neverywhere, amid indications of progress. The federal government\nwill be pronounced not only bad, but bad as government in a\nrepublic can be; yet will he find some consolation in knowing\nthat the viceregal government was far worse. In the dregs of a\npopular polity, some protection for the people will be manifest,\nwhich was denied under a king.\n{336}\nHe will hear Spain, on all sides, spoken of with reverence and\nrespect; he will soon understand, on all sides, that Spaniards\nare detested. He will be gratified with the cordial welcome\nbestowed upon Americans; and wonder at the common hatred, in all\nclasses, to the United States. While he is aware that millions\nupon hundreds of millions of dollars, from outlying provinces\ntorn from the nation, have been yielded to their neighbor on the\nnorth, he will also discover that the heart of the Mexican\nterritory has not been reached. Nor need he be surprised when the\ntruth is revealed, that the Liberal executive will sooner forget\nthe hostile invasion by France, than forgive the moral support\nextended to the native cause by that American neighbor.\n\nOn the whole, he may conclude that the Mexicans, after all, are\nsomewhat rational and sensible, not entirely deficient in\nrefinement and intelligence, or in energy and industry. But these\nopinions can only be formed by pursuing the method of Humboldt,\nand bearing his elaborate production in mind. By constant\ncomparison of his statements with more recent publications from\nthe Mexican press on the same subjects, not only greater accuracy\nin details will be reached, along with later information, but the\nadvancement in knowledge and wealth will be made apparent. It is\nthus a just estimate of Mexico at present with Mexico of the past\ncan be formed; and while many imperfections in the parts of the\n_Essay_ will be detected, no one can fail to admire and\nappreciate its general excellence.\n\n--------\n\n\n              One Fold.\n\n\n    \"And there shall be one fold.\"\n\n\n         Disciple.\n\n  \"One Fold! Good Lord, how poor thou art,\n    To have but one for all!\n  Methinks the rich with shame will smart\n    To stand in common stall\n  With ragged boors and work-grimed men;\n  And ladies fair, with those who when\n    They pray have dirty, hands.\n  Dost think the wise can be devout\n  When, close beside, an ignorant lout\n    With mouth wide-gaping stands?\n\n{337}\n\n  I would thou wert a richer Lord,\n  And could an hundred folds afford\n    Where each might find his place.\n  Look round, good Lord, and thou wilt see\n  Most men the same have thought with me,\n  And herd with whom they best agree\n    In fashion, creed, and race.\"\n\n\n         Master.\n\n  \"Good child, thou hast a merry thought!\n   But folds like mine cannot be bought,\n     Nor made at fancy's will.\n   If any find my fold too small\n   'Tis they who like no fold at all,\n   The same who heed no shepherd's call,\n     Whom wolves will find and kill.\n   _My_ fold alone is close and warm,\n   Shielding its inmates from all harm--\n     Its pastures rich and sweet.\n   Hither, with gentle hand, I bring\n   The peasant and the crown\u00e8d king\n     Together at my feet.\n   Here no man flings a look of scorn\n   At him who may be baser born,\n     For all as brothers meet.\n   The wise speak kindly to the rude;\n   The lord would not his slave exclude;\n     Proud dames their servants greet.\n   My fold doth equally embrace\n   The men of every clime and race,\n     And here in peace they rest.\n   Here each forgets his rank and state.\n   And only he is high and great\n     Who loveth me the best.\n   The rich, the poor, the bond, the free,\n   The men of high and low degree,\n   My fold unites in one with me--\n   With me, the Shepherd, called The Good,\n   Who rules a loving brotherhood.\n   Therefore, in that my fold is one,\n   Believe me, it is wisely done.\"\n\n------\n\n{338}\n\n   Translated From The French Of M. Vitet.\n\n            Science And Faith.\n\n\n  Meditations On The Essence Of The Christian Religion,\n  By M. Guizot.\n\n\nSome time ago political life seemed to be the prominent\noccupation in France. M. Guizot was then cautiously defending his\nopinions, and was really wearing out his energy and his life in\nthis work. At that time, we have heard it wished more than once,\nnot that the struggle should cease, but that death might not\nsurprise him with his mind occupied solely with these passing\nevents. He needed, as a last favor and at the end of an ambitious\ncareer, some years of quiet and retreat to meditate upon the\nfuture, and to revive the faith of youth by the lessons of riper\nyears. He required this for himself, for the interest of his\nsoul. Nothing then foretold that he would soon be engaged in the\narena of metaphysical and religious controversy. The disputes\nabout these questions seemed almost lulled to sleep. Not that\ndoubt and incredulity had surrendered their arms; they followed\ntheir accustomed work, but without noise, without parade, and\nwithout apparent success. This was a truce which had allowed\nChristian convictions to become reanimated, to increase, and to\ngain ground. The proof of this was seen in those gloomy days,\nwhen the waves of popular opinion, which threatened to destroy,\nbent, completely subdued and submissive and with an unlooked-for\nrespect, before sacred truths and the ministers of religion. This\nwas the natural result of that bitter struggle which had lasted\nfor fifteen years. The aggressors could not undertake two sieges\nat one time, and so political power became the target against\nwhich all their efforts were directed.\n\nIt is not the same now. Power is protected by an armor which has\ndisheartened its adversaries; and the more surely it is guarded,\nthe more exposed and compromised are other questions, which equal\nor even exceed it in importance. The spirit of audacity and\naggression compensates itself for the forced forbearance from\npolitics, imposed upon it by the political power. It sees that in\nreligious matters the ground is not so well protected; it feels\nmore at ease there and not nearly so hard pushed. From this fact\nthere arises a series of bold attacks of a new order, which\nscandalize the believing, and astonish the most indifferent, when\nthey think for a moment of the preceding calm. It is no longer\nmen or ministers, it is not a form of government, it is God\nhimself whom they attack? We do not ask that the government\nshould place the least restriction on the rights of free thought,\neven should it be to the advantage of the truths that we venerate\nthe most. We desire to state the fact, and nothing more. It may\nbe that these attacks are not important enough to cause as much\nanxiety as they have done.\n{339}\nThey are passionate, numerous, and skilfully arranged; but they\ncannot shake the edifice, and will serve rather to strengthen it,\nby summoning to its aid defenders who are more enlightened, and\nprotectors who are more vigilant. Still, they are a great source\nof trouble. The restlessness, the distress, and the vague fears\nthat the agitation of political affairs seemed alone capable of\nproducing, now arise in the heart of the domestic circle and in\nthe depths of the individual soul from these new discussions. It\nis not personal interests that are now risked, but souls that are\nin danger; and if the crisis is apparently less violent and\nintense, it is really graver and more menacing, and no one can\nremain neutral in the struggle.\n\nAnd so M. Guizot wishes to take a part, and has entered the fray.\nHe is of the number who, at certain times and upon certain\nsubjects, do not know how to be silent. In politics he held back\nand he forbore. He saw the events, but he did not say what he\nthought of them. His debt in politics is now amply paid; all the\nmore since he owed it to himself, as well as to his cause, to\nreestablish the real sense, the true physiognomy of the things he\ndid. He had to explain clearly his views, his intentions, his\nacts; to interpret them and to comment upon them, we can almost\nsay, to finish them during his own life; to give the true key to\nhis future historians; in a word, to write his own\n_memoirs_. This was his duty, and he has acted rightly in\nnot delaying it. It was not less for other ends, and in the\ndesign of a greater work, that he wished for twenty years'\nsolitude and repose at the end of his life. His desire was heard.\nThe days of calm and retreat have come, not, perhaps, at the time\nthat he desired, and still less under conditions that he would\nhave chosen, but for his glory they are such that he can well\nthink them fruitful, worthy, valuable, full of vigor and of\nardor. Happy autumn! when the recollections of the world and the\nechoes of political strife are only the recreation of a soul\nincessantly engaged with more serious problems. It is in these\nheights, in these serene regions, while he is questioning himself\non his destiny and on his faith, that war has come to seek him;\nnot the personal war of former times, but another kind of war,\nless direct and more general, yet perhaps more provoking. He is\nnot the man to refuse the contest. Under the weight of years that\nhe bears so well, stronger, more resolute, younger than ever, he\nhas entered the arena; he will be militant until the end.\n\nWhat will he do? What is his plan? What position will he take?\nThe volume which is before us is an answer to these questions. It\nis only a first volume; but it is complete in itself, it is a\nwork that one cannot study too closely, nor diffuse too widely.\nThe developments, the additions, and the supplements which the\nthree remaining volumes will soon add to the work, will, without\ndoubt, make it still more comprehensive and solid; but as it is\nnow, we consider it, without any commentary whatsoever, to be a\nmost effective reply to the attacks which have recently been\nlevelled against Christian doctrines, or, to speak more\ncorrectly, against the essence of all religion.\n\nBefore entering into the work, let us say something of the manner\nin which it is written. We are not going to speak of the author's\nstyle. We would announce nothing new to the world by saying that\nM. Guizot, when he has time and really tries, can write as well\nas he speaks.\n{340}\nHis pen for many years has followed a law of progress and of\nincreasing excellence. He has shown in these _Meditations_ a\nnew skill, perhaps higher than in his _Memoirs_ even, in the\nart of clothing his ideas in excellent language; learnedly put\ntogether, yet without effort or stiffness, true in its coloring,\nsober in its effects, always clear and never trivial, always firm\nand often forcible. Something more novel and more characteristic\nappears in this book. It is in reality a controversial work, but\na controversy which is absolutely new. It is more than courteous,\nit is an _impersonal_ polemic. The author has, certainly,\nalways shown himself respectful to his opponents; he has ever\nadmitted that they could hold different opinions from his in good\nfaith; and even at the rostrum, in the heat of contests, his\nadversaries were not persons, they were ideas; but the people he\ndisputed with were always, without scruple, called by their\nnames. Here it is different; there is not a single proper name,\nthe war is anonymous. In changing the atmosphere--in passing, if\nwe can be allowed the expression, from earth to heaven, or, at\nleast, from the bar to the pulpit, from politics to the gospel,\nhe changes his method and takes a long step in advance. He\nendeavors to leave persons entirely out of consideration, for\nthey only embarrass and embitter the questions. He forgets, or at\nleast he does not tell us, who his adversaries are; he refutes\nthem, but he does not name them.\n\nIs not this discretion at once, good manners and good taste? It\nis also something more. Without doubt, by speaking only of ideas\nand not of those who maintain them, one loses a great means of\neffective action. In abstract matters, proper names referred to\nhere and there are a very powerful resource--they arouse and\nexcite attention, they give interest and life to the argument;\nbut what is gained on one hand is frequently lost on another. The\nuse of proper names, though it may have nothing to provoke\nirritation, still always incurs the danger of causing the debate\nto degenerate into a personal dispute. The questions are reduced\nto the capacity of those who sustain them. Better take a plainer\nand more decided path, and keep persons completely out of view.\nM. Guizot has done well. In no part of his book is there reason\nto regret the vivacity and attraction of a more direct polemic;\nwhilst the urbanity and the omission of names, without really\nchanging or diminishing the questions, spread a calm gravity\nthroughout the work, almost a perfume of tolerance, which gains\nthe reader's confidence and disposes him to allow himself to be\nconvinced. It is true that this kind of polemics can only be\nmaintained when greatness of thought compensates for the lack of\npassion. It is necessary to take wing, mount above questions,\nconquer all and enlighten all. Such is the character of these\n_Meditations_. The comprehensiveness of his views, the\ngreatness of his plan, and the clearness of his style, alike\nimpress upon it the seal of true originality.\n\nIt is not a theology that M. Guizot has undertaken; he has not\nwritten for doctors; he discusses neither texts nor points of\ndoctrine; he does not attempt to solve scholastic difficulties;\nstill less does he wish to mingle in the discussion of incidental\nevents, to descend to the questions of to-day, and to follow,\nstep by step, the crisis which agitates the Christian world at\nthis time. He has grappled with more weighty and more permanent\nquestions.\n{341}\nHe wishes to show clearly the truth of Christianity in its\nessence, in its fundamental dogmas, or rather in its simplicity\nand innate greatness, without commentary, interpretation, or\nhuman work of any kind, and consequently before all disunion,\nschism, or heresy. He has tried to expose the pure idea of\nChristianity, so that he can be more able to demonstrate its\ndivine character.\n\nSuch is his intention. What has he done to attain it? The book\nitself must answer this question. But in these few pages how can\nwe speak of it? How can we analyze a work when one is tempted to\nquote every paragraph? And on the other hand to give many\nextracts from a book, is only to mutilate it and give an\nincorrect idea of its real value. Let us only try, then, to say\nenough to inspire our readers with the more profitable desire of\nstudying M. Guizot himself.\n\n\n      I.\n\nThe beginning and the foundation of these _Meditations_ is a\nwell-known truth, which the author establishes with absolute\ncertainty, and which at this time it is useful to keep in mind.\nThis truth is, that the human race, since its first existence and\nin every place where it has existed, has been engaged in trying\nto solve certain questions which are, so to speak, personal to\nit. These are questions, of destiny, of life rather than science,\nquestions it has invincibly tried to determine. For example, Why\nis man in this world, and why the world itself? Why does it\nexist? Whence do they come, and where do they both tend? Who has\nmade them? Have they an intelligent and free Creator? or are they\nmerely a product of blind elements? If they are created, if we\nhave a Father, why, in giving us life, has he made it so bitter\nand painful? Why is there sin? Why suffering and death? Is not\nthe hope of a better life only the illusion of the unhappy; and\nprayer, that cry of the soul in anguish, is it only a sterile\nnoise, a word thrown to the mocking wind?\n\nThese questions, together with others which develop and complete\nthem, have excited the deepest interest of the human race since\nit first existed upon the earth, and it alone is interested in\nthem. They speak only to it; among all living creatures, it alone\ncan comprehend and is affected by them. This painful yet grand\nprivilege is the indisputable evidence of its terrestrial\nroyalty; it is at once its glory and its torment.\n\nThis series of questions, or rather mysteries, M. Guizot places\nat the beginning of his _Meditations_, under the title of\n_Natural Problems_. Man, indeed, possesses them by his very\nnature; he does not create or invent them, he merely submits to\nthem. We do not mean by this that for humanity in general these\nproblems are not obscure and confused, without a distinct form or\noutline, surrounded with uncertainties and frequently rather seen\nthan clearly apprehended. This must be true of the great mass of\nmankind, who live from hand to mouth, who go and come and work,\nabsorbed in petty pleasures or occupied with dreary toil. Still\nwe think that there is not a single one, even among these\napparently dull and heedless men, in whatever way he may have\nlived and whatever hardships he has had to sustain, who has not\nat least once in his life caught a glimpse of these formidable\nquestions and felt an ardent wish to see them solved. Make as\nmany distinctions as you please between races, sexes, ages, and\ndegrees of civilization; divide the globe and its inhabitants by\nzones or climates; you will no doubt discover more than one\ndifference in the way in which these problems are presented to\nthe soul; you will find them more or less prominent, and more or\nless attention paid to them; but you will find a trace of them\neverywhere and among all people. It is a law of instinct, a\ngeneral law for all times and places.\n\n{342}\n\nIf such is our lot, if these questions necessarily weigh upon\nminds, these questions which are \"the burden of the soul,\" as M.\nGuizot calls them, are we not really compelled to try to solve\nthem? It is on our part neither vain curiosity, nor capricious\ndesire, nor frivolous habit which leads us to attempt it. It is a\nnecessity, quite as serious and as natural to us as the problems\nare themselves; a need we feel in some way to have lifted from us\nthe weight which oppresses. We must have a reply at any cost; who\ncan give it to us?\n\nFaith or Reason? Religion or Philosophy? At every moment we see\nin what a very limited manner reason, science, and all purely\nhuman resources suffice to satisfy us. It can be said that, from\nthe very infancy of human society up to the present day, it has\nbeen from the various religions, thought to be divine and\naccepted as such by faith, that humanity has asked these\nindispensable responses.\n\nWe readily see from this, what a deep interest is attached to\nthese natural problems. Who will presume to tell us that religion\nproceeds from an artificial and temporary want, which men have\ngradually overcome, if the problems to which it answers are\ninherent in the race and can only perish with it? It is the\nconstant work and watchword of every materialistic and\npantheistic system to distort the character of these problems and\nmake them simply accidental and individual, the result of\ntemperament or of circumstances. Farther than this, they had not\nyet gone. They did not dare to deny, in the face of universal\ntestimony, the continued existence of the problems themselves.\nThey disguised their significance, they did not aspire to destroy\nthem. Now they take another step. In order to get the advantage\nin answering, they begin by suppressing the questions. This is\nthe characteristic feature, the first step of a system which\nmakes a great deal of noise in the world to-day, although it only\nclaims to reproduce efforts which have been already more than\nonce defeated. It has, however, this kind of novelty, this\nadvantage over its associates which, like it, have issued from\npantheism, that it is not vague. It sets forth its opinions\nclearly and without equivocation, and by this fact this school of\nphilosophy has gained the title by which it is commonly known. We\nneed hardly say that it is to _Positivism_ that we are\nalluding. This promises with the greatest seriousness, if we will\nonly lend it our attention, to free humanity from these untoward\nproblems which now torment it.\n\nIts remedy is extremely simple: it simply says to the human race,\nWhy do you seek to know whence you have come and what is your\ndestiny? You will never find out a word of this. Do then your\nreal duty. Leave these vain fancies. Live, become learned, study\nthe _evolution_ of things, that is to say, secondary causes\nand their relations; on this subject science has wonders to\nreveal to you; but final causes and first causes, our origin and\nour destiny, the beginning and the end of the world, these are\nall pure reveries, words completely without meaning! The\nperfection of man as well as of society consists in taking no\nnotice of these things. The mind becomes more enlightened, the\nmore it leaves in obscurity your pretended natural problems.\n{343}\nThese problems are really a disease, and the way to cure it is,\nnot to think of them at all.\n\nNot to think of them! Ingenuous proposition! Wonderful ignorance\nof the eternal laws of human nature! \"Our age,\" say they,\n\"inclines to these ideas: but let us not be disturbed by this.\"\nMen will not be persuaded by speaking to them in such a clear\nway, any more than Don Juan could overcome Sganarelle by his\ndiscourses on \"two and two are four.\" Positivism not only\nattempts the impossible, but it frankly acknowledges it. Let us\nsuppose for a moment that by some miracle it should triumph; that\nman, in order to please this system, should cease to pay any\nattention to the problems which beset him, should renounce the\nidea of fathoming these questions, and should despise every\nattempt at a religious or even a metaphysical solution, every\ninspiration toward the Infinite. How long does any one believe\nthis would continue? We do not think that the human mind would\nconsent to be thus mutilated and imprisoned for two days in\nsuccession. Were this system far more fascinating, the human soul\nwould still rise above the limit to which Positivism would\nconfine it, and would say with a great poet:\n\n  \"Je ne puis, l'infini malgr\u00e9 moi me tourmente.\"\n\nAnd so we see, whatever may happen, Positivism is not destined to\ngive us the solution of these natural problems. After, as before,\nits appearance, the mystery of our destiny claims the attention\nof the human race.\n\nM. Guizot describes another attempt, of an entirely different\ncharacter. It is apparently less bold, for its aim is not to\nsuppress inquiry, but merely to elude any definite solution of\nthese natural problems. It cannot be properly called a system; it\nis rather a state of the individual soul, which not unfrequently\nis found among cultivated minds; it is a tendency to substitute\nwhat is called religious sentiment for religion itself. They do\nnot deny the great mysteries of life, but consider them as being\nvery serious and extremely embarrassing. But in the place of\nprecise solutions and categorical replies, which could be\nrequired of a system maintaining fixed and clearly defined\ndogmas, they content themselves with frequent reveries and long\ncontemplations. \"This is,\" say they, \"the religion of enlightened\nintellects; we care for no solutions, for they only serve to\nagitate and annoy.\" It offers a complete contrast to Positivism.\nThat recommends us, as a sort of moral hygiene, never to think of\ninvisible things; but these \"enlightened minds\" would have us\nreflect much, if not continually, upon them, but always with the\nproviso that we must come to no conclusion.\n\nThe human race will not be satisfied with these modes of\ninterpreting its destiny. It requires something more than the\nblind negations of the one, or the vague aspirations of the\nother. Man is not merely an intellectual or an emotional being;\nhe is both united. He requires real answers, and not beautiful\ndreams; he requires true replies, which satisfy his intellect as\nwell as his heart, which point out the way he must take, which\nsustain his courage, which animate his hope and excite his love.\nThe ideal that he seeks is a system of facts, of precepts, and of\ndogmas, which will correspond to the wants that he finds within\nhimself. Let us search for it, for it is the great question for\nus all. As we have already said, there are two sources from which\nwe may hope to learn the truth, one entirely human, the other\nhalf divine. Does the first suffice? Let us see.\n\n{344}\n\n         II.\n\nIf science can reply to the appeals of our souls, if by its own\npower and light it can reveal to us the end of this life, can\nmake us see clearly the beginning and the end, so much the\nbetter; we will cling to science without asking for anything\nmore. We have this exact and sure guide completely within our\ncontrol; why should we seek adventitious aid and inexplicable\nrevelations? It is true that everybody cannot be learned, but\neverybody believes in science. However scanty her proof may be,\nthe most rebellious yield as soon as she has pronounced her\ndecision. There is no schism or heresy with her. If sometimes the\n_savans_ quarrel, which they can do perhaps even better than\nother men, they are not long in finding a peacemaker: they take a\nretort, a microscope, or a pair of scales; they weigh, compare,\nmeasure, and analyze, and the process is terminated: until new\nfacts are ascertained, the decree is sovereign. What an admirable\nperspective opens before humanity if these hidden questions,\nwhich now puzzle and confuse, will in the future be cleared up\nand accurately determined by the aid of science. Time and the law\nof progress give us an easy way of putting an end to our\nperplexities. The fruit of divine knowledge, the old forbidden\nfruit, we can now pluck without fear, and we can satiate\nourselves without danger of a fall!\n\nUnfortunately, all this is only a dream. In the first place, the\nauthority of science is not always admitted. It has more or less\nweight, according to the subject it may treat. In the\ninvestigations of natural things, in physics, and in mathematics,\nits decisions are law. But when it leaves the visible world, when\nit turns to the soul, interminable controversies arise. Its right\nto be called science is then disputed; for it appears to be only\nconjectural, and half the time its principal efforts consist in\ntrying to demonstrate that it has the right to be believed. This\nis exactly the kind of science with which we have to do. The\nquestions which disturb man are not the problems of algebra or\nchemistry; they are the secrets of the invisible world. We cannot\nexpect unanswerable solutions of these doubts, for science, in\nthe field of metaphysics, has none such to give us.\n\nCan science gratify its fancy in these investigations with\nperfect liberty and without limit? No, an impassable barrier\nopposes and imprisons it in the invisible universe, as well as in\nthe breast of physical and material nature. All science, whatever\nit may be, has its determined limit in the extent of finite\nthings. Within this limit, everything is in its power; beyond it,\neverything escapes it. Could it possibly be otherwise? It is the\nproduct of our mind, which is finite; how then could human\nscience be anything but the explication of the finite? Induction,\nit is true, transports us to the extreme frontier of this\nmaterial world, to the door of the infinite, and the results of\ninduction are with reason called scientific; yet what does this\nwonderful faculty, this great light of science, really do?\nNothing else than to put us face to face with the unknown\nmysteries which are completely closed to us. It shows them in\nperspective, it makes us see enough to persuade us that they\nreally do exist, but not enough to make known any truth\nprecisely, exactly, practically, or experimentally--in a word,\nscientifically. The invisible finite, that is to say; the human\nsoul, the dwelling of the human _Ego_, science is capable of\nexplaining; the invisible infinite, the supreme, creative spirit,\nescapes it completely.\n\n{345}\n\nBut this is exactly what must be penetrated and thoroughly known,\nif we expect to resolve the great problems which concern our\ndestiny in a scientific manner. It is then impossible, it is more\nthan an illusion--it is folly to hope for a solution of these\nquestions from human science.\n\nIs this equivalent to saying that philosophy is powerless to\nspeak to us about natural problems? that it has nothing to say to\nus about our duties, our hopes, our destiny? No, certainly not.\nIt is qualified, it has the right to treat of these questions; to\n_treat_ concerning them, not to resolve them. The most\ndaring effort of spiritual philosophy can never span the abyss;\nit can only make the borders more distinct. Noble task, after\nall! A sound philosophy, which abstains from useless hypotheses,\nwhich gives us that which it can give, namely, the clear proof\nthat an invisible order does exist, that realities are behind\nthese mysterious problems, that they justly disturb us, that we\nare right in wishing to solve them; all this, certainly, is not\nworthless knowledge nor a trifling success for the human race. As\nsoon as this philosophy flourishes in a place, if it be only\namong a small number of generous spirits, the perfume is spread\nabroad, and, little by little, one after another, the whole\npeople feel its influence, and society is reanimated, elevated,\nand purified. And religion, we do not fear to say it frankly, is\nbadly advised and wants prudence, no less than justice, when, in\nthe place of accepting the aid of this system and welcoming it as\na natural auxiliary, seeing in it a kind of vanguard, which is to\nprepare minds and overcome prejudices, she keeps it at a distance\nalmost with jealousy, combats it, provokes it, places it between\ntwo fires, and loads it with the same blame and bitter reproaches\nas the blindest errors and the most perverse doctrines receive.\nIf these unfortunate attacks had not been made, perhaps we should\nnot see certain reprisals, an excess of confidence, and a\nforgetfulness of its proper limits that its friends do not now\nalways avoid; for if it is true that we should be just toward it,\nit is no less true that it should be held in check. M. Guizot, as\na real friend, has frankly rendered it this service. Perhaps no\none before him has traced with so sure a hand the limits of\nphilosophical science. He claims for it the sincerest respect,\nand ably sustains its legitimate authority, but clearly points\nout the limit that must not be passed.\n\nMore than one, its adherents will complain: \"You discourage us.\nIf you wish us to maintain the invisible truths against so many\nadversaries, do not deprive us of our weapons; do not tell us in\nadvance how far we may go; let us trust that some day this gate\nof the infinite, at which we have struggled for so many\ncenturies, will at last be opened.\"\n\nWe could answer: \"If you had only made some progress during these\ncenturies, we could hope for more in the future. We would not\nhave the right to say, 'So far shall you go, but no farther.' But\nwhere are the advances of metaphysics? Who has seen them?\nPossibly there has been a progress in appearance, that there is\nnow more clearness and more method. In this sense, the great\nminds of modern times have added something to the legacy of the\nphilosophers of ancient history; but the inheritance has ever\nremained the same. Who will presume to boast that he knows more\nof the infinite than did Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato? The\nnatural sciences seem destined to increase.\n{346}\nFeeble at first, they gradually go from victory to victory, until\nthey have created an empire, which is constantly increasing and\nalways more indisputable. Metaphysical science, on the contrary,\nis great at its birth, but soon becomes stationary; it is\nevidently unable ever to reach the end it is ever seeking. If\nanything is needed to prove this immobility of metaphysics, it\nwill be done by referring to the constant reappearance of four or\nfive great systems, which in a measure contain all the thousand\nsystems that the human mind has ever, or will ever invent. From\nthe very beginning of philosophy, you see them; at every great\nepoch, they are born again; always the same under apparent\ndiversities, always incomplete and partial, half true and half\nfalse. What do these repeated returns to the same attempts,\nending in the same result, teach us, unless the eternal inability\nto make a single advance? Evidently man has received from above,\nonce for all and from the earliest times, the little that he\nknows of metaphysics; and human work, human science, can add\nnothing to it.\"\n\nIf, then, you rely on science to pierce the mystery of these\nnatural problems, your hope is in vain. You see what they can\nattain--nothing but vague notions, fortified, it is true, by the\nfirm conviction that these problems are not illusory, that they\nrest upon a solid foundation, on serious realities.\n\nIs this enough? Does this kind of satisfaction suffice for your\nsoul? What does it signify if a few minds, moulded by philosophy,\ncomprehending everything in a superficial manner, remain in these\npreliminaries, contented with this half-light, and need no other\nhelp to go through life, even in times of the most severe trial?\nWe are willing to grant what they affirm of themselves, but what\ncan be concluded from this? How many minds of this character can\nbe found? It is the rarest exception. The immense majority of\nmen, the human race, could not live under such a system; it is\ntoo great a stranger to the philosophical spirit; it has too\nlimited a perception of the invisible. All abstraction is Hebrew\nfor it. And even supposing that the vague responses that come\nfrom science were to be presented in a more accessible form;\nstill the essential facts would be for most men without value or\nefficacy, and a most inadequate help.\n\nWhat is the human race going to do if, on one side, it cannot do\nwithout precise responses and dogmatic notions concerning the\ninvisible infinite, and if, on the other, science is the only\nmeans of attaining this end? If it aspires to learn truths which\ntranscend experience, and yet takes experience for its only\nguide? If, in short, it will only admit and accept the facts that\nit observes, confirms, and verifies itself? How shall we escape\nfrom this inextricable difficulty?\n\n\n    To Be Continued.\n\n-----------\n\n{347}\n\n    Cowper, Keble, Wordsworth; Or, \"Quietist\"\n    Poetry, And Its Influence On Society.\n\n\nThe Spanish priest, Michael Molinos, who spent the last eleven\nyears of his life in the prisons of the Inquisition, was destined\nto exert considerable influence over many of the most thoughtful\nand gifted spirits of his age. It was in 1675, and in the heart\nof Rome, that he published a _Spiritual Guide_, in which he\npointed out various methods calculated to raise the soul to a\nstate of contemplation and quietude, in which she makes no use of\nher faculties, is unconcerned about all that may happen, and even\nabout the practice of good works and her own salvation; reposing\non the love of God, and, through his presence, safe,\nall-sufficient, and entirely blest. It can be easily imagined how\nacceptable the unction of ascetic eloquence might render such\ndoctrine to minds mystically disposed. Multitudes in every age\nare ready to run after any quack of human happiness who is\ningenious enough to hide his fallacies under a show of reason;\nand Molinos had this advantage over many charlatans, that before\ndeceiving others he had completely deceived himself. He was\nhonest, therefore, and certainly a great advance on the Quietists\nof the 14th century, called in Greek Hesuchasts, who in their\nmonastery on Mount Athos passed whole days in a state of\nimmobility, \"contemplating,\" as their historians say, \"their nose\nor their navel, and by force of this contemplation finding divine\nlight.\" Molinos found many partisans in Italy and in France,\nwhere his system was fervently embraced by the celebrated poetess\nand mystic, Madame Guyon, who conceived herself called from above\nto quit her home and travel, inculcating everywhere the gospel of\nquietism. Fenelon, whose sweetness and goodness flung a charm\naround every opinion he expressed, adopted in part the theories\nof Molinos, and Madame de Maintenon herself is numbered among\nMadame Guyon's converts to the Spaniard's novel and dreamy creed.\n\nThe inmates of Port-Royal, and the Jansenists in general, had, as\nmay be conjectured from the example of Fenelon, strong affinities\nfor quietism; and the sympathy entertained for their sufferings\nby English Calvinists in the last century, sufficiently accounts\nfor the poet Cowper becoming an admirer of Madame Guyon's\nwritings, and imitating in the _Olney Hymns_ many of her\nfervent compositions.\n\nWithout falling into the errors of the Quietists, Cowper imbibed\nmuch of their spirit, and transfused it into his verses very\nhappily. His poetry is essentially of a quietist description,\nprovided the term be understood in a favorable sense. His mind\nwas naturally tranquil, and even during the melancholy of his\nlater days, his mental aberration partook of the original\nplacidity of his character. His rhythm is musical, his language\nchoice, and the flow of his thoughts calm and tranquillizing. He\ndiscards stormy and passionate themes from instinct rather than\nresolve. He delighted in such subjects as \"Truth,\" \"Hope,\"\n\"Charity,\" \"Retirement,\" \"Mutual Forbearance,\" and\n\n  \"Domestic happiness, the only bliss\n  Of Paradise that has survived the Fall.\"\n\n{348}\n\nAnd he has clustered around them all the graces of poetry and\ncharms of Christian philosophy. In that work in which his powers\nare exhibited to most advantage and at greatest length--_The\nTask_--he has touched on every topic that is most soothing,\nand in verses, many of which have become proverbs, has expressed,\nwith unrivalled precision and ease, thoughts and feelings common\nto every Christian who is\n\n  \"Happy to rove among poetic flowers,\n   Though poor in skill to rear them.\"\n\nHe is never obscure, his emotions are never fictitious, his humor\nis never forced, nor his satire pointless. Hence he became\npopular in his generation, and has lost no particle of the credit\nhe once obtained. Brighter stars than he have in the present\ncentury come forth and dazzled the eyes of beholders, by the\nintensity of their radiance and the boldness of their career; but\nthey have not thrown the gentle Cowper into the shade. He still\nshines above the horizon, \"a star among the stars of mortal\nnight,\" of heavenly lustre, unobtrusive, steadfast, and serene.\nHe still exerts a wholesome influence on society, still refreshes\nus in the pauses of the battle of life, still refines the taste,\nfills the ear with melody, elevates the soul, and fosters in many\nthose habits of reflection from which alone greatness and\ngoodness spring. The \"Lines on the receipt of his Mother's\nPicture\" have rarely been surpassed in pathos. There never was a\npoet more sententious or a moralist more truly poetic. \"He was,\"\nsays one of his biographers, \"an enthusiastic lover of nature,\nand some of his descriptions of natural objects are such as\nWordsworth himself might be proud to own.\" His poems, observes\nHazlitt, contain \"a number of pictures of domestic comfort and\nsocial refinement which can hardly be forgotten but with the\nlanguage itself.\" Of all his encomiasts, none has spoken of him\nwith more fervor than Elizabeth Barrett, afterward Mrs. Browning,\nand the following stanzas from her beautiful poem called\n\"Cowper's Grave\" deserve to be quoted in connection with the\npresent subject:\n\n  \"O poets, from a maniac's tongue\n     Was pour'd the deathless singing!\n   O Christians, to your cross of hope\n     A hopeless hand was clinging!\n   O men, this man in brotherhood\n     Your weary paths beguiling,\n   Groan'd inly _while he taught you peace_,\n     And died while ye were smiling.\"\n\nBut has Cowper had no successor in the peculiar path he so\nsuccessfully trod? Was Wordsworth not in one sense a Quietist?\nWere the subjects he selected not as passionless as those of his\nmaster, and treated with equal thoughtfulness and calm? No doubt.\nYet there was an important difference between them. The quietude\nwhich Cowper inculcated was to spring from religion; while that\nwhich Wordsworth promoted had its sources principally in\ncontemplation of the beauties of Nature, and in obedience to her\npowerful influences. Each of these gifted minds has benefitted\nsociety, but in different ways; and it is well that, in a\npoetry-loving age, there should be some counter-balance to the\nmorbid excitement and passionate intensity which the school of\nByron, Moore, and Shelley rendered so popular. It is well that\nminor and gentler streams should irrigate the ground which has\nbeen desolated by their torrents of impetuous verse. It is well\nthat divine no less than human love should have its\nlaurel-crowned minstrels, and that principle and conscience\nshould be proved no less poetical than passion and crime.\n\n{349}\n\nIt is undoubtedly difficult for one who foregoes the passions to\nrise to a very high eminence as a poet, since the violent\nemotions of our nature are well adapted to verse, and full of\ndramatic effect. The bard of Rydal-Mount has, nevertheless,\nattained a lasting celebrity, after patiently enduring\nyears--long years--of neglect and ridicule. He has carefully\neschewed those stormy and harrowing subjects with which poets of\nthe highest genius had, before his time, generally delighted to\nfamiliarize our minds. He leaves such themes as Prometheus bound\nby Jupiter to a rock, with a vulture preying perpetually on his\nentrails, [Footnote 58] Count Ugolino devouring the flesh of his\nown offspring in the Tower of Famine, [Footnote 59] and Satan\nsummoning his fallen peers to council in the fiery halls of\nPandemonium, [Footnote 60] to such masters as \"AEschylus the\nThunderous,\" Dante, and Milton, and addresses himself to the\nsofter and more homely feelings, and to the calmer reason of men.\nHe is firmly persuaded that a truer and deeper source of poetic\ninspiration is to be found in the every-day sights and sounds of\nNature; that the changing clouds and falling waters, the\nforest-glades, wet with noon-tide dew, the rocky beach, musical\nwith foaming waves, the sheep-walks on the barren hill-side, and\nthe \"primrose by the river's brim,\" supply the imagination with\nits best aliment, and effectually tend to calm, elevate, and\nhallow the mind. This is his great, his constant theme. His\nlonger and more philosophical poems ring ever-varying changes on\nit, and may be called an Epithalamium on the espousals of Man and\nNature. But for his devoting a long life to the poetic\ndevelopment of this fundamental idea, we should never have seen\nour literature enriched by the productions of Shelley and\nTennyson's genius. In poetry, as in all that concerns the human\nmind, there is a law of progress. The poetic harvest-home of one\ngeneration is the seed-time of that which is to follow. Thus\nDante speaks of two poets (Guinicelli and Daniello) now\nforgotten, or known only by name, in terms of strong admiration,\nas predecessors to whose writings he was considerably indebted.\n[Footnote 61] The following lines are but a sample of a thousand\npassages in Wordsworth which set forth the agency of natural\nscenery in the work of man's education and refinement. It is\ntaken from the _Prelude_, a long introduction to the\n_Excursion_, which lay upon the author's shelves in\nmanuscript during forty-five years: [Footnote 62]\n\n                \"Was it for this,\n  That one, the fairest of all rivers, loved\n  _To blend his murmurs with my nurse's song_,\n  And from his alder-shades and rocky falls,\n  And, from his fords and shallows, sent _a voice_\n  _That flowed along my dreams?_ For this didst thou,\n  O Derwent! winding among grassy holms\n  Where I was looking on, a babe in arms.\n  _Make ceaseless music, that composed my thoughts_\n  _To more than infant softness_, giving me,\n  Amid the fretful dwellings of mankind,\n  A foretaste, a dim earnest of _the calm_\n  _That Nature breathes among the hills and groves?_\"\n\n    [Footnote 58: _Prometheus Vinctus_.]\n\n    [Footnote 59: _L' Inferno_, c. xxxiii.]\n\n    [Footnote 60: _Paradise Lost_, Book i.]\n\n    [Footnote 61: _Il Purgatorio_, xi. 97; xxvi. 115, 142,\n    92, 97.]\n\n    [Footnote 62: 1805 to 1850.]\n\nWordsworth's life was an exemplification of the doctrine he\ntaught. Cheerfulness and peace marked his character at each stage\nof his eighty years' pilgrimage, and, towards the close of his\ncareer, he had the satisfaction of perceiving that his works were\nslowly effecting the result to which he had destined them--making\na lasting impression on the literature of his age, and leading\nmany a thoughtful spirit from artificial to natural enjoyments,\nfrom the imagery of dreamland to that of daily life, from bombast\nto simplicity, from passion to feeling, and from turmoil to\nrepose.\n\n  \"O heavenly poet! such thy verse appears,\n   So sweet, so charming to my ravished ears,\n   As to the weary swain, with cares opprest.\n   Beneath the silvan shade, _refreshing rest_;\n   As to the fev'rish traveller, when first\n   He finds a crystal stream to quench his thirst.\" [Footnote 63]\n\n    [Footnote 63: Dryden's _Virgil_, Pastoral v.]\n\n{350}\n\nNor was Wordsworth's love of nature and her soothing influences\ndissociated from religious belief. He was no materialist,\nmaintaining the eternal existence and self-government of the\nuniverse by fixed and exclusively natural laws. He was no\npantheist, worshipping nature as an indivisible portion of the\ndivine essence--a body of which God is actually the soul. He\nbelieved in other laws besides those which regulate the movements\nof the celestial bodies, and the gradual formation and\ndestruction of the strata that compose the surface of our globe.\nThe view which he took of the material universe was such as\nbecame a Christian, and is luminously expressed by him in the\nfollowing lines:\n\n                         \"I have seen\n  A curious child applying to his ear\n  The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell.\n  To which, in silence hushed, his very soul\n  Listened intensely, and his countenance soon\n  Brightened with joy; for murmurings from within\n  Were heard--sonorous cadences! whereby,\n  To his belief, the monitor expressed\n  Mysterious union with its native sea.\n  E'en such a shell the universe itself\n  Is to the ear of faith, and doth impart\n  Authentic tidings of invisible things.\n  Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power,\n  And _central peace subsisting at the heart\n  Of endless agitation_.\"\n\nIt is impossible to read the _Prelude_ and the\n_Excursion_ without perceiving that Wordsworth's passion for\nnatural scenery was no fictitious emotion, assumed for the\npurpose of appearing brimful of philosophy and sentiment, and\nmaking an effective parade of moon and stars, flowers and\nrivulets, in verse. No, it was a deep and abiding principle--a\nfeeling of which he could no more have divested himself than\nNewton of his bent toward science, or Beethoven of his ear for\nmusic. This unaffected enthusiasm enabled him to speak with the\nauthority of a master, and to instil into the minds of disciples\nthe ideas that had taken so strongly possession of his own.\n\nFrom the poetry of inanimate nature, the transition was easy to\nthat of simple feelings, particularly in rustic life. In the\ninnocent plays of children of the cot, and the sparkling dews on\nthe cheeks of wild mountain maids, Wordsworth found themes for\nreflection deep enough to sink into the memory of men. Who has\nnot felt the inimitable simplicity of the verses in which the\nchild, who often, after sunset, took her little porringer, and\nate her supper beside her brother's grave, persisted in saying:\n\"Oh! no, sir, _we are seven_,\" and in ignoring the power of\ndeath to sever or to annihilate? Purity marks all which this\nchief of the Lake School has composed; for how could he soothe\nthe spirit if, like Moore and Byron, he pandered to vicious\ninclinations? Hence his successor as Poet-Laureate congratulates\nhimself very properly on wearing\n\n  \"The laurel greener from the brows\n   Of him that uttered nothing base.\"\n\nA poet's best eulogy is that which comes from a poet. Having\nquoted that of Tennyson, therefore, I shall add that which\nShelley also bestows on Wordsworth:\n\n  \"Thou wert as _a lone star_, whose light did shine\n   On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar:\n   Thou hast like to a _rock-built refuge_ stood\n   Above the blind and battling multitude\n   In honored poverty thy voice did weave\n   Songs consecrate to truth and liberty.\"\n\nThe quietude commended by infidel poets is, at the best, that of\ndespair. It is rest without repose, pathetic but not peaceful--a\nspurious and delusive calm, difficult to attain for a moment, and\ncertain not to endure.\n\n  \"Yet now despair itself is mild.\n   Even as the winds and waters are;\n   I could lie down like a tired child.\n   And weep away the life of care\n   Which I have borne and yet must bear.\" [Footnote 64]\n\n    [Footnote 64: P. B. Shelley.]\n\n{351}\n\nSuch is their language; so writes one of the most distinguished\nof these \"apostles of affliction.\" How different are the feelings\nof the Christian \"quietist:\"\n\n   \"Nor let the proud heart say.\n    In her self-torturing hour,\n  The travail pangs must have their way.\n    The aching brow must lower.\n  To us long since the glorious Child is born,\n    Our throes should be forgot, or only seem\n  Like a sad vision told for joy at morn,\n    For joy that we have waked, and found it but a dream.\" [Footnote 65]\n\n    [Footnote 65:  Keble. _The Christian Year_. Third Sunday\n    after Easter.]\n\nNor is this strain unreal. The writer's life was the best\nguarantee for the sincerity of his sentiments, and the response\nhe has wakened in myriads of hearts is a seal set on the depth of\nhis convictions. He hymned not the happiness of the Christian,\nbecause the theme suited an ambitious lyre in that it is lofty,\nor an ordinary one in that it is familiar, but because he was\npersuaded that the poet's highest glory consists in calming the\nagitated spirit, as David did when he played cunningly on the\nharp in the presence of Saul; and that, while it is incumbent on\nus to make others happy, our paramount duty is to be happy\nourselves; that if we are not so, the fault is our own; and that\nthere are in the religion we profess, in every crisis and\ncondition, ample provisions for that happiness to which all\naspire.\n\n  \"O awful touch of God made man!\n     We have no lack if thou art there:\n   From thee our infant joys began,\n     By thee our wearier age we bear.\" [Footnote 66]\n\n    [Footnote 66: Keble. _Lyra Innocentium_.]\n\nThis is the key-note of his thoughtful rhymes.\n\nKeble's reputation as a poet was established long before the\nleading periodicals of the land called attention to the beauty of\nhis compositions.\n\nTheir publication in the first instance is said to have been\nowing to his seeing several of them in print without being able\nto conjecture by what means they had found their way to public\nlight. He soon learned, however, that some of his manuscripts,\nwhich he had lent to a lady, had been dropped in the street and\nlost. He therefore resolved on completing and publishing _The\nChristian Year_. It was not till nearly twenty years after its\nfirst appearance that it received in the _Quarterly Review_\nthat meed of applause to which it was justly entitled. The\narticle which there called attention to its extraordinary merits\nwas written, we believe; by Mr. Gladstone, whom neither the\nbustle of parliamentary life, nor the aridity of financial study,\nrenders insensible to the charms of those muses who are generally\nsupposed to haunt woods and caves, and to smile only on the\nrecluse.\n\nTo us Catholics the name of Keble will always be remembered with\ninterest, because he shared with Drs. Newman and Pusey the\nleadership of that great party in the Anglican Church which has\ngiven so many children to the true church, and has spread through\nEngland and through the world many Catholic doctrines and\npractices long dormant or forgotten. We think of him with\naffection, because he carried on to the end the work of soothing\nthe troubled spirit by means of religious verse; because he was\nthrough life the friend of that distinguished convert to whose\ngenius and writings we owe so much; and because he has, both in\nprose and verse, laid down, more clearly and explicitly than any\nother Protestant writer, the grounds of our veneration of the\nblessed Mother of God Incarnate.[Footnote 67]\n\n    [Footnote 67: _See Lyra Innocentium_, \"Church Rites;\"\n    and _The Month_, May, 1866, \"John Keble.\"]\n\n{352}\n\nHe did not, indeed, follow out his convictions to their\nlegitimate results; he fancied that he responded to them\nsufficiently by remaining where he was. But his poems will ever\nremain a witness against the church in which they were composed,\nbecause it can never reduce to practice the doctrines he taught\nin reference to the holy eucharist, the confessional, and the\ncommunion of saints. Meanwhile they are silently imbuing the\nminds of Anglican readers with feelings and arguments favorable\nto the divine system of the Catholic Church. Though his\n_Christian Year_ is adapted to the services of the Church of\nEngland, and though its chief purpose, as stated in the preface,\nis \"to exhibit the soothing tendency of the Prayer-Book,\" the\nauthor's sympathies are with the Book of Common Prayer in its\nCatholic, and not in its Protestant aspects. During more than\nforty years it has been chiselling the Anglican mind into a more\northodox shape. It moulds the chaotic elements of faith into\nsubstance, form, and life. It supplies the lost sense of\nScriptures, and lays the foundation of towers and bulwarks it\ncannot build. It opens bright vistas of realized truth, and\npoints to glorious summits from the foot of the hill. It is not\ninspired with genius of the highest order; the range it takes is\nmore circumscribed in some respects than that of Cowper; it\nseldom reaches the sublime, and is always pleasing rather than\noriginal. But in spite of these drawbacks, it has wound itself\nmore and more into public esteem. No poetry is read more\nhabitually by members of the Established Church. The number of\nthose is very large who take down _The Christian Year_ from\ntheir bookshelves every Sunday and festival. It rings every\nchange on the theme Resignation, and presents it in all its\ntruest and most beautiful lights. It has extracted from the\nsacred writings the very marrow of the text, has developed in a\nthousand ways the typical and mystic import of Scripture\nhistories, expressed from them abundantly the wine and oil of\nconsolation, and conveyed it to us in poetic ducts of no mean\nkind.\n\n  \"As for some dear familiar strain\n   Untired we ask, and ask again.\n   Ever, in its melodious store.\n   Finding a spell unheard before;\" [Footnote 68]\n\nso, many Anglicans of the devouter sort recur to Keble's poems\nyear after year, and end the perusal only with death. Other poets\ncharm and instruct the mind, he forms it; and while others are\nbut read, he is learnt. Even the conviction which he cherished of\nthe heavenly mission of the church of Queen Elizabeth, though\nmisplaced, added to the sweetness and soothing character of his\nverses. But it is deserving of note that his latter volume,\n_Lyra Innocentium_, which contains more lamentation than he\nuttered before over the shortcomings of his own communion, and\nmore intense aspirations after Catholic dogma and practice,\nevinces at the same time less inward quietude in the writer, and\nimparts less of it to the reader. One poem, indeed, called\n\"Mother out of Sight,\" on the absence of the holy Mother of God\nfrom the English mind, invoking her, as it did, in a strain of\nglorious verse, was omitted, lest it should perplex and disquiet\nthose who were unused to such invocations, and believed them to\nbe forbidden by the Anglican Church.\n\n    [Footnote 68: _Christian Year_, \"Morning.\"]\n\nTo cite passages from Keble's poems illustrative of their\nsoothing tendency, would be to copy almost all he wrote. They\nfell like the dew of Hermon, and were a sign and symbol of the\nman himself.\n{353}\n\"His bright, fresh, joyous, and affectionate nature,\" says one\nwho knew him well, \"was an ever-flowing spring, always at play,\n_always shedding a gentle, imperceptible, and recreating dew\nupon those who came within its reach. There was a Christian\npoetry about him_, a natural gift, elevated and transformed by\nhis consistent piety and religious earnestness, which gilded the\ncommonest things and the most ordinary actions, and cast the\nradiance of an unearthly sunshine all around him.\" [Footnote 69]\nWhat wonder that the illustrious author of the _Apologia_\nused to look at him with awe when walking in the High Street at\nOxford? What wonder that, when elected a Fellow of Oriel, and for\nthe first time taken by the hand by the Provost and all the\nFellows, he bore it till Keble took his hand, and then, as he\nsaid, \"felt so abashed and unworthy of the honor done him, that\nhe seemed desirous of quite sinking into the ground\"? [Footnote\n70] Yet the greater was blessed of the less. For depth and\nsubtlety of reasoning, for power and pathos in prose composition.\nDr. Newman has surpassed beyond all measure everything which\nKeble did or could accomplish. In poetry, the world in general\nhas awarded the palm to Keble, and the world, we believe, is\nright. In the art, at least, of calming the ruffled spirit, the\npoet of _The Christian Year_ has outdone his beloved rival\nand friend.\n\n    [Footnote 69: _The Month_, vol. iv. p. 142.]\n\n    [Footnote 70: J. H. Newman's _Apologia_, p. 76.]\n\nThe _Lyra Apostolica_ brought Keble and Newman together as\nathletes in the arena of poetry; and that series of poems affords\na good opportunity of comparing their several merits, to those\nwho have the key to the writers' names. They appeared in the\n_British Magazine_, signed only with Greek characters\nrepresenting the following writers:\n\n  Alpha    J. W. Bowden.\n  Beta     R. H. Froude.\n  Gamma    John Keble.\n  Delta    J. H. Newman.\n  Epsilon  R. J. Wilberforce;\n  Zeta     Isaac Williams.\n\nBy far the greater number of the pieces were written by Keble and\nNewman, and almost all by the latter have reappeared this year in\na series, which supplies a poetic commentary on the author's\nlife. These _Verses on Various Occasions_ range over a\nperiod of forty-six years, and having each of them the date and\nthe place where composed attached to it, the interest of the\nwhole is thereby greatly increased. Among the poems is that\nremarkable one, \"The Dream of Gerontius,\" which was published in\n_The Catholic World_ in 1865. But neither Dr. Newman's\nverses thus collected, nor the series entitled _Lyra\nApostolica_ in general, are marked by that repose which is the\nprevailing feature of _The Christian Year_. The motto chosen\nby Froude for the _Lyra_ was truly combative, and shows the\nfeeling both of Newman and himself, then together at Rome. It was\ntaken from the prayer of Achilles on returning to the battle, and\nit implores Heaven to make his enemies know the difference, now\nthat his respite from fighting is over.\n\n  [Greek text] [Footnote 71]\n\n  [Footnote 71: _Iliad_, [Sigma] 125. _Apologia_, p. 98.]\n\nThe scars of warfare are visible even in Newman's hymns. He has\nevidently passed through many an inward conflict, and fought\nwith, many an external foe. He has vacated ground he once\noccupied, and he defends principles which he once assailed. He\npierces many heights, and depths, and has to be always on his\nguard against his lively imagination.\n{354}\nHe is lucid as any star, but not always as serene. He flashes now\nand then like a meteor; he hints and suggests in nebulous light.\nHe is a pioneer of thought; he shoots beyond his comrades; he\nwalks \"with Death and Morning on the Silver Horns.\" He sees,\nwhere others grope; he is at home, where others feel confused and\nout of place. He is, like Ballanche, [Footnote 72] more satisfied\nof the truth of the unseen than of the visible world. Mysteries\nare his solemn pastime. He strikes his harp in Limbo, as\nSpaniards weave a dance in church before the Holy Sacrament. His\ndreams are Dantesque; he is half a seer. The veil of death is\nrent before him, and his soul, by anticipation, launches into the\nabyss. The chains of the body are dropped, and angels and demons\ncome round him to console and to harass his solitary spirit in\nits transition state. His condition there, like his poetry, and\nlike himself on earth and in the body, is one of mingled quietude\nand disturbance;\n\n  \"And the deep rest, so soothing and so sweet,\n   Had something, too, of sternness and of pain.\"\n   [Footnote 73]\n\n  [Footnote 72: _Dublin Review_, July, 1865, p. 10.\n  \"Madame R\u00e9camier.\"]\n\n  [Footnote 73: \"Dream of Gerontius,\" \u00a7 2.]\n\nThe happy, suffering soul (\"for it is safe, consumed, yet\nquickened, by the glance of God,\") sings in Purgatory in a strain\nidentical with that to which it was used in this mortal life:\n\n  \"Take me away, and in the lowest deep\n     There let me be,\n   And there in hope the lone night-watches keep,\n     Told out for me.\n   There motionless and happy in my pain,\n     Lone, not forlorn--\n   There will I sing my sad perpetual strain\n     Until the morn;\n   There will I sing and soothe my stricken breast,\n     Which ne'er can cease\n   To throb and pine and languish, till possest\n     Of its sole peace.\" [Footnote 74]\n\n    [Footnote 74: Ibid. \u00a7 6.]\n\nThere is, indeed, one of Dr. Newman's poems, and that one the\nmost popular and beautiful he has ever composed, which is\nsingularly pathetic and peaceful. Yet even here darker shades are\nnot wanting. The angel faces are \"lost awhile,\" and the \"pride\"\nand self-will of former years recur to the memory like spectres.\nIt was in June, 1833, when becalmed in the Straits of Bonifacio\nin an orange-boat [Footnote 75] that Dr. Newman wrote \"Lead,\nKindly Light.\" The _Pall Mall Gazette_--no mean critic--has\nsaid of it recently, [Footnote 76] \"It appears to us one of the\nmost perfect poems of the kind in the language.\"\n\n    [Footnote 75: _Apologia_, p. 99.]\n\n    [Footnote 76: Jan. 23, 1868]\n\n  \"Lead, kindly Light, amid th' encircling gloom.\n       Lead thou me on!\n   The night is dark, and I am far from home--\n       Lead thou me on!\n   Keep thou my feet: I do not ask to see\n   The distant scene--one step enough for me.\n\n  \"I was not ever thus, nor prayed that thou\n       Would'st lead me on.\n   I loved to choose and see my path; but now\n       Lead thou me on!\n   I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears.\n   Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.\n\n  \"So long thy power hath blest me, sure it still\n       Will lead me on\n   O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till\n       The night is gone;\n   And with the morn those angel faces smile\n   Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.\"\n\nFond as Dr. Newman is of modern poetry he has not imitated it.\nHis style is original--a rare mixture of strength, sincerity, and\nsweetness, moulded rather after the choruses of Greek dramas,\nthan the rich creations of Keats, Shelley, Tennyson, and\nLongfellow. Hence his poems bear a nearer resemblance to Milton's\n_Samson Agonistes_ than to any other English production. His\nlyrical pieces, again, often remind us of George Herbert, and of\nShenstone, Waller, and Cowley. They have a clearness of\nexpression and bright fluency, which makes you love the writer\neven when you cannot greatly admire his verse. One of the best\nspecimens of his poetic faculty in the _Verses on Various\nOccasions_ is a poem called \"Consolations in Bereavement,\"\nwritten in 1828.\n{355}\nIt turns on one idea--the rapidity of death's work in the case of\nthe dear sister whom he mourns. He solaces himself with the\nreflection that the deed was quickly done, and thus derives\ncomfort from a thought which is in most cases afflictive. Perhaps\nByron's lines were unconsciously running in his head:\n\n  \"I know not if I could have borne\n     To see thy beauties fade:\n   ......\n\n   Thy day without a cloud hath past,\n   And thou wert lovely to the last;\n     _Extinguished, not decayed_;\n   As stars that shoot along the sky\n   Shine brightest as they fall from high.\"\n\nDr. Newman's poetry did not properly fall within the scope of\nthis article, but we have been led to speak of it because he was\nKeble's colleague in the _Lyra Apostolica_, and because the\nverses of the surviving poet have just appeared in England in a\nnew form, and have attracted general attention and been made the\nsubject of admiring and affectionate criticism not merely by\nCatholic periodicals, but by non-Catholic reviews and newspapers\nof every political and religious shade. Indeed, the praise\nbestowed on them by such journalists has exceeded that of our own\ncritics, because it has, generally speaking, been more\ndiscriminating and uttered by higher authorities in the literary\nworld.\n\nLet us then rejoice that English literature includes three poets\nat least--Cowper, Keble, and Wordsworth--who are in a good sense\nquietists, and the tenor of whose writings, from first to last,\nis tranquillizing. They may not, perhaps, be the authors who will\nafford us most pleasure in the tumultuous season of youthful\nenjoyment; but as years advance, and the trials of life present\nthemselves, one by one, in all their painful reality; as reason\nmatures and reflection ripens; as the probationary character of\nour mortal existence becomes more and more clear to our\napprehension; as the discovery of much that is formal and hollow\nin society enamors us of rural retreats and sylvan solitudes; as\nthe inexhaustible treasures of beauty and magnificence in the\nmaterial universe unfold before our gaze; as the things unseen\ntriumph over visible objects in our thoughts and affections, we\nshall find in such poetry as we have attempted to describe, more\nthat is congenial and charming, and shall cherish with fonder\nremembrance the names of Cowper, the mellifluous exponent of\nChristian ethics and delights; of Keble, the bard of Biblical\nlore; and of Wordsworth, the child and poet of nature. Like\nskilful tuners of roughly-used instruments, they will reduce to\nsweetness our spirits' harsher and discordant tones, and fit us\nto take our part in the everlasting harmonies of the boundless\nuniverse. They will each make poetry, in our view, the handmaid\nof science and revelation, accepting with rapture the vast,\namazing discoveries of the one, and ever seeking to harmonize\nthem with the momentous and soul-subduing disclosures of the\nother. They will impart to mute matter the voice and power of a\nmoral teacher, imbue inanimate things (to our imagination) with\nlife and feeling, inspire us with \"a glorious sympathy with suns\nthat set\" and rise, with \"flowers that bloom and stars that\nglow,\" with the birdling warbling on her bough, and the ocean\nbellowing in his caves; and will lead us by nature's golden steps\nto the footstool of the Creator's throne; for, in the eyes of\nsuch poets, earth is \"crammed with heaven,\" and every common bush\non fire with God.\n\n----------\n\n{356}\n\n         The Early Irish Church. [Footnote 77]\n\n   [Footnote 77: _Essays on the Origin, Doctrines, and\n   Discipline of the Early Irish Church_. By the Rev. Dr.\n   Moran, Vice-Rector of the Irish College, Rome. Dublin, 1864.\n   Pp. vii., 337. For sale by the Catholic Publication Society,\n   New York.]\n\nThe early Irish Church is now the subject of a close scrutiny and\ndeep study, that bids fair to shed upon it all the light that can\nbe poured upon the subject by such written material as war,\noppression, persecution, and penal laws have been insufficient to\ndestroy. There are two schools, and their emulating labors will\nallow little to escape, both being well versed in ecclesiastical\nhistory, the Irish language, annals, and literature.\n\nIt is needless to say that there are a Catholic and a Protestant\nschool--the latter of comparatively recent origin. The Anglican\nChurch in Ireland, studying what it had long despised, now seeks\nto hold forth to the world that it is the real successor and\nrepresentative of the early Irish Church; while the Catholic\nChurch in Ireland is simply a papal continuation of the foreign\nchurch, forced on Ireland by Henry II. and Pope Adrian IV., and\ntheir respective successors. Unfortunately, however, the memory\nof man records not the fact that, in the sixteenth century and\nlater, the Thirty-nine Articles and Book of Common Prayer were\npresented to the Irish as being the creed and liturgy of its\nearly saints. Those who burnt the crosier of Patrick broke with\nthe early Irish Church as effectually as they did with the\nromanized Irish Church of later days.\n\nAt the beginning of this century, Ledwich, following in the wake\nof the wild theories of Conyers Middleton, denied entirely the\nexistence of St. Patrick, and his theory met with no little favor\namong those opposed to the church. Now his existence is admitted,\nhis life studied and written, and efforts made, with no little\nskill, industry, and learning, to show that the Roman Catholic\nChurch has no claim to St. Patrick or the church which he\nfounded; a church so full of life, that its missionaries spread\nto other lands, and went forth with papal sanction to plant\ncatholicity or revive fervor on the continent. It is to this\ncurious phase of controversy that we are indebted for the volume\nof Essays which are here contributed by Doctor Moran, and which\nevince his learning and research, as well as his fitness for\nclose historical argument.\n\nThat there should be much material for a discussion as to so\nearly a period as the fifth century may surprise many, especially\nthose who have always been taught to clear with a bound some ten\nor more centuries prior to the sixteenth. And it must be admitted\nthat it is indeed surprising, when we consider the wholesale\ndestruction of Irish manuscripts by the English in Ireland from\nthe time of Henry down to the present century. From the period of\nthe invasion to the Reformation, though invaders and invaded were\nalike Catholic, the English treated the Irish with such contempt\nthat only five families or bloods were recognized as human, and\neven monasteries were closed to men of Irish race. The literature\nof the proscribed was of course slighted and despised.\n\n{357}\n\nFrom the Reformation the literary remains of earlier days were\nproscribed and destroyed, not only as Irish but as popish.\n\nIn this almost universal destruction, the ecclesiastical books,\nmissals, sacramentaries, breviaries, penitentials, the canons of\ncouncils, doctrinal books, many historical and biographical\ntreatises perished. The Irish people and their church hold by\ntradition to their predecessors, and claim to be direct\nsuccessors of the church and converts of St. Patrick. Nor can the\nAnglican party which destroyed so much of Irish literature now\nbase any argument on the silence of manuscript authority or draw\nany inference in their favor from the absence of proofs, for\nwhose disappearance they are themselves accountable.\n\nThe uninterrupted adherence of the Irish nation to the Roman\nChurch gives it the force of prescription, and it will hold good\nagainst all but the most direct and positive evidence.\n\nNo mere inferences can invalidate her claim.\n\nThe documents regarding the early Irish Church begin with the\nconfession of Saint Patrick and his letter to Coroticus, a\npiratical British chief, published by Ware in 1656, from four\nmanuscripts, and by the Bollandists from a manuscript in the\nAbbey of Saint Vaast.\n\nThe canons ascribed to the saint were published by the same, as\nwell as by Spelman and Usher.\n\nOf the lives of the saint, the least valuable of all is that by\nJocelin, an English monk, who wrote soon after the conquest. This\nis given in the Bollandists and in Messingham's Florilegium.\nEarlier and better lives, four in number, were collected and\npublished by Colgan in his Acta Triadis Thaumaturgae, a work of\nwhich we doubt the existence of a copy on this side of the\nAtlantic.\n\nAmong these earlier lives, one by Probus is of much value. It was\nprinted, strangely enough, among the works of Venerable Bede, in\nthe Basil edition of that father issued in 1563, and, apparently,\nthe whole work was taken from manuscripts preserved at the Irish\nconvent at Bobbio.\n\nThese are the more important material for the life of the apostle\nof Ireland, together with unpublished matter in some very ancient\nIrish manuscripts, codices known for centuries, such as the Book\nof Armagh, a manuscript of the eighth or ninth century, which\ncontains a life of Saint Patrick by Muirchu-Maccu-Mactheni; the\nLeabhar Breac, considered the most valuable Irish manuscript on\necclesiastical matters; the Tripartite Life in the British\nMuseum, the early national annals, etc.\n\nAs to the antiquity and value of these ancient codices Westwood\nin his _Palaeographia Sacra Pictoria_ (London, 1843-5) may\nbe consulted.\n\nFor the liturgy of the early Irish Church, we have a missal\npreserved at Stowe, in England, and ascribed to the sixth\ncentury, but which unfortunately has never been fully and\ncompletely published; a missal preserved in the monastery founded\nby Saint Columbanus at Bobbio, and printed by Mabillon in his\n_Iter Italicum_; the _Antiphonarium Benchorense_; the\nExposition of the Ceremonies of the Mass preserved in the Leabhar\nBreac and a treatise on the Mass Vestments in the same volume, as\nwell as the Liber Hymnorum, and various separate hymns.\n\nThe lives of the Irish saints, many of which have been published\nby Colgan, Messingham, the Bollandists, as well as the meagre\nIrish secular annals, throw much light on the social and\nreligious life of the ancient Irish.\n\n{358}\n\nSuch is, in brief, the documentary array to be appealed to in the\ncontroversy, as to the origin and character of the Irish Church.\n\nAnd surely what has come down in fragments shows a church which\nthe Anglican Church could not but condemn. The warmest advocate\nof the identity of the Anglican Church in Ireland with the early\nIrish Church, would find the old Irish mass, as preserved in the\nStowe or the Bobbio missal, a very objectionable worship; the\nmonks and nuns unsuited to our age; and the prayers,\npenitentiary, and belief in miraculous powers in the church\nutterly inconsistent with Protestant ideas; while the Catholic\nIrish would find the mass, if said in one of their churches, so\nlike that they daily hear, that it would excite scarce a word of\ncomment; monks and nuns would certainly excite less; and the\nprayers of that early day still circulate with the commendation\nof the actual head of the Catholic Church, the successor of\nCelestine.\n\nThe position having been abandoned that St. Patrick never\nexisted, national pride, which from the days of Jocelin has bent\nits energies to prove that he was a Briton of the island of Great\nBritain and born in Scotland, now would prove that he was a\ngenuine Englishman in his total renunciation of papal authority.\n\nIn the recent life of St. Patrick by Dr. Todd, this, though\ntreated lightly as a matter of slight import, is really the\nmarrow of the book.\n\nThe mission of St. Patrick has been uniformly attributed to Pope\nSt. Celestine, who held the chair of Peter from 422 to 432; and\nis intimately connected with a previous one of the deacon of\nCelestine, St. Palladius, who made an unsuccessful attempt to\nchristianize Ireland; and the mission of St. Palladius grew out,\nit would seem, of a deputation of Gallic bishops to Britain to\ncheck the progress of Pelagianism.\n\nTodd endeavors ingeniously to break up these connected facts. He\nseeks to show that Palladius was a deacon not of St. Celestine,\nbut of St. Germain, Bishop of Auxerre; that the history of\nPalladius and Patrick have been confounded; and that Patrick was\nnot sent to Ireland till 440, and consequently could not have\nbeen sent by St. Celestine. This would, to some extent, deliver\nthe early Irish Church from the terrible responsibility of having\nreceived its origin from Rome.\n\nDr. Moran's work is made up of three essays: \"On the Origin of\nthe Irish Church and its Connection with Rome;\" \"On the teaching\nof the Irish Church concerning the Blessed Eucharist;\" and, on\n\"Devotion to the Blessed Virgin in the Ancient Church of\nIreland.\"\n\nIn the first of these essays he meets the arguments of the Senior\nFellow of Trinity by a careful and close examination, showing\nthat both Palladius and Patrick owed their mission to Rome and to\nSt. Celestine, and settles conclusively the date of St. Patrick's\nlanding in Ireland.\n\nHe discusses at length the mission of Palladius; sketches the\nlife of St. Patrick, and his connection with St. Germain; and\nstates briefly the proofs of his Roman mission. He then refutes\nthe array of modern theories in regard to the great apostle from\nLedwich to Todd, and accumulates evidence to show how the early\nIrish Church regarded the holy see.\n\nThe period when Saint Palladius and Saint Patrick successively\nproceeded to Ireland, was not one of obscurity. The church was\nfull of vitality, and met Nestorius in the east, Pelagius in the\nwest, the Manichees in Africa, with the power and might of a\ndivine institution.\n{359}\nIt was the day of St. Augustine, St. Germain, of Vincent of\nLerins, of Cassian, Chrysostom, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Jerome.\nSt. Basil, St. Ambrose, St. Athanasius, even, and St. Anthony\nwere still fresh in the memory of those who had heard the words\nof life from their lips, or gazed on them in reverence. The\nCouncil of Ephesus was actually in session defining the honor due\nto the Mother of God. The canon of Holy Scripture had been\nsettled thirty-five years before, in the Council of Carthage, and\nSt. Jerome's version was gradually supplanting the Vetus Itala in\nthe hands of the faithful.\n\nThe monastic life, a vigorous tree planted at Rome by Athanasius,\nhad already spread over the Latin Church, in its multiform\nactivity and zeal. It grew under the mighty hand of Augustine,\nwas nurtured by that St. Martin of Tours, whose reputation was so\nwidespread. It gave a Lerins, with its school of bishops,\nwriters, and saints; the abbey of St. Victor at Marseilles, where\nCassian prayed and wrote.\n\nBut if this was a great age of the church, the Roman empire\nshowed no such signs of vitality. It was tottering to its fall.\nAlong its whole western territory, stretching from Italy to\nCaledonia, the pagan barbarians of Germany were pressing with\nrelentless power, threatening destruction to Roman, romanized\nBriton, and romanized Gaul--for all of whom the German had but\none name, still preserved by the race, the Anglo-Saxon terming\nthe descendants of the Britons Welsh, as the Fleming does the\nFrench or the south of Germany the Italian. A little later this\nGerman race, last in Europe to embrace the faith and first to\nrevolt from it, overran Britain, establishing the Saxon monarchy,\nmaking Gaul the land of Franks, and giving Spain and Italy Gothic\nsovereigns.\n\nBefore this torrent burst, the church in Italy, Britain, and Gaul\nwas closely united. Heresies appeared and gained ground in\nBritain. To meet this Pelagian enemy, the insular bishops\nappealed for aid to Gaul. The bishops of that country in council,\nselected St. Germain and St. Lupus to go to Britain; and Prosper,\nin his chronicle, assures us that, through the instrumentality of\nPalladius the deacon, Pope Celestine in 426 sent Germain in his\nown stead to root out heresy there, and direct the Britons to the\nCatholic faith.\n\nBut this was not the only work. To recover what was straying was\nwell; but a new island was yet to be conquered to the faith, one\nin which the Roman eagle had never flashed, but which seems to\nthe eye of faith a field white for the reaper.\n\nAttached to Germain by ties of which there is no doubt, was a man\nof Roman-British race, whose whole associations were with the\nchurch of Gaul, who had been a slave for several years in\nIreland, and yearned to return to it as a herald of the Gospel.\nHe is stated, in the earliest lives, to have been recommended by\nSaint Germain to Pope Celestine, as one fitted for such a work.\nThe pope, however, either to give greater dignity to the new\nmission, or to leave no doubt of the Roman character of the work,\nchose in 431 Palladius, deacon of the Roman Church, already\nmentioned, to be the first apostle to the Scots, as the Irish\nwere then termed. Saint Germain and Saint Lupus went to Britain\nin 429, and labored with zeal and success there during that year\nand the next. The ancient Irish writer, who wrote a commentary on\na hymn in honor of Saint Patrick by St. Fiacc, and who is cited\nby Irish scholars as scholiast on Saint Fiacc's hymn, states that\nSaint Patrick accompanied the Gallic bishops to Britain.\n{360}\nIn itself it would be probable. The intimate relations between\nthe Bishop of Auxerre and the British priest, would naturally\nlead that prelate to choose him as a companion. That Palladius,\nwho had been the pope's agent in the matter, accompanied them,\nalso, would seem natural. His selection for the Irish mission\nafter Saint Germain's return in 430, would follow as naturally.\n\nHe was made bishop, and sent to the Scots (Irish) in 431; and\nthat Saint Patrick was in some manner appointed by the pope to\nthe same work, or connected with the mission with a degree of\nauthority, is evident from the fact that, when Saint Palladius,\nafter an ineffectual attempt to establish a mission in Wicklow,\nwas driven from the country, and died, as some say, in Scotland,\nhis Roman companions at once hastened to Saint Patrick, to notify\nhim as one who possessed some jurisdiction in the matter; and all\naccounts agree that on this intelligence, Saint Patrick at once\nproceeded to obtain the episcopal consecration, and sailed to\nIreland.\n\nLooking at the whole action of the pope in regard to the checking\nof Pelagianism in Britain, and the conversion of Ireland, this\ntheory, first suggested by Dr. Lanigan, answers every\nrequirement. It contravenes no fact given by any early author,\nand is in perfect harmony with every part. The Rome-appointed\nsubordinates of Palladius reported to Patrick as a recognized\nsuperior, and it is utterly impossible that between him, the\ndisciple of Germain and Palladius, the Roman delegate to Germain,\nthere could have been diversity of faith or ecclesiastical\ndiscipline. The appointment of Patrick to the Irish mission was\nsimultaneous with that of Palladius, to whom the priority was\ngiven. On the death of Palladius he succeeded, and required but\nthe episcopal consecration to begin his labors as a bishop in\nIreland.\n\nThis would make the Roman origin of the Irish Church too clear\nfor Dr. Todd to accept it without a struggle. With what might\nalmost be termed unfairness, he ignores the statement of a\nperfect catena of Irish writers as to the character of Palladius,\nin order to make him a deacon, not of the pope, but of Saint\nGermain.\n\nLater lives of Saint Patrick, written long after the death of the\nsaint, by introducing vague traditions, have doubtless\nembarrassed the question. That some took his appointment by,\nCelestine to have required his visiting Rome after the death of\nPalladius, was natural; but he would really have been appointed\nby Celestine, even though consecrated in Gaul after the death of\nthat pope, if this was done in pursuance of previous orders of\nthe holy see. It would not be strange to Catholic ideas that\nSaint Patrick had what would be now termed his bulls unacted\nupon, either from humility or some other motive; and the history\nof the church contains many examples where bulls have been so\nheld, to be acted on ultimately only when the necessity of the\nchurch made the candidate feel it a duty to assume the burden\nfrom which he shrank.\n\nDr. Moran proves that Patrick drew his mission from Rome by a\nsolid array of authorities, which embrace some of the most\nancient Irish manuscripts extant. The Book of Armagh contains two\ntracts, one the _Dicta Sancti Patricii_, expressing his wish\nthat his disciple should be \"ut Christiani ita et Romani;\" the\nother the annals of Tirechan, written about the middle of the\nseventh century, stating absolutely that in the thirteenth year\nof the Emperor Theodosius the Bishop Patrick was sent by\nCelestine, bishop and pope of Rome, to instruct the Irish.\n\n{361}\n\nThe Leabhar Breac, styled by Petrie \"the oldest and best Irish\nmanuscript relating to church history now preserved,\" furnishes\nus evidence no less clear and decisive. The second Life of Saint\nPatrick, ascribed to Saint Eleran, (ob. 664;) the scholiast on\nSaint Fiacc, the Life by Probus, are all equally explicit,\nshowing it to have been a recognized fact in Ireland within two\ncenturies after the apostle's own day.\n\nDr. Moran, besides these, accumulates other authority of a later\nperiod, some hitherto uncited, and due to the researches of\nGerman scholars among the manuscripts still extant, due to the\nhands of the early Irish apostles of their land.\n\nOne argument of Dr. Todd was based on the silence of Muirchu\nMaccu Mactheni in the Book of Armagh; but Dr. Moran answers this\nfully by showing that part of that early writer's work is\nmissing; and that, as the Life of Saint Probus follows, word for\nword, the parts extant, we may assume that Saint Probus followed\nhim in other parts; and in regard to Saint Patrick's mission,\nSaint Probus is clear and plain.\n\nThe church in Ireland, then, was the spiritual child of Rome and\nGaul. Her great missionary, a Breton, came from the schools of\nGaul, with authority from Rome, and the church which he founded\nwas in harmony with the church in Britain, Gaul, and Italy. What\nthe faith of the church in those countries was, admits of no\ndoubt; and were there no monuments extant to give explicit\nevidence of the faith of the Irish Church, this would give us\nimplicit evidence sufficient, in the absence of any contradictory\nauthority, to decide what its faith, doctrines, and liturgy were.\n\nThe vice-rector of the Irish College marshals his authorities\nagain and shows that the church founded by an envoy from Rome\nretained its connection with the holy see and its reverence for\nthe See of Peter. He adduces hymns of the Irish Church, various\nwritings of successive ages, express canonical enactments\nregarding Rome, and finally the pilgrimages to the holy city, in\nitself an irrefragable proof of the veneration entertained for\nRome; but he crowns all this by adducing the many extant cases in\nwhich Irish bishops and clergy appealed to Rome.\n\nBut it may be thought that the terrible changes caused by the\ninvasion of the barbarians which in a manner isolated Ireland may\nhave led insensibly to differences of faith or practice in that\nisland, cut off from the centre of unity by the pagan England\nthat had succeeded Christian Britain, and the pagan France that\nreplaced Christian Gaul.\n\nHave we aught to prove what the Irish Church believed and taught;\nat what worship the faithful knelt; how they were received into\nthe body of believers; what rites consoled them in death?\nFortunately there is much to console us here, as well as to\nconvince us. One of the most important parts of the work we are\ndiscussing is the clear and distinct manner in which he proves\nthe Irish character of the missal found at Bobbio, and reproduced\nby Mabillon in his _Iter Italicum_. Having, by what light we\npossessed, come to the conclusion that it was in no sense Irish,\nwe examined this portion with interest, and must admit that the\nproof is clear. Bobbio was a monastery founded by St. Columbanus,\nand its rich library gave much to the early printers, and yet\nmuch still remains in the Ambrosian library at Milan.\n{362}\nThis missal has no distinctive Irish offices, and its containing\nan office of St. Sigebert, King of Burgundy, seemed to refute any\nidea of its being Irish. Yet we know that St. Columbanus founded\na monastery at Luxeu before proceeding to Bobbio, and in both\nplaces retained his Irish office. The adding of a local Mass\nwould not be strange. In itself this missal corresponds with that\nIrish missal preserved at Stowe in many essential points, and\nwith no other known missal; the orthography and writing are\nundoubtedly Irish; the liturgy in itself is not that of Gaul; it\nresembles it in many respects, but the canon is that of Rome.\nThis striking feature appears in the Stowe missal. Mabillon, from\nits antiquity, himself infers that Saint Columbanus brought it\nfrom Luxeu, and it is as probable that he brought it from\nIreland.\n\nIt gives us the Mass of the ancient Irish Church, and Curry gives\nin his lectures a translation of an \"Exposition of the Ceremonies\nof the Mass\" from the Irish in the Leabhar Breac. The Mass and\nthe exposition place beyond a doubt the belief of the Irish\nChurch in the Real Presence. The exposition is as distinct as if\nwritten to meet any opposition. \"Another division of that pledge,\nwhich has been left with the church to comfort her, is the body\nof Christ and his blood, which are offered upon the altars of the\nChristians; the body even which was born of Mary the Immaculate\nVirgin, without destruction of her virginity, without opening of\nthe womb, without the presence of man; and which was crucified by\nthe unbelieving Jews out of spite and envy; and which arose after\nthree days from death, and sits upon the right hand of God the\nFather in heaven.\" (_Curry's Lectures_, p. 307.)\n\nThe words of the Mass are no less explicit, and the Bobbio missal\ncontains these words: \"Cujus carne a te ipso sanctificata, dum\npascimur, roboramur, et sanguine dum potamur, abluimur.\" The\nwhole early literature, the lives of the saints, and other\nmonuments teem with allusions to the sacrifice of Christ's body\nand blood, and the saying of Mass is not unfrequently expressed\nby the term \"conficere Corpus Domini.\"\n\nThe proofs adduced by Dr. Moran on this point extend to sixty\npages, showing the most exact research and learning, and\naccumulating evidence on evidence, meeting and refuting\nobjections of every kind.\n\nThe sacrament of penance and its use is no less apparent; nor is\nthe devotion to the blessed Virgin and the saints a point on\nwhich the slightest doubt is left.\n\nDr. Moran's work is certainly, since the appearance of\n_Lanigan's Ecclesiastical History_, (4 vols. Dublin, 1822,)\nthe most valuable treatise on the early Irish Church, and\ncompletely sets at rest the theories set up by W. G. Todd, in\n_A History of the Ancient Church in Ireland_, London, 1845;\nand with great learning and skill by James H. Todd, in his\n_Saint Patrick, Apostle of Ireland: A Memoir of his Life and\nMission_, Dublin, 1864.\n\nWe need now a popular treatise embracing the result of his labor,\nin a small volume, like the work of W. G. Todd, and a volume\ncontaining the Bobbio missal, (that at Stowe is probably sealed,)\nwith the treatise on the Mass and vestments from the Leabhar\nBreac, and a selection of the prayers and hymns of the early\nchurch that have come down to us. With these common in the hands\nof the clergy, to familiarize them with what remains of the\nchurch of their fathers, we may hope to see the old Irish Mass,\nthe \"Cursus Scottorum\" or Mass of the early Irish Church, chanted\nby the cardinal archbishop of Dublin on the great patronal feast,\nas the Mozarabic liturgy is in Spain, or the Ambrosian at Milan.\nIt would be a living proof that, if the Irish and other churches\nlaid aside their peculiar liturgies to adopt exclusively that of\nRome, it was not that the former were objectionable; but that\nunity was too desirable to be postponed.\n\n--------\n\n{363}\n\n         My Angel.\n\n\n    \"He hath given his angels charge over thee.\"\n\n\n  There's an angel stands beside my heart,\n      And keepeth guard.\n  How I wish sometimes that he would depart,\n  And its strong desires would cease to thwart\n      With his stern regard!\n\n  But he never moves as he standeth there\n      With unwinking eyes;\n  And at every pitfall and every snare\n  His silent lips form the word, \"Forbear!\"\n      Till the danger flies.\n\n  His look doth oft my purpose check\n      And aim defeat.\n  And I change my course at his slightest beck.\n  'Tis well, or I soon would be a wreck\n      For the waves to beat.\n\n------\n\n{364}\n\n\n    Translated From The French.\n\n    An Italian Girl Of Our Day. [Footnote 78]\n\n    [Footnote 78: _Rosa Ferrucci: her Life, her Letters,\n    and her Death_, By the Abb\u00e9 H. Perreyve.]\n\n\n  [The first Italian edition of the _Letters of Rosa\n  Ferrucci_ appeared at Florence in 1857, a request for their\n  publication having been made to her mother by his Eminence\n  Cardinal Corsi, Archbishop of Pisa. The pious prelate was not\n  less desirous of seeing the account of so edifying a death\n  published, when he had learned the circumstances from the Prior\n  of San Sisto, who had attended Signorina Ferrucci in her last\n  moments.\n\n  A second edition appeared in 1858, enriched with numerous\n  details, at the express request of Monsignor Charvaz,\n  Archbishop of Genoa.\n\n  During a brief stay which I made at Pisa, Monsignor della\n  Fanteria, vicar-general of the diocese, spoke to me of the\n  profound impression which the death of Signorina Ferrucci had\n  left on all memories, and of the edification which he hoped\n  from her _Letters_. He expressed a wish that they should\n  be made known in France, and even urged me to undertake their\n  translation myself.\n\n  Authorities such as these, and the testimony of persons of\n  undoubted judgment as to the good this little work has already\n  done, have determined me to publish it for the second time. May\n  it edify yet again some young souls, by showing them in\n  Christianity an ideal too often sought elsewhere.\n\n  _December_, 1858.]\n\n\nThe following are the circumstances which led to the publication\nof the _Letters_ here presented to the reader.\n\nToward the end of April, last year, (1857,) as I was returning\nfrom Rome, I stopped at Pisa. The hand of God conducted me then\ninto the midst of a family, of whose unclouded happiness I had\nbeen the witness only a few months before, but which had now,\nalas! been visited by death. It was one of those sudden,\nheart-rending bereavements which make one falter on the desolated\nthreshold of his friend, and which chill on one's lips the\ntenderest words of consolation.\n\nWhat would you say to the father and mother who lose an only\ndaughter--their joy, their life, and, moreover, the pride and the\nedification of a whole town? Better be silent and ask God to\nspeak.\n\nHappily, in this case, God did speak; and the noble souls whose\nsorrows are to be recounted here, were of the number of those who\nknow his voice.\n\nAfter the first tears and the first outpouring of a grief which\ntime rendered only the more poignant, the poor mother asked me to\naccompany her to the house where her daughter had died, and which\nshe herself had quitted from that day. A servant belonging to one\nof the neighboring houses had the keys of this funereal dwelling,\nand he opened the doors for us. We expected to find only the\npresence of death and the vivid remembrance of the sorrows of\nyesterday in the silence of those deserted chambers; but\nChristian charity had watched over the spot, and from our first\nsteps a delicate perfume of roses betrayed its loving attentions.\n{365}\nIndeed, we found the chamber of the dead girl strewn with\nflowers. They were fresh, some faithful hand having renewed them\nthat very morning. This unlooked-for spectacle awakened in our\nminds the thought that the Christian's death is not so much a\ndeath as a transformation of life. Therefore it was that, when,\nkneeling near the poor sobbing mother, I asked her if she wished\nme to recite the _De Profundis_, she answered in a firm\nvoice and almost smiling, \"No, let us recite the _Te Deum_.\"\n\nThe hymn concluded, I led the pious woman from that room where\nher sorrow seemed changed into exultation, and I said to her on\nthe way: \"From all that I know, from all that I can learn of your\ndaughter, she was a saint. The delicate piety of your neighbors\nattests how powerful is still the recollection of her: the\nexample of her life, and the details of her holy death, must not\nbe lost. You must preserve them for the edification of her\ncompanions; for the edification of the town which has known her,\nloved her, venerated her; for the edification of ourselves also,\nwho must one day die, and whom the examples of all holy deaths\nencourage and support.\" I was not the first to express this\ndesire; many friends had anticipated me in begging for a history\nwhich they believed well calculated to reflect honor on our holy\nreligion.\n\nBefore I left Pisa, I had obtained the desired promise, pledging\nmyself, at the same time, to make known in France, to some\nChristian readers, this history, wrung from the anguish of a\nmother by the single desire of promoting the glory of God. Some\nmonths later, the book appeared at Florence, with the following\ntitle, _Rosa Ferrucci, and some of her Writings, published\nunder the supervision of her Mother_. It remains, then, for me\nto fulfil, on my part, the pious obligation I have contracted.\n\nRosa Ferrucci was the daughter of the celebrated Professor\nFerrucci, of the University of Pisa, and of the Signora Caterina\nFerrucci, a lady well known in Italy for her poetry, and for some\nexcellent works on education. It is little more than a year since\nthis young girl was, by her brilliant intellectual gifts and the\nholiness of her life, the honor of the city of Pisa. The grave\nhabits of a Christian family, all the veils, all the precautions,\nall the fears of modesty, had not been able to shield her from a\nsort of religious admiration which she inspired in all who saw\nher. How prevent mothers from pointing out the holy child to\ntheir daughters, or the poor from blessing her as she passed?\nRosa possessed natural talents of a high order, and her education\nwas singularly favorable to the full development of every gift of\nmind and heart. At six years of age she read Italian, French, and\nGerman. At a later period she knew by heart the whole of the\n_Divine Comedy_. She read in the original, under the\ndirection of her mother, Virgil, Cicero, Tacitus; and, among\nmodern authors, Bossuet, Bourdaloue, Fenelon, Fleury, Milton,\nSchiller, Klopstock. I mention at random the authors' quoted by\nher in her letters to her friends, passing by writers of our own\nday. She has left a correspondence in three languages--French,\nGerman, and Italian. The greater number of the Italian letters\nare addressed to a young gentleman of Leghorn, Signor Gaetano\nOrsini, a distinguished lawyer and perfect Christian, to whom\nRosa was betrothed, and whose hopes have been shattered by her\ndeath.\n{366}\nEach part of her correspondence is remarkable, but it is of the\nlast-mentioned letters that I propose particularly to speak.\nIndependently of her correspondence, Signorina Ferrucci wrote\nmany short treatises on religion and Christian morality, several\nof which have been published since her death.\n\nHere, then, we find in a young girl a degree of mental\ncultivation--a depth of learning, I might say--which would be\nremarkable in a man even of distinguished education. To dwell\nlong on gifts so rare would interfere with the object I proposed\nto myself in writing this little history. I will, then, remark\nhere, once for all, that, having for several weeks lived on terms\nof intimacy with this excellent family, I have witnessed in this\nextraordinary girl only a child-like modesty, which made her\nalways skilful in self-concealment.\n\nI omit, then, all that relates to this intellectual culture, and\nto this taste for classical learning--a taste which was so pure,\nso exalted, in this young Christian maiden. Understood and\naccepted in Italy, this literary turn of mind would seem strange\nin France, where there exists an extravagant fear of raising\nwoman above a certain intellectual level. I prefer, therefore,\nhaving said on this point merely what was necessary, to speak\nhenceforth only of the virtues of the saintly girl.\n\nEven of these I shall specify but one. I leave it to pious\nimaginations to guess what there must have been of meekness, of\npurity, of obedience, of modesty, of angelic devotion, in such a\nsoul. I shall speak only of her charity. Love for the poor was\nwith her a passion, and that from her tenderest years. Certain\nsouls seem to come into this world commissioned by God to do\nhonor to a particular virtue; everything in them converges to\nthat as to a divine centre. The voice of a mother and the voice\nof the church have but to quicken the germ of holiness committed\nto such souls before their terrestrial journey, and, as soon as\nthe development of reason allows them to act, they tend quite\nnaturally to the end which the finger of God had pointed out to\nthem from above. Rosa Ferrucci brought with her a tender and\nunbounded love for the poor. From the little birds which, while\nyet an infant, she used to feed in winter-time, to the poor\nbeggars of Pisa, whom she relieved by denying herself in dress\nand amusements, and the neglected graves to which she carried\nflowers, \"because,\" she used to say, \"I feel a pity for neglected\ngraves,\" all poverty touched her heart. Her mother relates some\naffecting incidents of her great charity. During a severe winter\nher parents remarked that she no longer ate bread at her meals,\nalthough she never failed to pick out the largest piece for\nherself. They affected not to know her motive, which she\nexplained, blushing: \"Have I done wrong? Indeed, I did not know\nit was wrong; but bread is so dear this year, and this piece\nwould be sufficient for one poor person.\"\n\nIf she met in her walks a poor woman tottering under the weight\nof a load of wood, her first impulse would be to run to help her,\nand it was difficult to restrain this charitable eagerness. She\nwould then complain, declaring that she could never get\naccustomed to seeing poor people toiling so hard.\n\nOn her birthday she ran to her mother and said to her: \"Gaetano\nis indeed all that I could wish! We have just formed a project\nwhich makes me quite happy. We have promised that on our\nbirthdays and saints' days, instead of making each other\npresents, which are often useless, we will give a large alms to\nsome poor family.\"\n\n{367}\n\nShe was a good musician, and knew how to interpret truly the\nsentiment of the masters. One day she went to Florence,\naccompanied by her brother, to purchase some pieces of music. But\njust as she was entering the town, she met a poor family, who\nseemed to be in the last extreme of wretchedness. Their rent must\nbe paid the next day, or these poor people would be homeless.\nFarewell to the pieces of music! And on her return home, when her\nfriends, to conceal their real joy and admiration, affected to\nchide her, she answered: \"What would you have had me do? I could\nnot help it. Tell me yourselves how I could have done otherwise\nthan I did? Now, you see well that it was impossible!\" O holy\n_impossibilities!_ which embarrass only those who can never\nbe resigned to the sufferings of others.\n\nInnumerable are the incidents of this kind which might be related\nof Rosa; for charity is never weary, the more good it has done,\nthe more it desires to do; but I leave this subject--reluctantly,\nindeed--to dwell at more length on the two episodes of this\nChristian life, in which I think may be found the most solid\nedification and the best encouragement for souls. I speak of a\nlove and a death, both transfigured by the cross.\n\nThe transfiguration of the life and heart of man in chastity, in\nhope, in sacrifice, is a palpable glory of Christianity and one\nof the surest marks of its divinity. Jesus Christ, when he came\nto sanctify the world, did not destroy the natural conditions of\nhuman life. Since, as before, the shedding of his blood, man is\nborn in suffering; he weeps, combats, loves, and dies. And yet,\nif he is a Christian, all is changed for him. From his cradle to\nhis grave he walks in a marvellous light, which transfigures all\nthings in his eyes and thoroughly changes the meaning of life. He\nsuffers, but each day he adores suffering on the cross; he weeps,\nbut he has heard that, Blessed are they who weep! he combats, but\nwith his eyes fixed on heaven; he loves, but in all that he\nloves, he loves God; he dies, but then only does he begin to\nlive. Nay, even the entrance into beatitude is for the Christian\nnot the last transfiguration; for a blissful eternity is but a\ncontinuous transfiguration in a glory ever increasing, and, as it\nwere, the eternal flight of created love toward Infinite Love.\nThis divine flight finds in heaven its region of glory; but it\nmust not be forgotten that its starting-point is earth--that\nbefore finally gaining the eternal heights, it must first cross\n\"the fields of mourning, _lugentes campi_.\" [Footnote 79]\n\n    [Footnote 79: Virg. AEn. i. 4.]\n\nHence it is, that for the saints there is no interruption between\nheaven and earth; the same path that conducted them yesterday\nfrom virtue to virtue, will lead them to-morrow from glory to\nglory, and their death is but an episode of their love. Hence,\nalso, perhaps that mysterious fraternity of love and death which\nis the soul of all true poetry; men catch a glimpse of it and\nchant it in their own tongue:\n\n  \"The twin brothers, love and death,\n   At the same time, gave birth to fate.\" [Footnote 80]\n\n    [Footnote 80: L\u00e9opardi.]\n\nBut only the saints know its true secret: \"Having a desire to be\ndissolved and to be with Christ.\" [Footnote 81]\n\n    [Footnote 81: Phil. I. 23.]\n\nWhen the young soul of whom we now speak had reached a certain\nelevation in her flight toward God, she, too, met the sweet and\naustere company of those two strong-winged angels--Christian love\nand death. She loved: almost as soon she presaged death, and she\ndied. But she loved as a child of God loves, and she died as a\nsaint.\n\n{368}\n\nI have, then, little more to do than to translate her\n_Letters_, in which shines gloriously the beauty of\nChristian love, and to give an account of that death worthy of\nthe church's brightest days. As I have already remarked, these\n_Letters_ are addressed to a young gentleman of Leghorn, to\nwhom Rosa had been betrothed for two years before her death; a\ntruly noble character whom heaven seemed to have made worthy of\nher. A profound and tender love united these two kindred souls.\nThe simple and sweet manners of good Italian society allowed\ntheir seeing each other often, and did not forbid their almost\ndaily correspondence. An entire conformity of faith, of piety, of\nholy desires, blended into a still closer union those hearts\nalready so strongly bound to each other; but a more celestial ray\nwas continually passing from the soul of Rosa into that of\nGaetano. Through her joys, her hopes, the festive preparations\nfor her wedding, and the dreams of the future, this pious young\ngirl always saw God. One idea, immense and insatiable, was\ndominant over all her desires, the idea of perfection. She gazed\nthrough the veil of her joyous dawnings on the divine sun of\neternal beauty. Her happiness embellished earth to her, but the\nearth thus embellished immediately reminded her of heaven;\nearthly love put a song on her lips, but the song soon became a\nhymn, and always ended with God. It is this insensible and almost\ninvoluntary transition, of which she herself seems unconscious,\nfrom an earthly affection to ardent longings after divine love\nand perfection, which constitutes all the beauty of her\n_Letters_. The reader must not forget that they were written\nby one who was little more than a child, and that whatever there\nwas of maturity in her young soul was derived from that sun of\nChristian faith whose warm rays ripen the intellect, in the\ncontinued childhood of the heart.\n\nI would fain believe that this young Christian's sisters in the\nfaith, will find in her _Letters_ something more than a\nsubject of poetical dreaming. In truth, no life is so really\npractical as that of a saint; and, through the veil of beautiful\nlanguage, we may discover in the letters of Rosa Ferrucci many\nduties faithfully performed by her, many lessons of duty\nfaithfully to be performed by ourselves. I would then beg of\nthose young persons to read the following pages with\nrecollection, and, in order to penetrate their true meaning, to\nenter as much as possible into this young girl's ardent desire of\nperfection.\n\nI have spoken of the eternal soaring of souls toward God. Have\nyou ever, in the beginning of autumn, watched those flights of\nbirds which, lengthening out in a long train, follow, to the very\nlast, the same sinuosities? 'Tis said that the strongest, flying\nin advance, cleaves the air; and that the weaker, coming after,\nenter with ease the aerial furrow. Ah! too feeble that we are to\nattempt alone the road to heaven, let us at least learn to enter\nthe furrows of the saints. Their strong and certain wing will\ndraw us onward in their track; and when we shall see them so\nlovely because they were so loving, we shall advance with less\nfear toward Him who was the supreme object of their love.\n\n{369}\n\n    Rosa To Gaetano.\n\n    Pisa, April 6, 1856.\n\nI can never thank God enough for giving me in you, Gaetano, an\nexample and a guide for my whole life. I cannot refrain from\noften saying so to my mother, and I say it because it is in my\nheart. Spite of all the faults and imperfections which have so\nmany times prevented me from remaining faithful to the good\nresolutions which I constantly make before God, I have so high an\nidea of the perfection of a Christian wife, and of the duties I\nshall soon have to fulfil, that I should indeed be terrified if I\ndid not confide in the goodness of God, who can do all, and who\nwill aid me who can do nothing. I often speak to my mother of the\nholy respect with which the sacrament we are going to receive\ninspires me; and I earnestly beg of you to ask our Lord for the\ngraces which are necessary to make me what I ought to be. I\npromise you to use all my efforts for this end; and I will\ndedicate the prayers of the month of May to this intention, for I\nhave great confidence that the Blessed Virgin will obtain for me\nwhat I still lack. I believe that we shall have made great\nprogress toward perfection when we come to detest sincerely all\nthose little daily faults which seem trifles to us, but which\nmust be so very displeasing to the infinite perfection of God. In\nall this, be sure that I will receive your counsels and\nadmonitions as they ought to be received from him who, by the\nwill of God, takes the place of father and mother.\n\n\n   April 17.\n\nI am persuaded that the true means of preparing ourselves to\nreceive the sacrament by which we shall be united for time and\neternity is, to use all our efforts to attain that state of\nChristian perfection to which God calls us; and I am also sure\nthat, if we cannot arrive absolutely at that degree of perfection\nwhich we ardently desire, we can at least kindle in our hearts\nthe flames of that divine love which is itself the whole law. In\nthis you will be my guide and my example, Gaetano; we two shall\nhave but one will, one love also, loving each other in God, in\nwhom all affections become holy. Our affection did not spring\nfrom outward accomplishments, nor from fleeting beauty, that\nflower of a day. It was a stronger tie that bound our souls\ntogether. We love each other because we love God. In him does our\nunion consist, because in him is all the strength, all the purity\nof our love; because in him also is our supreme end. Hence come\nthose alternations of joy and sadness, according as we approach,\nor seem to be receding from, that ideal type of perfection which\nis the object of our desires. Ah! how good God is; and how often\nI bless him for having put such desires and such hopes into our\nhearts. For me, I now see in God not only the eternal power which\ncreated heaven and earth, or the eternal love which redeemed us,\nbut also that sweet mercy which has given me in you, as it were,\nhis crowning blessing.\n\n\n    April 25.\n\nForgive me, Gaetano, my eternal repetitions; but what can I do?\nFor some time I have been able only to say the same things over\nand over again. This very day reminds me of another day, a dear\nand solemn one to me. I recollect with unspeakable pleasure the\nsolitary walk I took, with my mother to speak of you. The\nstillness of the country, the fresh aspect of all nature, the\ndistant voices of the peasants, which alone from time to time\nbroke the profound tranquillity of the scene--all seemed new to\nme, all spoke to my heart. I shall never forget the humble little\nchurch in which, for the first time, I ventured to pray to God to\nbless these new thoughts--thoughts which held me suspended, as it\nwere, between doubt and hope, but which found my heart firmly\nresolved to do the divine will in all things.\n{370}\nFrom that day I have implored, and still unceasingly implore, the\ngraces which we need in order to lead together a truly Christian\nlife. Do you do the same, Gaetano; and let me assure you that I\ncannot now pray to God for myself, without at once finding your\nname mingled in my supplications.\n\n\n    April 30.\n\nHe only is worthy of a reward who has merited it. Do you not know\nthat combat--and what is life but a continual combat?--must\nprecede victory? No, Gaetano, we will not be like cowardly\nsoldiers who would fain have the honors of a triumph without\nhaving seen the face of the foe. Let us rather strive to lay hold\non eternal felicity, which alone can satisfy our desires, by\nfaithfully performing all our duties; by supporting, for the love\nof God, all the trials of life, heavy or light; by devoting\nourselves as much as possible to good works; then the desire of\nheaven will not be for us a dreamy ideal or subject of vague\nspeculation, but it will enter into our daily life to sanctify\nit. May your life be prolonged to serve the cause of God by\nstrong and constant virtues!\n\n\n  May 2.\n\nI believe that, without proposing to ourselves a too ideal and,\nas it were, an unattainable type of perfection, we can effect\nmuch by earnestly striving to strengthen our will. Let us keep a\nwatch over it, and never allow it to incline toward what is evil,\neven in the smallest things. Let us always bear in mind those\nbeautiful words of the _Following of Christ_: \"If each year\nwe corrected one fault, how soon we should become better!\" Yes,\nstrength of will is always necessary, and not less in small\ntrials than in great ones. In this, it seems to me Christian\nperfection really consists; for what can be more pleasing to God\nthan to see our will always conformed to his? [Footnote 82]\n\n    [Footnote 82: The desire of Christian perfection had inspired\n    Rosa Ferrucci with the idea of collecting some short maxims,\n    which were well exemplified in her pious and innocent life.\n    Among her papers were found this little selection, which\n    seems to us worthy of translation.\n\n      \"To see God in all created things. To refer all to God. To\n      remember always 'God sees me.' To have a tender love for\n      the holy Catholic Church. To unite my actions to those of\n      Jesus Christ. To keep alive in my heart the desire of\n      heaven. To beg of God the faith and the constancy of the\n      martyrs. To have an unwavering confidence in the efficacy\n      of prayer. To succor the poor for the love of God. To watch\n      and pray. To do good to all. To obey my father and mother.\n      To be gentle and docile to my teachers. To be silent as\n      soon as I perceive in my heart the first motions of anger.\n      Never to read a doubtful book. To have a scrupulous regard\n      to truth. Never to speak ill of any one. To view in the\n      best light the actions of others. To subdue all feelings of\n      envy. To pray often for humility. Never to slight God's\n      holy inspirations. To work and study diligently. Frequently\n      to raise my heart to God. To forgive all, at all times and\n      in all things. To seek my happiness in the performance of\n      Christian duties. To do whatever is my duty, and for the\n      rest trust to the goodness of God. To fear sin more than\n      death. To ask for the sacraments at the beginning of a\n      serious illness. To speak to God as a tender and beloved\n      father. To unite my death to that of Jesus Christ.\"]\n\n  May 30.\n\nNo affection which has not its source in the love of God can ever\nmake us happy. Let us be well convinced of this, and let us\ndedicate our whole life to Him who has done all for us. As for\nme, I believe that just as the external pomp of worship is\nvalueless in the sight of God if it is separated from interior\ndevotion, so works can do nothing to merit grace unless they are\ninwardly animated by a pure intention and the desire of pleasing\nGod alone. We must, then, always pass from what is without to\nwhat is within, and it is this that I mean when I tell you that I\noften seek in visible things a lever to raise me toward the\ninvisible; discerning in all that meets my eyes here below an\nimage of that Eternal Beauty which unveils itself only to the\nintelligence and to the heart. Thus nothing remains mute to me.\n{371}\nHow many things the mountains tell me, and the stars, and the\nsea, and the trees, and the birds!--things which I should not\nhave known if this mighty voice of nature had not taught them to\nme. Oh! how admirable is the goodness of God, who thus by a\nthousand ways leads back our souls to the thoughts and the holy\naffections for which they were created.\n\nI have been reading in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, this\nbeautiful idea of Jean Paul Richter: \"When that which is holy in\nthe soul of the mother responds to that which is holy in the soul\nof the son, their souls then understand each other.\" This thought\nhas made a great impression on me; and it seems to me to contain\na grand lesson for all mothers engaged in the religious education\nof their sons. It shows us, moreover, the nature of those close\nties which unite us to our relations and our friends. And,\nindeed, why do we love one another with such a true and constant\nlove? Because what is sacred to your soul is sacred also to mine.\nWhy am I so deeply moved when I hear of some noble action? when I\ncontemplate the greatness of this world's heroes, and, above all,\nthe greatness of the saints and martyrs? Why do I weep as I think\nof the sacrifices they made with such self-devotion and\nfortitude? Because what they held sacred I also hold sacred.\nCould more be said in so few words? Yes, every man ought to keep\nalive that celestial fire which God has kindled in his heart.\nUnhappy he who lets it languish and die out! He loses it for\nhimself, and is himself lost for his brethren, since he has\nbroken the bond of love which would have united him to them for\never. As the flame ascends on high,\n\n  \"Which by its form upward aspires,\"\n\nSO by nature our souls tend to rise toward God, and if they\nreturn again toward earth, there can be no longer for them either\nhope of peace or hope of happiness.\n\n\n    July 10.\n\nLet us not be discouraged, Gaetano, let us always hope; our good\nGod will help us to become better; for, if we lack strength, at\nleast we are not wanting in good desires. They are a gratuitous\ngift of him who wills our good; of him who has given us the most\nliving example of humility; of him who knows, and will pardon,\nthe weakness of our poor nature, if only we will combat with that\nperseverance which alone has the promise of victory. Ah! if we\ntruly loved the Lord, we should think of him alone--of him who is\nholy and perfect, instead of always thinking of ourselves, weak\nand miserable creatures; and we should end by forgetting\nourselves, by losing ourselves, to live only in him so worthy of\nour love; and then we should indeed begin to know that we are\nnothing, and that he is all.\n\nJesus wishes us to be gentle with ourselves, and would not have\nus fall into dejection when, through the frailty of our nature,\nwe fail in our good resolutions. At times when we are too much\ndejected at the sight of our miseries, Jesus Christ seems to say\nto us, as to the disciples going to Emmaus: \"What are these\ndiscourses that you hold one with another as you walk, and are\nsad?\" He who is called the Prince of Peace would have us pacific\ntoward ourselves, and full of compassion for our own infirmity.\nWhen, therefore, we are seized with sadness at sight of our\npoverty and of the dryness of our souls, let us say simply and\nhumbly this little prayer of St. Catharine of Genoa: \"Alas! my\nLord, these are the fruits of my garden! Yet I love thee, my\nJesus, and I will strive to do better in future.\"\n\n{372}\n\n  July 19, (Feast of St Vincent de Paul.)\n\nDo you know what we ought to desire? Neither honors, nor riches,\nnor any such earthly vanities, which could add nothing to our\npeace. Do you know to what end our will, strengthened by love,\nought to turn? Yes, you know it well, and often have you taught\nit me; we ought both to aim at realizing in our life something of\nthat perfection which, after all, can be but partially obtained\non earth. We ought to look at the things that are immortal and\neternal, rather than at those that are temporal and subject to\nchange, living in such a manner that a true love of God may\nactuate our hearts and our thoughts, develop our sentiments\ntoward what is good, and direct all our actions to a holy end.\nHow many touching examples of virtues are recalled to our minds\nby this day and the festival which it brings! What indefatigable\nand universal charity in St. Vincent de Paul! What lively and\nardent piety! What unbounded compassion for all the errors, all\nthe faults, all the misfortunes, all the sufferings, physical and\nmoral, of men! What exhaustless patience! And who among us will\ndare to say that he cannot reproduce in himself some shadow of\nthose beautiful virtues? If we cannot, like this illustrious\nsaint, relieve the sufferings of a great number of our\nfellow-beings, at least we can be humble, patient, and animated\nby that true religion which is ever forgiving, ever loving,\nbecause it loves Him who is all mercy and all love.\n\n    To Be Continued.\n\n--------------\n\n    The Episcopalian Confessional.\n\nIt is with great satisfaction that Catholics behold the adoption\nby any class of Protestants of their peculiar rites or\nceremonies. It is an indication of an approach to the doctrines\nso vehemently renounced at the Reformation, and ought, by strict\nlogic, to result in the return of many to the old faith. And\nthough, unfortunately, there are men who play with religious\ndoctrines as if they were of no practical consequence, there are\nalways some who are in earnest, and are found ready to make\nsacrifices for the sake of truth. From the use of Catholic\nceremonies, which are really all founded on vital doctrine, some\nconversions must certainly flow; and the Protestant Church, which\nmoves in such a direction, is drifting from its old moorings, and\nfloating toward the safe waters where the bark of St. Peter rides\nout every storm.\n\nIf there be any of our practices which are essentially a part of\nour religious system, surely that of confession is one which is\nabsolutely _peculiar_ to the Catholic Church. It cannot\nlawfully exist without the faith which we hold, and when used, it\ndrags along with it, irresistibly, our whole moral system. It is\nhard to see how any one can confess his sins to a priest, without\naccepting the sacerdotal and sacramental system, which can have\nno life out of the Catholic communion. Besides, the practical\ninfluence of such confessions leads directly to those habits of\ndevotion which have no home in Protestantism.\n{373}\nIn the few remarks we are now to make, we do not intend to lose\nsight of these convictions, while it is our object to consider\nbriefly the adoption of the confessional in the Protestant\nEpiscopal Church, the logical consequences which flow from it,\nand even the dangers which attend it. Surely the subject is one\nof great moment. If it be of any importance at all, it is of\n_vital_ importance. It is either necessary to the soul, or\nit is an assumption of powers prejudicial to the interests of\ntrue religion. It cannot be looked upon as an indifferent matter,\nwhich may be used or neglected, according to the taste of the\nindividual. To a few reflections, therefore, upon it, we\nearnestly invite the attention of the honest reader.\n\n\n1. There is no doubt that there is quite a party in the Episcopal\nChurch which upholds the practice of auricular confession, and\nseeks to extend it. There are ministers of that communion who are\nanxious to set up the confessional, and disposed to teach its\nnecessity. In the city of New York, it is well known that the\nclergy of St. Albans' are solicitous to hear confessions and love\nto be styled _Fathers_, on account of their spiritual\nrelation to their penitents. The Rev. Dr. Dix, the respected\nrector of Trinity Church, the oldest and most influential\ncorporation of his denomination, is said to have quite a number\nof penitents, and to be the most popular confessor, especially\namong the higher class. We presume he makes no secret of his\npractice, while his position as the spiritual director of the\n\"Sisters of St. Mary\" is notorious. How general is the custom of\nconfession in Trinity parish we have no means of knowing, nor do\nwe know how many of the assistant ministers follow in the wake of\ntheir rector. We have heard of one or two others who are disposed\nto be confessors, and there are probably many such ministers\nwhose names are not brought before the public. We cannot suppose\nthat any high-minded clergyman would be willing to hear\nconfessions in an under-hand or secret manner, and we must\nbelieve that they who do so are not ashamed of it, nor unwilling\nto have their practice made public. No offence is therefore\nintended by the mention of names, and we will rest satisfied that\nnone is given. How many of the bishops favor auricular confession\ndoes not appear. So far as we have heard, no one has openly\nrecommended it; but the Right Reverend Dr. Potter, of New York,\nhas allowed a manual to be dedicated to him, in which the\npractice is strongly urged, and devotions for its use are\nextracted from Catholic prayer-books. While he has rebuked the\nRev. Mr. Tyng for preaching in a Methodist church, he goes openly\nto St. Alban's, and, to say the least, gives sanction to\nRitualistic performances. We have a right, then, to conclude that\nhe favors the confessional, and is willing to see it set up in\nthe churches which he superintends. It will be observed that this\nconfession in the Episcopal Church, is not simply consulting a\nclergyman in a private conversation about spiritual matters, but\nthe humble acknowledgment of sins in detail, in order to receive\nabsolution from one who thinks himself authorized by Almighty God\nto give it. It is certainly a sacrament in the true definition of\nthe term, an outward sign of an inward grace, administered by one\npretending, at least, to bear a commission from Christ. Those who\ngo to the Episcopalian ministers to confess their sins, surely go\nunder this belief, and no argument is necessary to show that they\nwould not go, unless under the conviction that their offences\nagainst God could be forgiven in no other way.\n{374}\nThe Ritualists have made of this a most important matter in their\ndevotional books, where can be found questions for examination of\nconscience, tables of sins, and prayers to excite contrition and\nimprove the great gift of absolution. When, then, we speak of the\nconfessional in the Protestant Episcopal communion, we are not\ndrawing upon fancy, but touching upon a fact which must have an\nimportant effect upon the body which it especially interests.\n\n2. The first remark we have to make upon this acknowledged fact\nis almost a truism. It is, that auricular confession is not a\nProtestant practice, but quite the contrary; and that they who\nadopt it cut themselves off from all sympathy with the doctrines\nof the reformation. We hardly need to prove that there is not one\nProtestant church which approves of the custom of which we speak,\nor believes that its ministers have the power to remit and retain\nsin. If the Church of England be adduced against us, we have only\nto point to the incontrovertible fact, that she declares that\npenance is not a sacrament, and therefore conveys no inward\ngrace. The absolutions left in her daily services are only\ndeclaratory of God's willingness to forgive the repentant sinner,\nand could be as well used by a layman as by a minister. For who\ncannot say that \"God pardoneth and absolveth all who are truly\npenitent\"? And as for the absolution in the office of the\nvisitation of the sick, we have only to say that it is a relic of\nby-gone days which is seldom used, and that whatever be its\nmeaning, it cannot, contrary to the article, be presumed to\nconfer grace. The English Church certainly did never consider it\na matter of any necessity, otherwise it would have said so. The\nEpiscopalians in the United States have not this form to refer\nto; for the compilers of their liturgy have expunged it\naltogether, at the same time that they omitted the Athanasian\ncreed. In the form of the ordination of priests, a substitute was\nalso provided for the old words, \"Receive the Holy Ghost; whose\nsins you shall remit, they are remitted unto them.\" The reason of\nthis substitution we leave the honest reader to imagine. We are\ninformed that very few of the bishops are willing to use the old\nform, and an Episcopal minister of Puseyitical views once told us\nthat he was very anxious to have the bishop who ordained him use\nit, but was restrained from asking this favor by the assurance of\none of the prelate's intimate friends that, if he said anything\nabout it, he would get a flat refusal, together with a good\nscolding. While thus the articles of faith in the Episcopalian\nbody deny the power of absolution, the practice of that\ndenomination of Christians is entirely against it. The ministers\nwho hear confessions and the people who make them, live in a\n\"dreamland,\" about which once we read a very pretty piece of\npoetry. This \"dreamland\" is not very extensive or tangible here,\nand we wonder if now there are any somnambulists in or about\nBuffalo. We yield the right to every man to do as he pleases, and\ncall himself what he likes, only we object to his having two\ncontradictory characters at the same time. It is not quite\nreasonable; and we say, with the good common sense of mankind,\n\"My dear friend, choose for yourself, but please be either one\nthing or the other.\"\n\n{375}\n\nBut we go further, and assert that the practice of confession is\nthe assumption of a sacerdotal power which was the very first\npoint attacked by the reformation, and which is really the\ncentral point of the Catholic system. Once admit the great power\nof absolution, and you receive at the same time logically the\ndoctrine of priesthood as it is held by the Church. This doctrine\ndoes not and cannot stand alone; it brings with it the church in\nher unity, and the necessary safeguards which divine wisdom has\nthrown around the exercise of so great a gift. Who has the power\nto forgive sins? Not every man, nor every one who may choose to\ncall himself a priest. There must be some external call to so\nhigh an office; and as it is Christ's priesthood which is\nexercised, there must be some way of authenticating the power\ndelegated, and articulating it to the great head of Christianity.\nThe Catholic Church alone maintains the practice of confession,\nand if she is good for this, she is good for everything.\nEclecticism may be advisable in matters of science, but in divine\nrevelation it is both absurd and impossible. The foundation of\nfaith is in the word of God. The church is no teacher if she be\nnot guided by supernatural light; and if she be thus guided, her\nauthority is universal. Episcopalians may believe that their\nministers can forgive their sins, but they have no reason for\nsuch a belief. Their own church surely does not say so, while the\nCatholic voice expressly denies it. It will be hard to see how\nthey can prove it from Scripture as applied to their particular\ncommunion. Not only is the unity of the church connected\nlogically with the idea of priesthood, but also that of\nsacrifice, and of sacramental grace. And these doctrines bring\nwith them the Tridentine system of justification, which is\ndiametrically opposed to the Lutheran theory which underlies all\nconsistent Protestantism. We do not believe that any one can go\nto confession for any length of time, and not feel the truth of\nthese remarks. He will be irresistibly borne to the gates of the\nCatholic Church with whose faith his religious life will be in\nsympathy, and he will, day by day, lose his love and respect for\nhis own communion.\n\n3. So far, therefore, we have reason to rejoice in the adoption\nof the confessional by the Episcopalians, and to renew our\nprayers for their conversion to that truth which at a distance\nproves so attractive to them. Yet there are dangers in regard to\nwhich the sincere ought to be forewarned, and serious evils to\nmany souls may result from the incapacity of confessors who have\nnever been trained for this most delicate and difficult work. It\nis in the spirit of Christian charity that we revert to these\ndangers.\n\nIn the first place, we hardly need say that no one but a duly\nauthorized priest of the Catholic Church has the power to give\nabsolution. As we are addressing chiefly those who believe in\nsome ecclesiastical system, we have only to advert to the fact,\nthat to such a power both orders and jurisdiction are necessary.\nThe Episcopal Church does not admit the existence of this power,\nand the whole Christian world which does accept it, unites in the\nopinion that the Episcopalian clergy have no orders whatever, any\nmore than the Methodists or Presbyterians. Any layman is as good\na priest as the most distinguished Anglican minister. Such is the\ndecision of the Catholic Church, and of every sect which has\nretained the apostolical succession. Is this decision of no\nconsequence to the Ritualists who pretend to believe in authority\nand antiquity? But orders are not sufficient for the exercise of\nthe power of absolution.\n{376}\nJurisdiction is also required, because they who believe in the\npriesthood must also believe that Christ has left this great\noffice in order, and not in confusion. The bishop is the supreme\npastor of his diocese, and no priest, without his permission, can\nvalidly either hear confessions or give absolution. This\nprinciple of jurisdiction is one which does not seem to penetrate\nthe heads of High-Church Episcopalians; but if they will reflect\nfor a moment, they will see its absolute necessity to the\nexistence of the church. Suppose that valid orders are alone\nrequired to the exercise of the priesthood, and the communion of\nthe faithful, and what is to prevent any priest from going off at\nany time, and carrying with him all the essentials of the church?\nThen there would be as many churches as there are dissenting\npriests.\n\nNo intelligent man would form a society on such principles, and\nsurely our Lord Jesus Christ did not do so foolish a thing as\nfound a church containing in itself the very seeds of\nself-destruction. We have heard that an excommunicated priest,\nwho bears, to his sorrow, the ineffaceable character of\npriesthood, is willing to hear confessions since his apostasy.\nBut though he has valid orders, he is no more able to give\nabsolution than his associate ministers who have never been\nordained, because he has no jurisdiction from Christ. What do\nthese \"Fathers\" among the Episcopalians pretend? Do they ask\njurisdiction from their own bishops, who, having none, have none\nto give? Or do they profess to have the whole Catholic Church in\ntheir own persons? If so, history has seen nothing so strange in\nall its curious record of ecclesiastical devices.\n\nIt is then a sad thing for a man to confess his sins and go\nthrough the humiliation of opening his whole life to another; and\nthen receive no pardon for the sins he so anxiously confesses. We\nbeg the attention of such earnest hearts to this point, and say\nto them, \"If you really wish to confess, why not go at once where\nthere is no doubt that Christ has left the power of forgiveness?\"\n\nSecondly, there is danger in the way and manner in which we are\ntold that the Episcopalian ministers hear confessions. They\nought, for their own sake, and for the sake of their penitents,\nto adopt the rules and safeguards which the experience of the\nchurch has thrown around so important a work. It is not prudent\nto hear the confessions of ladies in the minister's private room.\nThe presence of a plain cross, or crucifix, does not remove the\nobjection. It is too much of a burden to expect a lady to go\nthrough with all this unnecessary trial, especially when she has\nthe additional conviction that she is doing something which she\nwould not wish the world to know, or which she would not be\nwilling to tell her husband or friends. The Catholic Church has\nwisely provided that the priest shall sit where he need neither\nsee nor distinguish the penitent, and this is a safe rule to be\nimitated. The same objection arises to the method, said to be in\nvogue at St. Alban's, where the minister sits in the chancel, and\nthe penitent kneels at his back. If there be others in the\nchurch, there is too much exposure, and if the church is locked,\nthere is too much privacy. The Episcopalian clergy who become\nconfessors ought to erect confessionals in their churches, and\nsit there at given hours publicly and openly.\n\n{377}\n\nWe understand, also, that in some cases, at least, the penitent\nis obliged to write out his confession in full, and we consider\nthis a dangerous and far too painful practice. We have been\ninformed that Dr. Pusey wishes the general confessions which he\nhears to be written out carefully and left with him for his\nprivate study some days before the confession is made. We are\ncertain that such a course has been sometimes imitated in this\ncountry, much to the disgust of ladies, who have even spoken to\nus of it. A sinner will do much, no doubt, in the fervor of\npenitence, but no such thing as this ought to be done. It is\nagainst the practice of the Catholic Church, and in violation of\ninstinctive delicacy and propriety. No one is obliged to expose\nhimself, even to obtain the pardon of sin.\n\nAgain, it is unfortunate for the Protestant clergy that they hear\nconfession only by reason of their _personal_ influence over\ntheir penitents; that they do not understand the nature of the\nseal of secrecy; and that they have no fixed system by which to\ndirect their penitents. The same results follow, as if a doctor\nshould essay to be a lawyer, or a blacksmith a dentist.\n\nPersonal influence is, no doubt, an instrument of much good; but\nwhen it alone or principally governs the relations of confessor\nand penitent, serious dangers may be imminent. Most of those who\ngo to confession in the Episcopal Church are led to this step by\nreason of their confidence in the individual to whom they go, and\nthrough the attraction of his piety or zeal. They would hardly go\nto any one else, and if he were to die or be removed, they would\nbe left without a director. It is not so much the priest to whom\nthey unburden their conscience, as the favorite preacher whose\ngood qualities have made strong impressions upon them. This is\nnot a healthy state of things, and leads to sentimentality, which\nis often mistaken for piety. In the Catholic Church, the habit of\nconfession is as universal as prayer, and the priestly character\novershadows the individual. Among Protestants the contrary is\nnotoriously true, and this difficulty in the way of the\nProtestant confessor can hardly be removed until he shall have\nbrought about in his communion the state of feeling which is\nsecond nature to Catholics. This he can never do. He may lead\nindividuals to the church; he cannot convert the whole body with\nwhich he is identified.\n\nWith the best intentions in the world, he does not and cannot\nunderstand the seal of secrecy which for ever closes the lips of\nthe priest. He is disposed as a man of honor not to betray\nconfidence, but experience teaches us that very few human secrets\nhave been kept. He has not been taught the sacred nature of his\nobligation, nor the various ways by which he may expose his\npenitent, and as he has assumed an office to which his church did\nnot call him, he stands or falls in human strength. No motive\nhigher than that of honor binds him, and complicated as he is\nwith the world, and generally with matrimonial relations, he\nreally does not know how to act. The Catholic priest not only is\nbound by the fear of terrible sin, but is also aided by the\nsystem which surrounds him, in which he is trained and by that\nsupernatural power which we know upholds the seven sacraments. He\nis not an individual resting upon his unaided powers, but the\ncreature of his church, the agent and representative of a vast\npower which girdles the Christian world. Years of study and\ndiscipline have taught him the nature of his obligations, while\nhe himself is as much bound to confess his sins as to hear the\nburden of other consciences.\n{378}\nWhat an anomaly, for a man who never confesses his own faults, to\nundertake to listen to the accusations of others! If they need\nthe confessional, much more does he need it. Is it not\nPharisaical to bind burdens upon others, which we touch not with\none of our fingers?\n\nLet men say what they will, we believe, and from experience we\nknow, that God upholds the confessor in his difficult task; that\nhe gives him superhuman wisdom; that within the tribunal of\npenance a divine shield is over him to protect him against the\nweakness of humanity, that he may walk unharmed where otherwise\nangels would fear to tread. Here we pity the poor and isolated\nRitualist, going forth upon a dangerous sea, in a frail bark,\nwith no trust but the strength of his own arm. Cast out by his\nown church, and refusing communion with the great Catholic heart,\nhow long will he stand the fury of the storm?\n\nFinally, how shall he direct his penitents, and by what system\nform their spiritual character? Moral theology is an extensive\nand subtle science. The infallible church has given clear\ndecisions upon all essential points of fact and morals, and her\ndoctors, by years of patient labor and centuries of experience,\nhave matured the colossal system which has such mighty influence\nover the religious heart. But what is all this to the Protestant\nconfessor? He cannot avail himself of this without confessing the\nauthority of the church; and if he begins with such a confession,\nwhere must he conscientiously guide his penitents? If he deny\nthis authority, and by his own fallible wisdom choose the\nprinciples of his morality, in what respect is his opinion worth\nmore than that of the humblest layman? Can there be a more\npitiable spectacle, than that of a Protestant minister with St.\nLiguori as his guide in leading the souls of others? His\nspiritual life is surely made up of contradictions which must vex\nand perplex his conscience if he be an honest man. And will he\nnot unavoidably make grievous mistakes, in the use of tools\nwithout experience, in the details of a work for which he has had\nno preparation?\n\nMoreover, there are often decisions which have to be made, and in\nthese he must either be a despot, or he must make equivocal\nanswers. If a Catholic accuses himself of unbelief or doubt, the\nreply is easy; for God's revelation is, according to our faith,\nin and through an unerring church. If the Protestant falls into a\nlike danger, how shall he find direction, since for him there is\nno infallible church? Must he not go on his weary way of\ninvestigation, and is not, by his principles, doubt his normal\nstate? If a Catholic doubts the truth of any decision of his\nchurch, he commits a sin against his own creed; but since the\nEpiscopal communion openly disclaims infallibility, how shall the\nEpiscopalian confessor tell his penitent not to doubt his church\nwhich herself tells him he ought to doubt her? Then it comes to\nthis, that he will either make him no reply, or rule him with a\nrod of iron, and bind him by his inflexible _ipse dixit_.\nWhat has been the result, in more cases than one, of this\narbitrary despotism in the hands of individuals who neither by\ntheir own church, nor by any other, have the right to direct\nsouls? Loss of the moral sense, failure to discern the first\ninspirations of faith, and, sometimes, insanity. We draw from the\ntestimony of facts. It is bad enough to be under a civil despot,\nbut it is worse to be under a religious autocrat.\n{379}\nThen in the choice of penances we have heard of most frightful\nmistakes, where the good of the penitent was in no way consulted,\nbut the vindication of the absolutism of the confessor. Think of\na penance to blood for one lie, or for the great error of\nattending Mass in a Catholic Church. Think of penances which\ncover months and burden years with the chains of obligatory\nprayers and exercises. But all this is really nothing compared to\nthe morbid and unhealthy religious life which they engender, in\nwhich slavish fear of God is the principal ingredient, where\nsighs and solemn faces, instead of cheerfulness and natural\njoyousness, are the exhibitions of their piety. To us, (and we\nhave had occasion to know the interior of more than one,) they\nseem to be perpetually toiling up a steep ascent under the weight\nof heavy burdens from which it would be wrong to expect relief.\nForced to confess their sins as if doing some stealthy action,\nthey kill in their souls the bright light and, elasticity of\nspirit which the great Creator gave them. God is not a tyrant,\nbut a merciful and beneficent father, whose smiles of love are\never around his children, and his priesthood are agents in the\nwork of love to bring into even the erring heart the sunlight of\na father's truth and mercy. The confessor is no minister of\njustice, but like his Master, the good Samaritan to bind up the\nwounds of the broken heart, to preach deliverance to the captive,\nand joy to the mourner.\n\nIn what we have said, we make no accusations against the good\nintentions of these Protestant confessors, for whom we especially\npray. We believe that they mean well, and that they hope to\nsanctify their people by borrowing fruit from the garden of the\nchurch, and transplanting it where it cannot and will not grow.\nAnd as their only friends--for in their own communion they have\nfew friends--we warn them of the risk they run, and of the\ndangers to which they expose their penitents. It is a fearful\nresponsibility for them, for which they must answer alone, and in\nwhich no church will shield them. Some will, through their\nincapacity, lose their hold upon all religion, and either live\nwithout hope or die without consolation. Others will shut their\neyes to the plainest deductions of reason, and having eyes, will\nsee not, having ears, will hear not. Many through divine grace,\nand the honest heart which pursues principles to their legitimate\nresults, will find their way to that one faith where all things\nare in harmony, where the aspirations of the soul are met with a\nfull answer, and the needs of the heart are filled from God's own\nfulness. O children of men! how foolish it is to enter upon the\nprovince of God, and by human hands to make a religion, when the\nall-merciful Father, who alone knoweth our frame, has made one\nfor us, which in its completeness answereth to every want of our\nbeing.\n\n--------\n\n{380}\n\n\n  Sketches Drawn From The Life Of St. Paula,\n  By The Abbe Lagrange, Vicar-general Of Orleans.\n\n            In Three Chapters.\n\n\n    Chapter I.\n\n\"If all the members of my body should be changed into as many\ntongues, and should assume as many voices, I should still be\nunable to say enough of the virtues of the saintly and venerable\nPaula.\"\n\nIt is in these words of pious enthusiasm that St. Jerome, himself\nso holy a man, and accustomed to the guidance of so many noble\nsouls, begins his biography of Paula, when, at the instance of\nher daughter, Eustochium, and to dry her tears, he undertook to\nrecord her mother's virtues.\n\nPlacing himself with awe in the presence of God and his angels,\nSt. Jerome says: \"I call to witness our Lord Jesus Christ and his\nsaints, and the guardian angel of this incomparable woman, that\nwhat I say is simple truth, and that my words are unworthy of\nthose virtues celebrated throughout the world, which have been\nthe admiration of the church, and which the poor yet weep for.\nNoble by birth, more noble still by her holiness; powerful in her\nopulence, but more illustrious afterward in the poverty of\nChrist; of the race of the Scipios and of the Gracchi; heiress of\nPaulus Emilius, from whom she takes her name of Paula; direct\ndescendant of that famous Martia Papyria, who was wife to the\nconqueror of Perseus, and mother of the second Scipio Africanus;\nshe preferred Bethlehem to Rome, and the humble roof of a poor\ndwelling to the gilded palaces of her ancestors.\"\n\nPaula was born in Rome, about the middle of the fourth century,\nthe 5th of May, of the year 347, in the reign of Constantius, and\nof Constans, the sons of Constantine, seven years after the death\nof the latter prince. Julius was then Pope at Rome. Paula\nbelonged, through her mother, Blesilla, to one of the most\nancient and illustrious families of Rome; and it seemed as if\nProvidence wished to unite all earthly distinctions in this\nchild, for the purest blood of Greece mingled in her veins with\nthe noblest blood of Rome. At this time nothing was more common\nthan alliances between the Roman and Greek families, as is proved\nby the Greek names which we find in the Roman genealogies. The\nfather of Paula, Rogatus, was a Greek, and claimed royal descent\nfrom the kings of Mycaenas; and Agamemnon himself is said to have\nbeen his direct ancestor.\n\nSt. Jerome gives no further detail of the family of Paula,\nexcepting that he mentions casually that their possessions were\nvast, including very important estates in Greece near Actium,\nbesides their domain in Italy. \"If,\" says St. Jerome, \"I take\nnote of her opulence and wealth, it is not that I attach\nimportance to these temporal advantages, but in order to show\nthat the glory of Paula in my eyes was not in having possessed\nthem, but in having laid them at the feet of Jesus Christ.\"\n\n{381}\n\nA more real advantage of her birth was, that her noble family\nwere Christians, although a portion of them still remained\npagans. This intermingling of creeds must not surprise us; for\nthe resistance to conversion was great, and throughout the fourth\ncentury it was a common thing to see worshippers of the true God\nand of Jupiter under the same roof.\n\nRome, in truth, presented then a great contrast. Christian Rome\nand pagan Rome stood face to face, and pagan Rome, as yet\nuntouched by barbarians, still wore an imposing aspect. The\nCapitol still stood in pride, crowned with the statues and\ntemples of the heathen gods. Opposite, on the Palatine, stood the\nancient dwelling of the Caesars, with its marble porticoes; and\nat the foot of the two hills the old Forum surrounded with pagan\ntemples. Further still, and separated from the Forum by the\nSacred Way and the Amphitheatre of Flavius, rose the immense\nColosseum; and at the other extremity the great circus and the\naqueducts of Nero. On the borders of the Tiber was the mole of\nAdrian, the mausoleum of Augustus, with temples, theatres, baths,\nporticoes, etc., on every side; indeed, every monument of luxury\nand superstition, showing how deeply rooted paganism still was in\nthe capital of the empire.\n\nNevertheless, by more than one sign it was easy to recognize that\nall this pagan grandeur was fast fading away before another\npower; and if polytheism still found strong support in old\ntraditions and customs, institutions and monuments, it was the\ninfluence of the past, which was lessening every day. The future\nbelonged to the church, and Christianity was daily gaining the\nupper hand. The pagan temples which were still standing were\nempty, the crowd now disdaining sacrifices. Silence and solitude\nreigned around the gods, while the new faith, spreading out its\nmagnificence in broad daylight, covered Rome with superb\nbasilicas. At the same time, Rome, deserted by the emperors for\npolitical reasons, which served the divine purpose, seemed given\nup to the majesty of pontifical rule; and the popes, brought out\nfrom the Catacombs and placed by Constantine in the imperial\npalace, already gave a foreshadowing to the world of the glory\nwhich should henceforth invest the Holy See.\n\nAt this time there sprang from the bosom of the church a soul who\nwas destined to exercise a vast influence upon the religious\norders throughout the universe.\n\nThe blood of the martyrs and early Christians had not been shed\nin vain. It was just at this epoch in the history of Christianity\nthat Providence gave being to a child destined by her holiness to\nbe one of the marvels of the age.\n\nWe have sufficient data to know what her education was and under\nwhat influences she grew up to womanhood. The old Roman spirit\nand the Christian spirit were both fitted to form a character of\nthe highest order. Austere honor, severe self-respect, noble\ntraditions of ancient customs, were early inculcated in the mind\nof Paula. She came of a race of whom St. Jerome said: \"Remember\nthat in your family a woman very rarely, if ever, contracts a\nsecond marriage.\" Besides the holy books which were her first\nstudies, her reading was vast and extended, embracing both the\nliterature of Greece and Rome. We shall see how in after-life\nthis early culture developed in her the rich gifts of nature,\nestablishing equilibrium between her intellect and her character.\n\n{382}\n\nPaula was brought up by her mother with that ardent love for the\npractice of her religion, which in all its perfection belonged\nespecially to the days when persecution made these observances\nmost precious to the early Christians. She followed Blesilla to\nthe basilicas and to all feasts of the church, and also to visit\nthe tombs of the martyrs and to the Catacombs. This last devotion\nwas peculiarly dear to the Christians of the fourth century. They\nsought to glorify those victorious soldiers. \"See,\" cried St.\nChrysostom, \"the tomb of the martyrs! The emperor himself lays\ndown his crown there, and bends the knee.\"\n\nThere was not, perhaps, a family of Christians in Rome, which did\nnot have some loved member among the glorious dead lying in the\nlong galleries of the Catacombs. Saint Jerome speaks of the pious\nattraction of these sanctified asylums in the great city of the\nmartyrs.\n\nIn this atmosphere of love for the church, and of faith in Christ\nand in the divine origin of Christianity, young Paula grew up. It\nwas in those days the custom for the daughters of noble houses in\nRome to marry young; and when Paula was fifteen years of age, her\nparents gave her in marriage to a young Greek whose name was\nToxotius.\n\nHe belonged, on his mother's side, to the ancient family of the\nJulians, which boasted, as we know, of going back to the time of\nAEneas:\n\n  \"Julius, \u00e0 magno dimissum nomen I\u00fclo.\"\n                   _Virgil's AEneid._\n\nToxotius did not have the faith of his bride. These mixed\nmarriages were not rare in those days; witness Monica and\nPatricius, the parents of St. Augustine.\n\nChristianity had tolerated such marriages from the beginning, in\nthe hope that the infidel husband might be won by the wife to her\nbelief. When, robed in a white tunic of the finest wool,\naccording to custom, her brow covered with the _flammcum_,\nPaula laid her trembling hand in that of Toxotius, who can tell\nwith what holy emotion, what elevation of thought, what purity of\nfeeling and of hope, her soul was filled! On the other hand,\nToxotius does not seem to have been unworthy of his Christian\nbride, and the uncommon affection Paula bore him ever afterward,\nher inconsolable grief for his loss, all proves that their\nmarriage was among those which the world calls happy. God blessed\nthis union. Four daughters were successively born to them.\n\nThe eldest, called Blesilla after her grandmother, seemed gifted\nwith a vivacious and most interesting character; her health was\ndelicate, but her full, rich nature gave early promise of that\nrare beauty of mind and soul, which developed perfectly in\nafter-years to the joy of Paula.\n\nPaulina, the second, had also a fine nature, but the very\nopposite of Blesilla's. Her light was not like her sister's, a\nshining flame; but with less brilliancy of wit, and less vivacity\nof character, she possessed great good sense and solid judgment,\ngiving promise of being as strong in character as her sister was\nbrilliant.\n\nAs for the third of these young girls, called by the graceful\nname of Eustochium, borrowed from the Greek, and meaning\n_rectitude_ or _rule_, she was a gentle child, modest,\nreserved, timid. One would say she was like a flower hiding\nwithin herself her own perfume; but this perfume was sweet, and\non a nearer view one could not avoid seeing in this young soul\nall the treasures which would one day flower and bloom. It is\ndifficult to picture to ourselves Rufina.\n{383}\nShe appears but once in the history of her mother, at the moment\nof the departure of Paula for the east, sad, bathed in tears, and\nyet silent and resigned; stamped, even in childhood, with that\npainful charm which belongs particularly to those beings not\ndestined by providence to mature, but to fall away and die young.\n\nPaula's married life was passed in the midst of all the\nmagnificence which marked the decline and fall of the empire. She\npassed through the streets of Rome, as did the other patrician\nladies, in a gilded litter, carried by slaves. She would have\nfeared to put her dainty feet on the earth, or to touch the mud\nof the streets. The weight of a silk dress was almost too much\nfor one so sensitive to carry; and had a ray of sunshine intruded\ninto her litter, it would have seemed to her a _fire_.\n\n  \"_Et solis calor incendium,_\" etc., etc.\n                _Epist. ad Pammachium_.\n\nIn those days she used rouge and cereum, like other women of her\nrank; she passed much of her time at the bath, which consumed so\ngreat a part of life in Rome; she spent the winter, according to\nusual custom, at Rome, and the summer in some villa in the\ncountry, passing her time most agreeably between her books and a\nchosen circle of friends.\n\nIn the midst of all this luxury, leading a life far removed from\nthe virtues which she practised later, Paula was yet known and\nrespected as a woman of great dignity of character and\nirreproachable conduct. And if, during these happy years, the\nyoung wife of Toxotius did not always sufficiently bear in mind\nthe maxim of the apostle, which teaches us to use the things of\nthis world, without giving them our affections inordinately; if\nshe tasted too freely of its pleasures and dangerous vanities, in\nthe trials which she was soon to encounter, there was\ncompensation to be made for this self-indulgence, and, in her\naustere penance, a super-abundant expiation. Saint Jerome tells\nus that Paula had none of the barbaric arrogance common to the\nRoman women--that which made them purse-proud, cruel to their\nslaves, passionate, and impatient, which Juvenal describes so\nadmirably in his imperishable satires. In Paula all these bad\npassions gave place to gentleness, softness, goodness. \"This\nwealthy daughter of the Scipios,\" says St. Jerome, \"was the\ngentlest and the most benevolent of women--to little children, to\nplebeians, and with her own slaves. She possessed that excelling\ngoodness, without which noble birth and beauty are worthless, and\nwhich is especially characteristic of a lofty nature. This\nsweetness of mind, combined with her austere sense of honor, were\nthe two features of her soul which, by their contrast, made her\ncountenance most charming.\n\nIt is easy to conceive how such a woman performed the delicate\nsocial duties that devolved upon her. Her associations were of\ntwo kinds. She was intimate with all the celebrated women in the\nchurch, such as Manilla and Titiana; at the same time the pagan\nrelations of Toxotius all loved her, and she received them\nfrequently at her house, bearing in mind the duty of the\nChristian woman to let them see her religion in such a light as\nwould lead them to respect and honor it. And so it was that, by\nher fireside, Paula was the happiest of wives and of mothers. Her\nyoung family grew up joyously around her, filling her with bright\nhopes for the future.\n\nShe had long wished to give her husband a son and heir. Her\nprayer was answered; and she gave birth to a son, her last child,\nwho received the name of Toxotius, after his father.\n\n{384}\n\nThis is all that history tells us of the first phase in the life\nof Paula. We see her thus with every happiness at once, \"the\npride,\" says St. Jerome, \"of her husband, of her family, and of\nall Rome.\"\n\nWe know no more of her life up to the age of thirty. The Paula of\nhistory, the saint whom God was to give as an example to souls,\nis not the woman of the world, nor the happy woman; she is the\nwoman struck as if by lightning, blasted in her happiness; and\nfrom this trial rising up generously, and by a great flight\nsoaring far above common virtues and the ordinary condition of\npious souls, up to those heroic acts which only emanate from\ngreat sorrows. It would seem as if God had been pleased to\naccumulate upon her, for thirty years, all the felicity of\nearth--to adorn, as it were, this victim of his love, and to make\nus comprehend the better by the subsequent destruction of this,\nhow vain is earthly happiness.\n\nIt is here that the historian takes hold of Paula, and that the\nveil is lifted from her. Now begins her true history, the history\nof her soul.\n\nPaula was only thirty-one years of age when Toxotius died and she\nbecame a widow. The blow to her was terrible. In the first\nmoments of her grief she was completely stunned and powerless. It\nwas feared by her friends that she would not long survive the\nshock. Nothing could stop her tears. She could not be comforted.\nFrom day to day the void was growing deeper and deeper into her\nheart.\n\nThere is a decisive turning-point in the life of every one, on\nwhich the future depends. This moment had now come for Paula. Two\nways lay open before her--the world on one side, God on the\nother. She determined, in her sorrow, to give up the world, to\nlead for ever afterward the life of a Christian widow, and to\nseek for consolation in this resolution.\n\nAfter the first outburst of grief, when she came to herself, her\ndecision was irrevocably made. Human things were never more to\nregain the hold they had had over her up till now. She understood\nwhat God wanted of her; namely, \"to accept the sacrifice and\nchange her whole life.\" So, as St. Francis de Sales tells us,\n\"the heart of a widow who could not give herself all to God\nduring the lifetime of her husband, flies in search of celestial\nperfumes, when he has been taken from her.\"\n\nPaula was surrounded with many noble examples. Marcella lived in\nher palace on Mount Aventine, where she had gathered together a\nband of widows and virgins from amongst the noblest families of\nRome, who gave great edification by their virtue and charity. How\nand for what purpose had Providence permitted this community to\nbe formed, which gave such an impetus to the religious life? It\nis necessary that we should answer in some detail, for this is\nthe key to the whole life of Paula.\n\nThe church, resting from the earlier persecutions, which inflamed\nzeal and devotion, was now in great peril from the growing\ninfluence of security and wealth, in spreading a pagan and Roman\nlove of indolence and indifference. The empire was declining, and\nits moral fall was hastened by political troubles. The degenerate\nRomans consoled themselves for their abasement, by the melancholy\nenjoyments of luxury and vice. Luxury and debauchery were already\ncreeping into the Christian lines, thus attacking the most vital\nparts of the church. False widows and virgins no longer scrupled\nto show light conduct beneath the veil.\n{385}\nThere must be a remedy found equal to the evil. God failed not to\nbring succor to his church, and the spirit of holiness became all\nthe more manifest in her faithful children, in proportion as the\nperil was great.\n\nThe reaction commenced in the east, with the great monastic\nfoundations, which rose up in opposition to the world, performing\nprodigies in the way of austerities and moral improvement. At\nRome, strange to say, the reform began where it was least to have\nbeen expected, namely, in the midst of the patricians. The signal\nwas given by women. They threw themselves with ardor into the\nheroic path, and soon their husbands followed them. This\nregeneration was one of the most memorable in history, as well as\nin the annals of the church. It was started by St. Athanasius,\nwho brought it with him from the east. Thrice exiled by Arian\npersecution, the great patriarch three times sought refuge in\nRome. He had brought with him the revelation of the wonders\nrealized by the fathers in the deserts of Egypt and on the banks\nof the Nile. His biography of the great Anthony took hold of\nevery imagination, and gave new zeal to monastic life. Athanasius\nhad passed seven years in the Theban deserts; he had known\nAnthony, Ricomius, and Hilarius, and told of the astounding\ngraces of their supernatural life.\n\nIn one of these journeys of Athanasius to Rome, a noble Christian\nwidow, named Albina, had the honor of receiving him as her guest.\nAlbina had a daughter, Marcella, on whose noble soul the\nconversation of the great bishop made an extraordinary\nimpression. Seated at his feet, the young girl drank in every\nword that fell from his lips. Some months after, out of deference\nto her mother's wishes, Marcella consented to marry; but when, at\nthe end of seven months, she became a widow and was free, she\nmade up her mind never to contract a second marriage, but to\ndevote herself in Rome to the humble imitation of those virtues\nwhich Athanasius had taught her to venerate and admire.\nNevertheless, her youth, her wit and great beauty drew around her\nmany admirers. Amongst others was Cerealio, of high birth and\nlarge fortune. \"I will be more her father than her husband,\" said\nhe to Albina, who greatly desired the marriage, \"I will leave her\nall my wealth, being already advanced in years.\" But Marcella was\ninflexible. \"If I wished to marry again,\" said she to her mother,\n\"I would marry a husband, and not an inheritance.\"\n\nCerealio was refused, and this discouraged all other suitors.\n\nMarcella now gave up the world and made a desert of her\nmagnificent palace. There she lived austerely, doing good works.\nShe bid farewell to jewels, and even laid aside the seal ring\nalways worn by the patrician women; and rising above their\nprejudice against the religious state, and particularly the\ncoarse garb of the monks, she was the first who dared to assume\nthe abased dress, and publicly imitated what St. Athanasius had\ntaught her to believe good in the sight of God. The example soon\nbecame contagious, giving her many followers, who astonished Rome\nby their austerities and penances.\n\nThere was also at Rome, at this time, a young patrician lady\nwhose name was Melanie. Suddenly, when only twenty-two, she lost\nher husband and two children, and laid them in one tomb on the\nsame day. Accepting this dispensation of the divine will, Melanie\nresolved to devote her whole life to the shining virtues of which\nMarcella was so bright an example.\n{386}\nTo increase her faith further, she started on a pious pilgrimage\nto the east, where Athanasius still lived. She saw him at\nAlexandria shortly before his death. After having visited the\nmonasteries of Egypt and the Holy Land, Melanie was unwilling to\nreturn to Rome and its corruptions. She therefore founded for\nherself a monastery on the Mount of Olives, where she lived an\naustere and good life.\n\nThis example still further inflamed the souls of the Roman women,\nand numberless were those now in search of perfection; some\nremaining at home in their own houses, like the virgins and\nwidows of the first centuries; others preferring to congregate\ntogether, and, without any fixed rule, make the trial of\ncommunity life. The centre of all this movement was Marcella, who\npossessed in an extraordinary degree the power of attracting\nothers to her. She was truly the standard-bearer of this noble\nband, of whose hearts grace had taken possession. The venerable\nAlbina was like the revered ancestress of the little community\nformed on Mount Aventine. The most prominent of those who joined\nMarcella were Sophronia, Felicitas, and Marcellina. The latter\nwas daughter of an ancient governor of the Gauls. Outside of\nMarcella's house, the names best known among those who had\ndevoted themselves to a life of austerity and virtue, were Lea, a\nholy widow whom the church has canonized; the admirable Asella,\nand Fabiola, who was of the ancient family of Fabius. All this\nmovement toward religious life was greatly encouraged by the\npious pontiff who then filled St. Peter's chair. At the time\nPaula became a widow. Pope Damasus was nearly seventy-five years\nof age. He was one of the noblest of the early popes, and one of\nthose who did most for Christianity and for the development of\nChristian piety. He had a sister named Irene, who, consecrating\nherself to God, died at the age of twenty, in honor of whom he\ncomposed a most touching epitaph.\n\nSuch was the group of souls and the array of virtue which Paula\nhad around her, and which attracted her, when she became a widow,\nto seek a more perfect life.\n\nIn the words of St. Jerome, Marcella, like an incendiary, blew\nupon these lighted cinders and set them in a blaze. She found\nwords to bid those eyes, so dimmed by tears, to turn to heaven;\nand she urged that bruised spirit to rise up and seek God. All\nthis Marcella did with a sister's tenderness. Her solicitude\nextended to the children of her friend, and she begged that\nEustochium, who already showed a predilection for the religious\nlife, might be confided to her care. Paula acceded to this wish\nwith joy, keeping with her Blesilla, Paulina, Rufina, and\nToxotius. Then she began with ardor and faith the new life she\nhad marked out for herself, and she soon outshone all others in\nvirtue. There was a sudden and admirable expansion of greatness\nin her soul. With her this rupture with the world was but a\nhigher flight toward God.\n\nHer first step in advance was a new and great love of prayer; for\nso it is, that the more the heart is closed to earth, the more it\nopens to heaven. Her love of God and of celestial things grew\nstronger each day. She lived most austerely, practising every\nChristian mortification. All the habits of luxury of other days\nwere thrown aside, and the very comforts of life diminished. She\nslept on the bare floor, and rivalled in abstinence and fast the\nascetics of the desert. She often wept over the thought of the\nself-indulgence of her former worldly life.\n{387}\nThese tears, together with those which she shed for her husband,\nToxotius, flowed so constantly and so abundantly, that her eyes\nwere injured, and her sight endangered. Paula was the pale one,\npale with fasting and almost blinded by tears.\n\nPaula's heart was inflamed with charity. She found in the poor\nanother outlet of love for an ardent nature; and as she surpassed\nMarcella and all others in austerities, so she also surpassed\nthem in charities. All her income was given in alms, and \"never,\"\nsays St. Jerome, \"did a beggar come away from her empty-handed.\"\n\nIt was now two years since Paula had lived in this holy way, when\ngreat news reached the little community of Aventine. In 382, Pope\nDamasus called to Rome the Catholic bishops in council, and many\nvenerable bishops were expected there from the east. The object\nof the council was to decide several questions of faith, as well\nas to put an end to the long pending schism of Antioch. A few\nbishops only answered the call of the Roman pontiff, the greater\npart excusing themselves in a letter which is celebrated in\necclesiastical history. Among those who came were Paulinus, one\nof the bishops of Antioch, and St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamina\nin the island of Cyprus.\n\nIt is easy to imagine the emotion produced among these recluses\nby the arrival in Rome of such personages as these holy bishops,\nwho came from the mysterious east where the Catholic faith had\nbeen cradled. They had seen Jerusalem and the Holy Land; they\nknew the fathers of the desert, whose fame filled the world. What\nlessons of wisdom would they not be able to gather from such\nvisitors!\n\nPaula obtained from Pope Damasus the honor of having St.\nEpiphanius as her guest, and it was in her daily interviews with\nhim, as well as with Paulinus, that the desire to see the east,\nwhich she was one day to realize, first sprung up in her mind.\n\nHistory has preserved few details of this council of the year\n382. The great work to be brought about by these eastern bishops\nat Rome was the new impetus which their presence was to give to\nreligion among the Christians of Rome already in the way of life\nand truth. There came from the east, in company with the holy\nbishops, a man destined to exercise great influence over the\nfuture life of Paula and her friends. This man was St. Jerome. We\nmust pause a moment and not pass by one who is perhaps the most\nstriking, the most original, and the grandest figure of the\nfourth century. He stands alone in his strength--different from\nSt. Hilarius of Poitiers, the profound theologian; from Ambrose,\nthe sweet orator; from Augustine, the great philosopher, or\nPaulinus, the Christian poet. His features are marked and stern,\nhis character is austere and ardent; the burning reflection from\nan eastern sky rests upon him; he is laden with the learning of\nthe Christian and the pagan world; the indefatigable athlete of\nthe church, he whose powerful voice moved the old world when they\nlistened to his pathetic lament over the fall of Rome, and which\nmoves us still when we read it now after the lapse of centuries!\n\nSuch was Jerome; yet is this picture incomplete, for we have not\nmentioned his special gift for the direction of souls. He was\ntheir guide, their father. He it was who began this divine\nguidance, entrusted afterward to St. Bernard, and by him to St.\nFrancis de Sales, from St. Francis de Sales to Bossuet and\nF\u00e9n\u00e9lon, and so on down to our own times. It is this special gift\nwhich gives him so prominent a part in the history of Paula.\n\n{388}\n\nPope Damasus wished to detain him in Rome after the departure of\nthe bishops for the east, in order that Jerome should expound the\nholy Scriptures and give answers to those who came to Rome from\nall parts of the globe for explanations of the dogmas and\ndiscipline of the church. A great friendship had sprung up\nbetween the sovereign pontiff and St. Jerome. The study of the\nholy Scriptures bound their affections together. \"I know of\nnothing better,\" wrote the holy father to him in one of his\nletters, \"than our conversations about Scripture; that is to say,\nwhen I ask questions, and you answer; and I say like the prophet,\nthat your voice is sweeter to my heart than honey to my lips.\"\n\nAfter the departure of Epiphanius and Paulinus, Marcella and\nPaula sought for Jerome and entreated him to explain the\nScriptures to them at Mount Aventine. The austere monk resisted\nthem long, but at last yielded, and crowds came to hear him. He\nwould read the text, and then make his comments. The listeners\nwere captivated by his eloquence, and his language was peculiarly\nstrong, clear, and forcible. His monk's attire, his cheeks,\nsunken by penance and browned by the eastern sun, and his deep\nvoice, all combined to throw a strange spell over his hearers.\n\nHe, too, soon discovered that he spoke to noble souls, and thus\nwas his abiding interest awakened by his own delight in opening\nsuch treasures to those so capable of appreciating them.\n\nSuch was the ardor of Paula and her friends in studying the\nScriptures, that Jerome was in admiration at their labor and\nperseverance; and it excited him to further efforts, and made him\nfeel the necessity of undertaking a complete translation of the\nentire Bible, which, indeed, was the work of his life from that\ntime afterward, without remission; being begun on Mount Aventine,\namong his favorite disciples, and only ending many years later,\nwith his life. Jerome now undertook the spiritual direction of\nPaula, Marcella, Asella, and their friends. Many of his letters\nto them have been preserved, a monument of this wonderful\ndirection. He wrote to them unceasingly, and what remains to us\nof this vast correspondence suffices to show the noble light in\nwhich he viewed Christian duty. Their moral elevation is\nmarvellous, and when from theory he came to practice, he seemed\nto trample under foot all human weakness and to expect from these\nhigh-born and gently nurtured patricians the abstinence and\nfasting of the Anchorites of the Theban deserts.\n\nThis direction of St. Jerome wrought wonders in the soul of\nPaula. She daily grew in grace, and became a still more noble\nexample of austerity, of prayer, of abundant charities, and good\nworks, and of the fruitful study of the Scriptures.\n\n\"What shall I say of the worldly goods of this noble lady, almost\nentirely spent on the poor?\" exclaims St. Jerome. \"What shall I\nsay of her universal charity, which made her love and succor\nbeings she had never even seen? What sick person was not nursed\nby her? She sought the afflicted throughout the great city, and\never thought she had met with a loss if the sick or the hungry\nhad already found assistance before hers.\"\n\n{389}\n\nThis is what the love of Christ brought about in imperial and\ncorrupt Rome when, for the first time, such Christian heroism\nburst forth from the midst of the patricians, their admirable and\npious daughter shedding new lustre upon those glorious old pagan\nfamilies.\n\n\n    To Be Continued.\n\n----------------\n\n          Bound With Paul.\n\n\nThe warden's wife followed her husband down the steps leading to\nthe prison. \"'_O caro Duca mio_,' is there an inscription\nover the door?\" she asked; \"for I have brought hope with me, and\nwill not let it go.\"\n\nNot having anything to say, the warden kept silent. He was used\nto his wife's fanciful ways of speaking, and liked to hear her\npleasant voice, though her meaning might escape him. For\neducation had emphasized the difference which nature had\npronounced between these two--a difference which William Blake\nhas defined in a word: the man looked _with_ his eyes, the\nwoman looked _through_ hers.\n\nBesides, the warden's attention was at the moment fully occupied.\nThe prison-bell had rung the second time, and the convicts had\nfinished their day's work. Mr. and Mrs. Raynor stood just within\nthe great entrance of the prison, and watched the sluggish\nstreams of crime that oozed from the doors of the different\nshops, joined in the yard, and crept toward them--an Acheron, in\nwhich human faces presently became visible; but faces bleached,\nunwholesome, and expressionless. Perhaps their souls had been\nscorched up in the baleful flames that had wafted these men\nhither, or mesmerized in the leaden to-and-fro of their lives.\nOr, more likely, retired to some secret recess of the brain,\ntheir restless wits might be working out new designs of evil. An\noccasional spark in some sidelong eye favored the latter guess.\n\n\"Now for explanation,\" the warden said, keeping a strict eye on\nthe advancing line, yet aware of a hand stealing toward his arm.\n\"Be careful, dear! my revolver is on that side. Your man will go\ninto the furthest cell in the first ward. His name is Dougherty;\nhis nationality, of course, a mystery. He was sentenced ten years\nfor assault and highway robbery, and has now but two months to\nstay. Excepting this one affair, he has always borne a good name,\nand there couldn't be a better prisoner. He might have been\npardoned out long ago if he had tried, but he never asks favors.\nWhen he came here, his only brother, a decent fellow, went to\nCalifornia. He couldn't stand the disgrace. But he writes once a\nmonth, a very good letter, too; and when the ten years shall be\nup, will come or send for his brother. They say that Dougherty\nbehaved very well by him when he went away, and gave him all his,\nDougherty's, money. I shouldn't wonder. The fellow has the\nstrongest sense of duty I ever knew in a man. That's what is the\nmatter with him now. He told the deputy yesterday that he should\nnever go to chapel again. He had before been in doubt about it,\nhe said; but when the chaplain praised Martin Luther, and called\nthe church some ugly name or other, then he\nknew that it was a sin for him to listen.\n{390}\nI don't want to punish the man; but, of course, he must go to\nchapel. I can't make exceptions; and half a dozen of the worst\nrascals here have some way got wind of the affair, and have all\nat once experienced theology. That tall, heavy fellow, who\nmurdered his mother and his brother, and then set fire to the\nhouse and burnt their bodies up, had his feelings badly hurt when\nthe chaplain said something sarcastic of the pope's great toe.\nBut Dougherty is honest, and if he will submit, I can easily\nbring the others down. If he should hold out, there will be\ntrouble; for they will do for deviltry what he will do for\nconscience' sake. If you can talk him over, I shall be glad; but\nI haven't much hope of it. He is not a man likely to be\ninfluenced by a woman's soft words. He is granite.\"\n\nThe wife smiled saucily. \"I have seen a silly little pink cloud\nmake a granite boulder blush as though it had blood in it,\" she\nsaid.\n\nAt this moment the file of convicts reached the portal, and came\nwinding through in the slow lock-step, separated noiselessly into\ndetachments, a part moving toward the lower cells, the rest\nclimbing the narrow flight of stairs leading to the upper tiers.\nThe faces of the men caught an additional pallor from the cold,\nwhitewashed stone of the prison, and a darker shade as, one by\none, they disappeared into the cells, the doors clapping to in\nrapid succession behind them, like the leaves of a book run over\nin the fingers. In a few minutes the whole line had crumbled\naway, and there were visible but the three tiers of iron doors,\neach door with a hand thrust through the bars, and a dim face\nbehind them. Mrs. Raynor glanced up the block to the last cell.\nThe hand she saw there had a character of its own. The fingers\nwere not half closed, listlessly waiting to be seen, but firm and\nstraight, and the thumb was clasped tightly around the bar\nagainst which it rested--a dogged hand. \"You think that the\ndungeon would have no effect?\" she asked.\n\nThe warden repeated the word \"dungeon\" with a circumflex\ncalculated to give the impression that the apartment in question\nwas vaulted. \"I doubt if even the strings will break him,\" he\nsaid. \"You take a Catholic Irishman born in Ireland, and you\ncan't hammer nor melt him into anything but a Catholic. He may\nlie as fast as a dog can trot, and steal your eye-teeth from\nunder your eyes; but if you cut him into inch pieces, as long as\nhe has a thumb and finger left, he will make the sign of the\ncross with them. You are losing courage, little woman.\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"Well, good luck to you! I'm going off.\"\n\nThe lady walked up the ward, nodding to the convicts who pressed\neagerly for recognition, stopping to speak to those who had\nrequests to make, and, pausing at a little distance from the\nupper cell, looked attentively at its occupant, herself unseen by\nhim.\n\nThe warden had well compared this man to granite. He was tall,\nthick-set, as straight as a post, had the broad, combative Irish\nhead, crowned with a luxuriance of dark-brown hair, and square\njaws that promised a tenacious grip on whatever he might set his\nmental teeth in. But the face was honest, though hard, and the\nstraight mouth did not look as though giving to lying or\nblasphemy, but had something solemn in its closing. The\nwell-shaped nose was as notable for spirit as the mouth for\nfirmness, and the blue-grey eyes were steady, not bright, and\nrather small.\n{391}\nAltogether, a man of whom one might say that, if he was not so\ngood, he would not have been so bad.\n\nThis convict sat on a bench in the middle of his little\nwhitewashed cell, and appeared to be lost in thought. But in his\nattitude there was none of that easy drooping which usually\naccompanies such abstraction. He sat perfectly upright and rigid,\nthe only perceptible motion a quick one of the eyelids, the eyes\nfixed--locked, rather than lost in thought.\n\nHe rose immediately on seeing who his visitor was, bowed with a\nsoldierly stiffness that was not without state, and waited for\nher to speak.\n\nAfter a few pleasant inquiries, civilly answered, she told her\nerrand. It was not so easy as she had expected; but she spoke\nkindly and earnestly, urging the necessity for discipline in such\na place, and the unwillingness of the warden to inflict any\npunishment on him. \"I have no doubt of your sincerity,\" she\nconcluded, \"though the others mean only mischief. But the\ndecision must be the same in both cases.\"\n\nHe listened attentively to every word she said, then replied with\nquiet firmness, \"I am sorry, ma'am, that there is going to be any\ntrouble about it. But it would be a sin for me to go and hear\nProtestantism called the church of God, when it is no more a\nchurch than a barnacle is a ship.\"\n\n\"That is not the question,\" she persisted. \"Admitting that what\nthe chaplain says may be false, I still say that you ought to go.\nYou are here in a state of servitude; you have no will of your\nown; your duty is obedience to the rules of the place; and the\nmore difficult that duty, the more your merit. If you should\nlisten with pleasure, or even with toleration, while your faith\nis attacked, that might be sin; but the listening unwillingly and\nwith pain you can offer to God as a penance in expiation of the\ncrime which obliges you to perform it. I am speaking now as a\nCatholic would. I believe that your priest would say the same.\"\n\nShe paused to note the effect of her words; but his face was\nunmoved.\n\n\"I have a dear friend who is a Catholic,\" she added. \"For her\nsake I should be sorry to have you punished for such a cause.\"\n\nThis plea made no impression whatever. Plainly, the man was not\nsoft-hearted, nor susceptible to flattery. He merely listened,\nand appeared to be gravely considering the subject.\n\n\"To yield would be humility; to refuse would be pride,\" she said.\n\"You need not listen while in the chapel; you can think your own\nthoughts and say your own prayers.\"\n\nAs he still pondered, she again went over her argument, enlarging\nand dwelling on it till it reached his comprehension. He listened\nas before, but made no sign of approval nor dissent. Either from\nnature or habit, it seemed hard for the man to get his mouth\nopen. But at length he spoke.\n\n\"You were right, ma'am, in telling me that my duty here is\nobedience,\" he said; \"but you left out one condition--obedience\nin all that is not sin. If the warden should tell me to kill a\nman, it would not be my duty to obey. I do obey in all that is\nnot sin. It would be a sin for me to go to chapel.\"\n\nHe spoke respectfully, but with decision; and the lady perceived\nthat their argument had reached a knot which only the hand of\nauthority could cut. She sighed, and abandoned her attempt.\n\n{392}\n\nCould she abandon it? Remembering the dungeon and the strings,\nher heart strengthened itself for one more effort. She had begun\nby marching straight up to the subject, challenging opposition;\nit might be better to approach circuitously. \"Let me undermine\nhim,\" she thought; and, turning away, as though leaving the\ncaptive to silence and loneliness again, let the sense of\nreturning desolation catch him for an instant, then hesitated,\nand glanced backward. It was a good beginning; he was looking\nafter her. The sight of a friendly face, the sound of a friendly\nvoice, and liberty to speak, were unfrequent boons in that place,\nand too precious to be willingly relinquished,\n\n\"The days must seem long to you,\" she said.\n\nShe came nearer, and leaned against the door. \"Yes, they are\nlong; but I thank God for every one of them. My coming here was\nthe best thing that ever happened to me. I was getting to be\ndrunkard, and this put a stop to it.\"\n\nAs he spoke, he lifted his face and looked out at the strip of\nsky visible through the window across the corridor, and his eyes\nbegan to kindle.\n\n\"Have you a family?\" the lady asked.\n\nHe waited a moment before answering, seemed to break some link of\nthought that had a bright fracture, and his expression underwent\na slight but decided change. A light in it that had been lofty\nsoftened to a light that was tender, as at her question he looked\ndown again. \"There's Larry,\" he said.\n\n\"And who is Larry?\"\n\nThe convict stared with astonishment at her ignorance. And,\nindeed, Mrs. Raynor was the only person about the prison who had\nnot heard the name of this Larry. \"He is my step-brother, ma'am,\"\nhe replied. \"We had but the one father; but he had his own\nmother. When she died, there were two of us left, and I took the\nlad and brought him to this country. He was five years old then,\nand I was twenty. I was a stone-cutter, and thought to do better\nhere; and, faith, one way I have, and another way I haven't.\nShame never touched one of us at home.\"\n\n\"Who took care of the child?\" Mrs. Raynor asked.\n\n\"Myself, ma'am. He ate and slept with me, and I took him on my\narm as often as I put my hat on. He had his little chair on the\ntable in my shop, or he played about at the end of a long string.\nFor the lad was venturesome, and I never trusted him but with a\ntether.\"\n\n\"He must have been a great care,\" she said.\n\n\"Have you any children, ma'am?\" the convict asked.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"I thought that,\" he said dryly; then smiled. \"Larry was like a\npicture. He had red cheeks and black eyes, and his hair was like\ngold with a shadow on it. It used to take me half an hour every\nmorning to make his curls, and they reached to his waist.\nEverybody noticed the child, and they'd turn to look after him in\nthe street. One of the richest ladies in the city wanted to take\nhim for her own, and me to promise never to see him again; and\nwhen she told what she would do for him, I thought that perhaps I\nought to let him go. The lady coaxed him, and gave him\npicture-books and candy, and then asked him if he'd go and live\nwith her; and faith, ma'am, my heart didn't get such a scalding\nwhen Mary asked her promise back, and said she liked Larry best,\nas it did when that child went to the lady's knee and said he\nwould go and live with her. God forgive me, but I hated her that\nminute. Well, I told her that I would think about it, and let her\nknow the next day.\n{393}\nThat night I dreamed that she had him, and that I saw him far off\nat play, dressed in jewels, and his little frock like a fall of\nsnow. I dreamed that I couldn't speak to him, and that set me\ncrying; and I cried so that I waked myself up. I put my hand out\nfor the child, but I couldn't find him. He was a restless little\nfellow, and had crawled down to the foot of the bed. For a minute\nI thought that the dream was true; and then I knew that I\ncouldn't let him go. I waked him up, and asked him if he'd stay\nand live for ever with his brother John; and I was a happy man\nwhen he put his little arms round my neck and said yes, he would.\nAnd I made a promise to the child that night, while he was asleep\nin my arms, that, since I kept him back from being a rich man,\nwhatever he might ask of me in all his life, if it was my heart's\nblood, he should have it! And, ma'am, I've kept my promise.\"\n\nThe tenderness with which he spoke of his brother invested the\nconvict's manner with the softening grace which it so much\nneeded, and grew upon his rough nature like a gentian upon its\nrock.\n\n\"This brother is in California?\" Mrs. Raynor asked.\n\nThe convict dropped his eyes. \"He and Mary went there when I came\nhere,\" he said.\n\n\"Who is Mary?\"\n\n\"Mary is Larry's wife,\" was the brief reply.\n\n\"You hear from them?\"\n\n\"Oh! yes,\" he said eagerly. \"They write to me every month. In his\nlast letter Larry said that he was coming after me at the end of\nmy term; but I sent him word not to. I can go alone, and he will\nsend me the money.\"\n\nThe man seemed to have a jealous suspicion of her thought that he\nhad been cruelly deserted. \"I told them to go,\" he said with a\ntouch of pride; \"and I shall go and live with them when I get out\nof this. They wouldn't hear to my going anywhere else.\"\n\nHe broke off, glanced through the window, and said, as if\ninvoluntarily, \"There's the west wind!\" then drew back, rather\nashamed when the lady looked to find what he meant. \"You see,\nma'am, we don't have much to think of here, and there's only the\nsight of stone and iron, and that bit of sky. Three years ago\nthere wasn't a glimpse of green; but two years ago I began to\ncatch a flit of leaves when the west wind blew. Last summer I\ncould see a green tip of a bough all the time, and now in the\nhigh March wind I can see a bit of a twig.\"\n\n\"It is an elm-tree,\" the warden's wife said; \"and the branches\nare longest on this side. I think they stretch out for you to\nsee. You miss many a pleasant sight here, Dougherty.\"\n\n\"What I miss is nothing to what I have seen,\" he said quickly,\nhis eyes beginning again to kindle.\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\nHe gazed at her searchingly for a moment, as if to read whether\nshe were worthy to hear; then he looked up at the sky.\n\nMrs. Raynor tried not to be impressed. \"He is a thief, serving\nout his sentence in the State prison,\" she repeated mentally. \"He\nis a poor, ignorant Irishman, who can scarcely spell his own\nname, and who reverences a polysyllable next to the priest.\"\n\n\"I will tell you,\" he said after a moment, his voice trembling\nslightly, not with weakness, but with fervor. \"When I first came\nhere, I had to pray all the time to keep myself from going crazy;\nbut by and by I got reconciled.\n{394}\nYou know we never have a priest here, and must find things out as\nwell as we can for ourselves. All I wanted to know was whether\nGod was angry with me. Sometimes I thought he was; but that might\nbe a temptation of the devil. What I am going to tell you\nhappened about six months ago, at nine o'clock in the evening.\nThe night-watch was in, and had just gone round. He spoke to me,\nand I answered him. I was in bed, and I shut my eyes as soon as\nhe went back to his place. Something made me open them again, and\nI saw on the wall of my cell here a little spot like moonlight.\nIt grew larger while I looked, and the whole cell was full of the\nlight of it; and it trembled like the flame of a candle in the\nwind. There didn't seem to be any wall here; it was all opened\nout. I pulled the blanket about me and went down to my knees on\nthe stone floor. I don't know how long it was before two faces\nbegan to show in the midst of the light; and when they came, it\nwas still. At first they were faint; but they grew brighter till\nthey were as bright as I could bear. I couldn't tell whether it\nwas the brightness in their faces or the thought in my heart,\nthat brought the tears into my eyes. There was the Blessed Virgin\nwith the Infant Jesus in her arms, and they both looking at me\nand smiling. And while they smiled, they faded away!\"\n\n\"How probable that would sound if it were related as having\nhappened in the year of our Lord 62, instead of 1862!\" the lady\nthought, restraining a smile, awed by the perfect conviction of\nthe speaker.\n\n\"Dougherty,\" she said, \"a man like you ought not to be caught at\nhighway robbery. How did it happen?\"\n\nSome swift emotion passed over his face; but whether of fear or\nanger she could not tell. The next moment he smiled grimly. \"I\nknow just how it happened, ma'am,\" he said; \"for didn't the\nlawyers tell me? Oh! but they told the whole story so plain you'd\nhave thought they did the deed themselves; and faith, they made\nme almost believe I did it. It is a very convincing way that the\nlawyers have about them. They made out that Mike Murray was at\nour house one night, and we all played cards and got drunk\ntogether; and when we were pretty high, that Larry and I went out\nwith Mike to see him home; and that I sent Larry back, he being\ntoo drunk to go on; and that I waited upon Mike out to a piece of\nwoods, and there I knocked him down and robbed him; and that he\nwas picked up half-dead the next morning, and I was caught\nthrowing the money away. They proved that I only did it because I\nwas drunk, and that I never did a dishonest deed before; and so\nthey sent me here for ten years. And the pity it was of poor Mike\nMurray! It would have brought tears to your eyes to hear that\nlawyer go on about him, as if Mike was his own father's son, and\na saint to the bargain, instead of a dirty, drunken blackguard\nthat Mary was mad to see in the house, and that beat his own wife\nwith a stool, and kicked her down-stairs every morning; and\nthat's the way she used to get down. She told our Mary that she\nwas never without a sore spot on her head, and that when she got\nto the top of a flight of stairs, if it was in the church itself,\nshe'd look behind for the kick that Mike always had for her.\nIndeed, ma'am, while the lawyer was talking, I didn't believe he\nmeant the Mike Murray I knew at all, but a sweet, gentle creature\nwith the same name, and that never took a sup of anything but\nmilk. And that's the story of my coming here, ma'am,\" the convict\nconcluded, giving a short laugh.\n\n{395}\n\n\"You have had troubles enough,\" Mrs. Raynor said gently; \"but now\nthey are nearly over. Only two months longer, and you will be\nfree. It won't hurt you to go to chapel for that short time.\"\n\n\"I shall not go,\" he replied.\n\nShe turned away at that, went into the deserted prison-yard, and\nstood there a moment recollecting a sermon she had heard not long\nbefore. \"Why should we not now have a saint after the grand old\nway?\" the speaker had asked.\n\n\"There is every reason why we should not!\" she exclaimed\nimpatiently. \"Those _bizarre_, uncompromising virtues of the\nantique time would now scandalize the very elect. We must not\noffend against _les biens\u00e9ances_, though all the saints\nshould clap their hands. This poor Irishman is unquestionably a\nlittle wrong in his head, and will have to go to the dungeon. For\nyou, Madge Raynor, you had best return to your _moutons_,\nand cease pulling at the skirts of the millennium. What a\nquixotic little body you are, to be sure!\"\n\nTo the dungeon, accordingly, Dougherty was sent the next Sunday\nand after a few hours, the warden's wife went to see him.\n\nA door of solid iron opened in the basement wall of the prison,\nand let the light into a stone vestibule that was otherwise\nperfectly dark. Opposite this entrance was what looked like an\noven or furnace-door, about two feet square, and also of solid\niron. Removing a padlock from the inner door, the guard opened\nit, and called Dougherty.\n\nMrs. Raynor started back as the foul air from the dungeon struck\nher face; for, though there was an aperture artfully contrived so\nas to admit a little air and exclude all light, it was not large\nenough to do more than keep the prisoner from actual suffocation.\n\n\"You are acting like a simpleton!\" the lady exclaimed when the\nconvict's pale face appeared at the opening. \"Go to chapel next\nSunday, and say your prayers under the parson's nose. I will give\nyou beads that shall rattle like hail-stones.\"\n\n\"I thank you, ma'am!\" the man replied in his provokingly quiet\nway; \"but I can't go to chapel.\"\n\n\"You expect to enjoy staying here three days, with bread and\nwater once a day, sitting and sleeping on bare stones, and\nbreathing air that would sicken a dog?\" she demanded angrily.\n\n\"That is nothing to what my Lord suffered for me,\" was the reply.\n\n\"You fancy yourself a martyr, and that the officers of the prison\nare children of the devil!\" she said.\n\n\"I don't blame them,\" he answered. \"They do what they think is\nright.\"\n\n\"Shut him up!\" she exclaimed, turning away. \"It's a pity we\nhaven't a rack for the blockhead. He is pining for it.\"\n\nDougherty did not complain nor yield; but he was put to work\nagain after three days, that being the longest time the rules\nallowed a man to be kept in the dungeon.\n\nMrs. Raynor was annoyed with herself for taking such an interest\nin this contumacious thief. Every day she protested that she\nwould not worry about him, and every day she worried more and\nmore. When Sunday came again, \"I will not go near him,\" she said.\n\"I will leave him to his fate. 'What's Hecuba to him, or he to\nHecuba?'\" and even while speaking, counted anxiously the last\nstrokes of the prison-bell ringing for service.\n{396}\nAt that moment the convicts were entering the chapel, all but the\nsick, and that troublesome _prot\u00e9g\u00e9_ of hers. \"I won't go\nnear him,\" she said in a very determined manner, and, five\nminutes after, was on her way up the prison-stairs.\n\nLetting herself into the guardroom with a pass-key, she found but\none man on guard; but the voices of others came through the open\ndoor of the hospital, and with them a long, agonized moan.\nHurrying into the cell where the punishment called \"the strings\"\nwas inflicted, Mrs. Raynor saw Dougherty hanging by his wrists to\na chain run through a ring in the ceiling. His toes touched the\nfloor and slightly relieved the otherwise intolerable strain on\nhis shoulders and breast. One of the guards kept the chain up,\nwhile the deputy-warden stood by the convict and watched for the\nfirst sign of submission or of fainting.\n\nThe man groaned with pain, and drops of perspiration rolled down\nhis face.\n\n\"Will you give up and go to chapel next Sunday?\" asked the\ndeputy.\n\n\"O God! strengthen me,\" cried the convict. \"No, I will not go!\"\n\nMrs. Raynor's pale face flushed as she heard this reply.\n\nThe moans became fainter.\n\n\"Now, give up like a man,\" the deputy said. \"You've shown your\ngrit, and that is enough.\"\n\n\"Lord, help me!\" came in a broken cry.\n\n\"He's going; let him down,\" the deputy said.\n\n\"Dead?\" cried the warden's wife, starting forward.\n\n\"No, madam; he has fainted.\"\n\nThey applied restoratives, and when his senses had returned, led\nhim, reeling, out into the guardroom, and placed him in a chair\nby the open window.\n\n\"Did you ever read a history of the Spanish Inquisition, Mr.\nDeputy?\" asked the warden's wife.\n\n\"Yes'm!\" was the immediate reply. \"This is just like it, isn't\nit?\"\n\n\"Well, Dougherty, you will be content now, and go to chapel next\nSunday, will you not?\" asked the lady, touching the convict's\nsleeve.\n\nHe lifted his heavy eyes. He was still catching his breath like\none who sobs. \"I will die before I will go to hear the name of\nGod and of his truth blasphemed!\" he answered, speaking with\ndifficulty.\n\n\"But if you should be again put up in the strings?\"\n\nHe shivered, but replied without hesitation, \"He that died upon\nthe cross will strengthen me.\"\n\n\"The fellow is a fool!\" muttered one of the guard.\n\n\"May God multiply such fools!\" cried Mrs. Raynor, turning upon\nthe speaker. Then to the convict, \"I will urge you no more. I am\nnot capable of judging for you, and you do not need help nor\nadvice from me. Go your own way.\"\n\nDougherty's own way was to persist in his refusal to attend\nchapel; and since the officers had no choice but to punish him\nfor his disobedience, it chanced that for the next four weeks he\nwas put up in the strings every Sunday morning.\n\n\"It shall not be done again,\" the warden said then. \"He has but a\nfortnight longer to stay; and, rule or no rule, he shall do as he\nlikes.\"\n\n\"Only a fortnight,\" he said to the convict, \"then you will be a\nfree man.\"\n\nDougherty's face brightened. \"Yes, sir! And I long to set my feet\non the turf again. A man doesn't know what green grass is, till\nhe gets shut up in a place like this.\"\n\n\"Don't come here again,\" the officer said kindly. \"Let what you\nhave suffered teach you to resist temptation.\"\n\n{397}\n\nThe convict looked at Mr. Raynor with a singular expression of\nsurprise, not unmingled with a momentary indignation, and seemed\nabout to speak, but checked himself.\n\n\"It is only to keep from drink,\" the warden went on. \"I don't\nbelieve you would be dishonest when sober.\"\n\nThe convict dropped his eyes. \"God knows all hearts,\" he said.\n\nThe next day Dougherty had a cold and a headache; the second day\nhe was unable to go to work; the third day he had a settled\nfever. He was removed to the hospital, where the cells were\nlarger, and, being next the outside wall, had light and air; a\nconvict whose term had nearly expired was set to take care of\nhim, and Mrs. Raynor visited him twice a day.\n\nBut the fever had got well fixed before the man gave up, and it\nfound him good fuel. He burned like a solid beech log, with a\nslow, intense, unquenchable heat. His pale and sallow face became\na dull crimson; his strong, full pulses beat fiercely in neck,\nwrists, and temples; and his restless eyes glowed with a\nbrilliant lustre. Mrs. Raynor was sometimes startled, as she sat\nfanning and bathing his face, fancying that she had soothed him\nto sleep, to see those eyes open suddenly, and fix themselves on\nher with a searching gaze, or wander wildly about the cell. But\nhe lay almost as motionless as the burning log would, locked in\nthat fierce and silent struggle with disease. Nearly a fortnight\npassed, and there were but two days left of Dougherty's term of\nimprisonment; but there was no longer a hope that any freedom of\nman's giving would profit him. There was scarcely more than the\nembers of a man left of him; not enough, indeed, for a fever to\nprey upon. The flushes had become intermittent, like the last\nflickerings of a fire, and the parched and blackened mouth showed\nhow he had been consumed inwardly.\n\nIt was May, and the sweet air and sunshine came in through two\nnarrow windows and lightened and freshened the cell where the\nconvict lay. Everything was clean and in order. The stone walls\nand floor were whitewashed; a prayer-book, crucifix, medicine,\nand glasses were carefully arranged on a little table between the\nwindows; and there was a spotless cover on the narrow pallet that\nstood opposite. The door was wide open for a draught, and now and\nthen one of the guard, approaching laboriously on tiptoe, would\nput his head into the cell, raise his eyebrows inquiringly at the\nconvict-nurse who sat at the head of the bed, receive a nod in\nreturn, and retire with the same painful feint of making no\nnoise. Neither of the two men was quite clear in his mind as to\nwhat he meant by this pantomime; but the result with both was a\nconviction that all was right. Presently, as the afternoon waned,\nthere was the soft rustle of a woman's garments in the corridor,\nand a woman's unmistakable velvet footfall. At that sound the\nconvict-nurse went lightly out; and Mrs. Raynor came in, and\nseated herself on the stool where he had sat, and slipped a bit\nof ice between the lips of the patient. He had been lying\nmotionless and apparently asleep during the last hour; but as she\ntouched him, he opened his eyes and fixed them upon her. \"What\ndoes the doctor say, ma'am?\" he asked in a tone so firm that one\nforgot it was but a whisper.\n\n{398}\n\n\"I think that you will want to see the priest,\" she said gently.\n\"I have sent for one, and he will come tomorrow.\"\n\nA slight spasm passed over the sick man's face, his eyelids\nquivered, and his mouth contracted for an instant.\n\n\"It must come to us all sooner or later,\" she continued; \"and it\nis well for us that He who knows best and does best is the one to\nchoose.\"\n\nHe said not a word, but closed his eyes again; and she kept\nsilence while he went through with his struggle, her own tears\nstarting as she saw how the tears swelled under his eyelids, and\nthe stern mouth quivered, and knew that he was tearing up the few\nsimple hopes that had taken root in his heart: the setting his\nfeet on the green grass again, the meeting his brother, the dream\nof a cheerful fireside where he should be welcome, the honest\ngains and generous gifts, the happy laughter, kind looks, and\nsorrows from which love and faith should draw the sting. Simple\nhopes; but they had struck deep, and every fibre of the man's\nheart quivered and bled at their uprooting.\n\nPresently the watcher spoke softly: \"Like as a father pitieth his\nchildren, so the Lord hath mercy on them that fear him!\"\n\n\"May his will be done!\" said the convict. \"But, poor Larry!\"\n\n\"You want me to write to him?\"\n\n\"Yes ma'am!\" he answered eagerly. \"Tell him that I was\ncomfortable here, and that I was willing to die; and be sure to\ntell him that coming here was the best thing that ever happened\nto me. Don't let him know anything about the punishment. Larry'd\nfeel bad about that. Don't forget!\" he urged, looking anxiously\nin the lady's face.\n\n\"I won't forget,\" she said.\n\nHe stopped a moment for breath; then resumed, \"Tell him that my\nlast words were, that he should remember his promises to me, and\nnever taste liquor again. And tell him to be kind to Mary for my\nsake. You see, ma'am, I was fond of Mary; but of course she liked\nLarry best.\"\n\nThe lady blushed faintly, and laid her cool white hand on his\nfevered one. \"Dougherty,\" she said, \"nobody but God thanks us for\ntrue love. In this world a light love meets with most gratitude.\"\n\n\"Sometimes I've thought the same,\" the man said gravely. \"Some\nare made to give, and some are made to take; but the Lord gives\nto all.\"\n\nThe next day a priest came and spent some time with the sick man.\nMrs. Raynor went up for her afternoon visit, and found him still\nlingering there, looking gravely and intently at his penitent,\nwho lay with an expression of perfect peace on his countenance.\n\n\"Poor man!\" she sighed, glancing toward the bed.\n\nThe father looked up with a light flashing into his thoughtful\neyes. \"Poor man, madam?\" he repeated. \"Not so: that man is rich!\nIt is for him to pity us.\"\n\nShe followed the priest out, and spoke to him in the corridor.\n\"Dougherty's brother has come from California,\" she said. \"He\nreached here this morning. It seems hard to keep him out, but I\nhate to disturb a man who is dying.\"\n\nThe priest frowned. \"Keep the fellow out for to-day. I have just\ngiven this man the viaticum, and want him to be undisturbed. His\nconfession has exhausted him, and he mustn't be made to talk much\nmore. How does his brother appear?\"\n\n\"Oh! he is frantic. He fainted when I first told him, and I could\nhear him crying out in the yard when I got up into the\nguard-room. I told him that he couldn't come in till he should\nhave become quiet.\"\n\n{399}\n\n\"What sort of fellow is he?\" asked the priest coldly.\n\nThe lady hesitated. In spite of her pity, she did not fancy\nLarry; neither did she like the coldness the priest showed toward\nhim. \"He is a very handsome young man,\" she said presently, \"and\nvery well dressed.\"\n\nThe father shrugged his shoulders. \"Oh! then he should be\nadmitted without delay.\"\n\nShe must, of course, free herself from such an imputation. \"He\nlooks weak and faithless,\" she said; \"but his grief is genuine;\nand his having come so far shows that he loves his brother.\"\n\n\"You might tell Dougherty tonight, and let Larry in to-morrow\nmorning if he behaves himself.\"\n\nMrs. Raynor sat by her patient without speaking, till presently\nhe looked at her and smiled faintly. \"May the Lord reward you,\nma'am!\" he said fervently. \"You've been a good friend to me.\"\n\n\"Here is a note from your brother,\" she said. \"Shall I read it to\nyou?\"\n\nHe glanced eagerly at the folded paper in her hand--a note which,\nin the midst of his lamentations, Larry had written and entreated\nher to take up to his brother.\n\n\"Read it!\" the sick man said, making an effort to turn toward\nher.\n\n\"Would you like very much to see your brother?\" she asked.\n\nDougherty's face began to work. \"O ma'am! has Larry come?\" he\nasked tremulously.\n\n\"Yes; and presently he is to come in to see you. Of course, he\nfeels very much grieved, you know. That must be. But when he\nshall see how resigned and happy you are, he will take comfort.\"\n\nSeeing that he eagerly watched the paper in her hand, the lady\nunfolded and glanced over it. As she did so, her face underwent a\nchange. \"It cannot be!\" she cried out; and, crushing the note,\nlooked at the man who lay there dying before her.\n\nHe did not understand, was too weak and dull to think of anything\nbut the letter. \"Read it!\" he said faintly.\n\nShe began breathlessly to read the blotted page: \"My dear brother\nJohn, for God's sake don't die! I have come to take you back to\nCalifornia with me, and Mary and I will spend our lives in taking\ncare of you. We will make up to you what you have suffered for\nme, going to prison for my crime.\"\n\nThe sick man started up with sudden energy and snatched the paper\nfrom the reader's hand. \"The lad is wild!\" he gasped. \"He didn't\nknow what he was writing!\"\n\nShe tried to soothe him, to coax him to lie down; but he sat\nrigid with that terrible suspense, his haggard eyes fixed on\nhers, a deathly pallor in his face.\n\n\"You won't tell anybody what the foolish boy wrote!\" he pleaded.\n\n\"It was your brother, then, who robbed the man?\" she said.\n\nHe sank back, moaning, upon his pillow, \"All for nothing!\" he\nsaid despairingly. \"I've given my heart's blood for nothing! O\nma'am! have you the heart to spoil all I've been trying to do,\nand have just about finished?\"\n\nIt was a hard promise to give, but she gave it. Without his\npermission, what she had learned should never be revealed.\n\n\"The poor lad wasn't to blame,\" the sick man said. \"It was drink\ndid it. Drink always made Larry crazy. When he got home that\nnight, he didn't know what he'd been doing; but in the morning\nMary found the money on him, and the stain of blood on his hand.\nI tried to throw the money away, and they saw me.\"\n\n{400}\n\nHe paused, gasping for breath. He was making an effort beyond his\nstrength.\n\n\"Tell me the rest to-morrow,\" Mrs. Raynor said, giving him a\nspoonful of cordial.\n\nBut he went on excitedly, clutching at the bed-clothes as he\nspoke. \"It would have been the ruin of Larry if he had come here.\nHe would never again have looked anybody in the face. Besides,\nMary's heart was broke entirely. So when I was caught, I just bid\nLarry hold his peace. But I didn't tell any lie, ma'am. When they\nasked me in court if I was guilty or not guilty, I said 'not\nguilty;' and it was true.\"\n\nShe gave him the cordial again, wiped his forehead, and, noticing\nthat his hands were cold, first lifted the blanket to cover them,\nthen hesitated, looked at him more closely, finally laid it back.\n\nHe lay for a while silent and exhausted, then spoke again. \"You\npromise?\"\n\n\"I promise, Dougherty. Set your heart at rest. You are dying; did\nyou know it?\"\n\n\"Yes, ma'am!\"\n\nAfter a while he said faintly, \"My time will be up to-morrow\nmorning.\"\n\n\"Yes!\"\n\nTwilight faded into night. Mrs. Raynor went into the house for a\nwhile, then returned to sit by her patient, sending the nurse\nout. One and another came to the cell-door, looked in, spoke a\nword, then went away. The heavy doors clanged, there was a sound\nof rattling bars as the prison was closed for the night, then\nsilence settled all over. The dying man lay perfectly quiet,\nbreathing slowly, and responding now and then to the prayers read\nby his attendant. He felt no pain, and his mind was clear and\ncalm. He had no complicated intellectual mechanism to confuse his\nideas of right and wrong; there was no labyrinth of sophistry to\nentangle his faith, no flutter of imagination to start a latent\nfear. He had done what he could; and he held on to the promises\nwith an iron grasp.\n\nThat lonely watcher almost feared for him. Might he not be\npresuming on an act of devotion which, after all, rose from a\nlove that was entirely human?\n\n\"My friend,\" she said, \"even the angels are not pure before God.\nPerhaps you loved your brother too well.\"\n\n\"If I had loved him less, he would have been lost,\" was the calm\nreply. \"I haven't loved him well enough to sin for him.\"\n\n\"Do not be too sure,\" she said.\n\n\"I'm a poor, ignorant man; but I've done as well as I knew how;\nand he has promised. I never broke a promise to man nor woman;\nand do you think that the Almighty would do the thing that I\nwould scorn to do?\"\n\n\"Are you not afraid of presumption?\"\n\n\"It would be presumption to doubt the word of God.\"\n\n\"Do not rely on your own strength,\" she urged.\n\n\"I have no strength but what he gives me,\" said the dying man.\n\nWhile they talked, or prayed, or were silent, the stars wore\nslowly and brightly past the open windows of the cell, dropping\ndown the west like golden sands in an hour-glass, and counting\nout the minutes of that ebbing life. Then the dim and humid\ncrescent of the waning moon stole by in the early morning\ntwilight; then the air grew alive with the golden glances of the\ndawn.\n{401}\nAs the sun rose, the man called Dougherty, a convict no longer,\nlay dead on his prison pallet, his face white and calm, the dull\neyes half open, as though the deserted body followed with a\nsolemn gaze the flight of its emancipated tenant.\n\n\"Would you rather have been the angel loosing Peter, or Peter in\nchains? I would rather have been Peter!\"\n\n----------\n\n    Translated From Le Conseiller Des Familles.\n\n      The Children's Graves In The Catacombs.\n\n\nChildhood and the grave! Should these two words be placed\ntogether? Must flowers fall before bearing fruit, and children\nalso die? This is what mothers think, and the church thinks as\nthey do, because the church is a mother. In her view children do\nnot die; they are born again, they are transfigured; and the\ngrave in which cold death places them resembles the white bed,\nwhereon, perhaps the day before, you saw them open their eyes to\nthe sunlight. Do you recollect the ode in which a poet, at the\ntime eminent, celebrated in beautiful verses the entrance of\nLouis XVII. into the heavenly palace to which his father had gone\nby the rough road of martyrdom? According to Catholic belief, all\nthose little beings who die before making a name or obtaining a\nplace in this world, are also young princes, heirs-apparent of a\nkingdom more beautiful than that of France, and who, like Louis\nXVII., fall asleep in a prison to awake upon a throne.\n\nThis is why the church has no prayers of grief at their burial.\nAssured of their happiness, she laments not, but gives praise. By\nthe grace given at baptism, they are received into glory. She\ncovers their remains with white drapery, which calls to mind the\nvestment which she put over them at the baptismal font. Instead\nof mourning, she invites the children of heaven to unite in\npraises, _Laudate, pueri!_ The Virgin, who was herself a\nmother, receives them at her altar, where the triumphant\nprocession congratulates the Queen of angels that her empire is\nenriched by one more subject--_Ave, Regina caelorum! Ave,\nDomina angelorum!_ The funeral mass for little children is\nonly a thanksgiving to God, who has reserved a favored space for\nthose _blessed_ beings, _Venite, benedicti Patris_.\nHaving read the gospel of our Lord, who blessed and caressed\nthose to whom he promised the kingdom of heaven, the last prayer\nof the church which throws a little earth upon the body that is\nto rise again, is that we, adult sinners, may one day rejoice\nwith them in the same kingdom. Read again this funeral service,\nand if you have a mourning mother among your friends and\nrelatives, (who does not know one?) give her these consolations.\nShe will believe that she hears the voice of God, who stopped the\ncoffin of the widow's only son and restored him to her.\n\n{402}\n\nBut these are, if I may speak thus, only the first caresses of\nreligion of the remains of children; the honor which she accords\nto them is perpetuated in the worship with which she surrounds\ntheir graves.\n\nPaganism took little care of the tombs of those who had not\nfurnished to their country a citizen or a soldier. We know that\nthey considered a child's life very unimportant. Virgil alone,\namong the poets, uttered a cry for the souls of young infants,\nwhom he represents as being cut down before the eyes of their\nmothers. In those family sepulchres, called by the Romans\n_columbaria_, I found several little busts in marble,\nrepresenting children, by the side of which were funeral urns,\ncontaining at the bottom several pinches of ashes. This was all\nthat remained. Among the innumerable inscriptions which cover the\nwalls of the immense gallery of the Vatican, I saw several\nepitaphs coldly stating that Junius Severianus had lived two\nyears; that Octavius Liberalis died when he was five years four\nmonths and four days old; that Steteria Superba had departed life\nat the age of eighteen months. But there was no wish or hope of\nmeeting them again, and no religious emblem to console the\nmourners.\n\nElysium did not exist for those shades without a name, as they\nwere called, _sine nomine manes_, and their sepulchre closed\nwithout hope and without glory. The position of children in\nheathen times was revealed to me by an epitaph which I found at\nAntibes, the ancient Antipolis, to which the fashionable Romans\ncame to enjoy the fine coast and a sunny sky. A stone detached\nfrom the ruins of a theatre, now almost entirely destroyed by the\naction of the weather and the sea, had the following inscription:\n\"To the divine shades of Septentrion, a child of twelve years,\nwho danced two days in the theatre and pleased the people\"!\n[Footnote 83] They made the poor slave-boy contribute for two\ndays to their delight; but he was overcome, and they applauded--\n_saltavit et placuit_. See, then, what society made of this\nchild--a plaything and a victim! Meditating upon this, I recalled\nto mind the time when another infant of twelve years of age\nglorified God in the temple at Jerusalem, and also when the\nSaviour took the hand of the dying girl and saying unto her,\n\"Arise!\" restored her to her father. I was obliged to leave these\ncursed ruins and enter for a moment into the temple of that God\nwho, to save these little ones, took upon himself the form of a\nchild--_Custodiens parvulos Dominus_.\n\n    [Footnote 83: \"Diis Manibus pueri Septentrionis, annorum\n    duodecim, qui biduo saltavit in theatro et placuit.\"]\n\n         II.\n\nJesus Christ was born, was an infant; and since that time a\nrevolution in favor of children began, which is perceptible in\nthe epitaphs upon their graves. The child becomes a king, almost\na god. It is at least a soul called to heaven and expecting us;\nand what new regards surround it for the future in that lapidary\nstyle, which says so much in so few words.\n\nI was at Avignon, and visiting the museum of that city, my\nattention was attracted to a grave-stone of one of the first\nChristian centuries. It contained the following words:\n\"_Florentiola, pax tecum!_\" Florentiola, peace be with\nthee!\" By the side was the monogram of Christ, surrounded with\nglory. Who was this little Florentiola? The tender diminutive\nproved plainly that she was an infant, and a beloved one. The\nwish expressed and the sign of Christ the Redeemer gave evidence\nthat she was also a Christian.\n{403}\nThis little name brought to mind another inscription which I\nfound somewhere in one of our cemeteries, upon the sepulchre of a\nyoung woman: \"She bloomed, blossomed, and died.\" Of these three\nperiods of life, Florentiola had passed through only the first;\nbut the last words expressed the hope that, as she had given to\nthis world the blossom, she would yield the fruit in another:\n\"_Pax tecum!_\"\n\nBut one must go to the catacombs in Rome, and read, in that great\nChristian city of death, the delicacies of the affections of\nearth, and the hopes of a resurrection, which are radiant upon\nthe graves of little children. In the cemetery of St. Priscilla,\nI observed two epitaphs distinguished above all others by their\nbrevity. One of them consists only of a single melancholy word,\n\"_Libera_\" that is to say, free. A dove flying away,\ncarrying an olive-branch, explains the meaning, which to me\nappeared sublime.\n\nThis captive soul which had passed through the prison of earth\nwas free at last! The church conveys a similar idea at the\nfuneral obsequies of little children: \"_Anima nostra, sicut\npasser, erepta est de laqueo venantium. Laqueus contritus est, et\nnos liberati sumus._\" (Psalm cxxiii.) \"Our soul is escaped as\na bird out of the snare of the fowlers. The snare is broken, and\nwe are delivered.\"\n\nThe other one, which I remarked at the same place, containing\nonly a word, was quite as beautiful and more\nChristian--\"_Redempta_,\" redeemed. This was also expressive\nof liberty, but it was a freedom which had been acquired as the\nprice of a ransom which was the blood of God: _Redempta!_\n\nThis last expression alludes to the grace given by baptism, which\nliberates the soul held in bondage by the demon. The children's\nepitaphs have it often, and prove that the church had conferred\nthe sacraments upon them at the most tender age. You can find for\ninstance, in the museum of the Lateran: \"Paulina, neophyte of\neight years; Candida, neophyte, twenty-one months old; Zozima,\nneophyte, five years, eight months, and thirteen days; Matronata\nMatrona, neophyte, one year, fifty-two days.\"\n\nUpon a grave in the catacomb of Saint Calista, a Grecian\ninscription was found by the Canon Profili, consisting of the\nfollowing words:\n\n\"Dionysius, newly illuminated, one year and four months.\" This\ntitle of enlightened was given only to those who came into\npossession of it by baptism. Saint Chrysostom mentions the\nenlightened in no other way.\n\nThis one, collected in the cemetery of the new road Salaria, and\npreserved at the Lateran, is more explicit:\n\n\"Florentius dedicates this inscription to his well-beloved son,\nApronianus, who lived one year, nine months, five days. He was\nloved by his grand-mother, and seeing that he was nigh unto\ndeath, she asked the church to make him a Christian before he\nshould leave the world.\" [Footnote 84]\n\n    [Footnote 84: \"Florentius filio suo Aproniano fecit titulum\n    benemerenti qui vixit annum et menses novem, dies quinque.\n    Cum amatus fuisset \u00e0 majore su\u00e2 et vidit hunc morti\n    constitutum esse, petivit de ecclesi\u00e2 ut fidelis de seculo\n    recessisset.\"]\n\nBaptism, which was conferred upon the newly-born, was a great\nconsolation to those who witnessed their departure from this\nworld. \"O Magus, innocent child!\" said an inscription at the\nmuseum of the Lateran, \"thou hast gone to live among the\nguiltless. How much more endurable is life! With what joy the\nchurch, thy other mother, received thee, when thou didst leave\nthe world for her. We will suppress the murmurings of our hearts\nand restrain the tears from our eyes.\" [Footnote 85]\n\n    [Footnote 85: \"Magus puer innocens, esse jam inter innocentes\n    coepisti. Qu\u00e0m staviles (stabilis) tivi (tibi) haec vita est!\n    Qu\u00e0m te laetum excipet (excepit) mater ecclesia edeoc (de\n    hoc) mundo revertentem. Comprimatur pectorum gemitus,\n    struatur (destruatur) fletus oculorum.\"]\n\n{404}\n\nExpressions of the most ingenious tenderness are shown in the\nlast farewell to creatures of whom only smiles are known.\n\n\"Cyricus, dear soul, peace be with thee! He lived a year and\nsixty-two days!\" [Footnote 86]\n\n    [Footnote 86: Cyricus, anima dulcis in pace, vixit annum i.\n    dies lxii.]\n\n\"Here reposes our dear soul, named Quiriace, an innocent child,\nbeautiful and good, who lived three years, three months, eight\ndays.\" [Footnote 87]\n\n    [Footnote 87: Hic posita est anima dulcis, innoca sapiens et\n    pulcra, nomine Quiriace, quae vixit annos iii. menses iii.\n    dies viii.]\n\nThe word _soul_, in the Latin language, is a term of great\ntenderness. It signifies life as it is visible. But in the\nChristian language it has a more spiritual signification. As the\npoet says:\n\n  \"Thou callest me thy life; call me thy soul!\n   I wish a name more lasting than a day.\n   Life is of little value, a breath extinguishes the flame;\n   But the soul is immortal as our love.\"\n\nMaternal affection creates, in Christianity, a name for children\nwhich becomes as the family name for those beings who pass from\nearth, having only glanced at its sorrows. The mother remembers\nthat the Lord said, the angels of these little ones behold the\nface of the Father who is in heaven. This was enough to make so\nmany angels of those innocent babes by an intentional confusion.\nThis is hereafter to be their title: and where is now the\nafflicted mother who, at the death-bed of her son, has not seen,\nlike the poet, the radiant face of the angel bending over and\ncalling the child who resembles him? Primitive epigraphy goes to\nshow the cause of this synonymy upon the graves of children.\n\n\"_Angelica, bene in pace_.\" \"Angelica, child, be happy in\npeace,\" was one inscription of the Catacombs.\n\nUpon another was written:\n\n\"Laurentius to his beloved son Severus, who lived four years,\neight months, and five days, and was called by the angels on the\n7th of January.\" [Footnote 88]\n\n    [Footnote 88: \"Severo filio dulcissimo Laurentius pater\n    benemerenti qui vixit annos iv. menses viii. dies v.\n    accersitus ab angelis, vii. idus Januarii.\"]\n\nOne is pleased to recognize in these funereal places, the\nremembrances of school days, being the only ones that the\ndeparted youths have left in life. In several catacombs, near the\nCubicula, where the faithful ones assembled for prayer, large\nhalls can be seen, which have neither altar nor pictures, and no\nother embellishment than banks made in the turf, mostly\nterminated by one or two elevated seats. It is presumed that the\nantiquarians assembled children in school, and instructed them in\nthe catechism. Near one of these halls can be read the following\nepitaph in the catacomb of Saint Priscilla:\n\n\"Obrimos to Palladios, his beloved cousin and schoolmate, as a\nremembrance.\"\n\nIn the catacomb of the new Via Salaria the school-teacher united\nwith the mother to write an epitaph upon his pupil, whom he had\nadopted in his heart.\n\n\"With a holy and pure spirit, this grave has been made to\nFlorentius, a child of thirteen years, by Coritus, his teacher,\nwho loved him more than a son, and by Corda, his mother.\"\n[Footnote 89]\n\n    [Footnote 89: \"In spiritu sancto bono, Florentio qui vixit\n    annis xiii. Coritus magister qui plus amavit quam proprium\n    filium, et Cordeus mater filio benemerenti fecerunt.']\n\n{405}\n\nThe glass paintings found at the same place are a finished\nrepresentation of the education of young Christians in those\ndays. On a chalice made of glass there is a child, whom the\nfather and mother are teaching to read the Scriptures. Another\none represents two little children, Pompeianus and Theodora, with\ntheir parents, under the trees. They are holding a copy of the\nGospel, and Pompeianus points to the monogram of Christ which is\nerected in the midst of this Christian family. Their father is\ndiscoursing and explaining to them the precepts of their faith.\n\nBut once torn from the bosom of their family, who received\nchildren into the world of souls, which they entered astonished?\nThe epitaphs recommend them to the saints in heaven to attend\nthem on their entrance into paradise. The mother of Aurelius\nGemellus, who died at the age of eight years, added to the\ninscription engraved upon his tombstone the following: \"O Saint\nBasilla! we recommend to you the innocence of Gemellus!\"\n[Footnote 90] In former times this was to be found in the\ncemetery of Saint Basilla, now of Saint Hermes.\n\n    [Footnote 90: \"Commendo Basilla, innocentiam Gemelli.\"]\n\nA similar prayer was addressed to this saint in the same\ncatacomb, but for another child: \"O Saint Basilla! we commend to\nthy care Crescentinus, and our daughter Crescentia, who lived ten\nmonths.\" [Footnote 91]\n\n    [Footnote 91: Domina Basilla, commendamus tibi Crescentinum\n    et filiam nostram ... quae vixit menses x.\" ...]\n\nMore frequently it was to God they directed the loved soul, \"Lord\nJesus, remember our child,\" said a Grecian inscription reported\nby Northcote.\n\nIs there not a remembrance of the stammering of a child in\nprayer, in the first pronunciation, and in the orthography of the\nlast word of the epitaph on a little girl?\n\n\"Regina, bibas (vivas) in Domino Zezu!\" \"Regina, live in the Lord\nJesus!\"\n\nIf life is only a pilgrimage for us, is not this particularly\ntrue of those who have only passed a few days in this world? This\nidea has been rendered in the epitaph of a young Christian; and\nfew have made so great an impression upon me as the following,\nsimple and short as it is:\n\n\"_Peregrina, vixit annos viii., menses viii., dies x. Decessit\nde corpore_.\" \"Peregrina lived eight years, eight months, ten\ndays, then departed from the body.\"\n\nDid this name of Peregrina, pilgrim, passenger, allude to her\nrapid voyage upon the earth, which she hastened to leave? I\nincline to this beautiful idea, which a similar inscription\nauthorizes, not far from there, carved upon the tomb of a\nChristian: \"Viator!\"\n\nUpon the grave-stones of children of the first centuries, it is\nnot uncommon to see a white dove, carved upon an antique cup,\ndrinking from the border. Those who repose beneath that stone had\ndrunk of the cup of life, and taking a taste, not wishing more,\nhad spread their wings and returned to heaven.\n\nIn that better land they become intercessors for their kindred on\nthe earth. What family has not theirs? And who has not prayed to\nthose young elect, yesterday our brothers and sons, to-day our\ndefenders in that place from which they behold us and will prove\ntheir love for us? The following can be read in the Lateran\nMuseum:\n\n\"Matronata matrona, intercede for thy parents! She lived one\nyear, fifty-two days.\" [Footnote 92]\n\n    [Footnote 92: \"Pete pro parentes tuos, Matronata Matrona,\n    quae vixit an. i. di lii.\"]\n\n{406}\n\nAnd upon another stone:\n\n\"Anatolius has made this grave for his dear son, who lived seven\nyears, seven months, twenty-two days. May the soul repose in\nhappiness with God. Pray for thy sister!\" [Footnote 93]\n\n    [Footnote 93: \"Anatolius filio benemerenti fecit, qui vixit\n    annis vii. mensis vii. diebus xxii. Spiritus tuus bene\n    requiescat in Deo. Petas pro sorore tua.\"]\n\n\n       III.\n\nI must confess that we have preserved little of the architectural\nsimplicity in the inscriptions upon tombs. It is just to say that\nthey are of a poor style, laden with lengthy common epitaphs,\nemphatic declamations, and warm protestations, contradicted by\nthe neglected and solitary aspect of those almost forgotten\nplaces. I make an exception of the sepulchres of children. If you\nfind in a cemetery a grave which is preserved with love, invested\nwith crowns, and dressed with fresh flowers, you can recognize\nthe place of a child. In all countries of the world, a delicate\nworship is devoted to the mortal remains of innocence. The Indian\ngraves have become celebrated, since Chateaubriand described them\nso charmingly. Now that Christianity has been established in\nthose parts of the globe, mothers no longer suspend the cradles\nof their sons upon branches of trees, but their funerals have\nretained much of the simple grace of the time of Chactas.\n\nA missionary has written: \"I had to attend the burial of a little\nchild five or six months old. They brought it to the church,\nlaying it upon a mat, with garlands of flowers for a\nwinding-sheet. We should have thought that it was sleeping\nsweetly, and notwithstanding its color, I admired its angelic\nbeauty. After the prayers, which the church addresses to the good\nGod, they dropped it gently into the grave, as if it had been its\ncradle, without covering even the face. Flowers were given in the\nplace of earth, to throw upon the body. All the assistants did\nlikewise, and some commenced to weep. It was sad to see the earth\nclose over this little body so sweetly adorned, and cover that\nyoung face which appeared to smile upon us. It was to become food\nfor worms; but the beautiful soul was already in heaven with the\nangels. I then united with the heavenly spirits to sing praises\nto God at the happiness of his little creature. I hope that this\nchild will not forget the young missionary who celebrated its\ndeliverance from this world of misery.\" [Footnote 94]\n\n    [Footnote 94: Vie de M. l'Abb\u00e9 Chopart, p. 188.]\n\nThis scene recalls to me a similar one which I witnessed in the\nvillage of Beauvoisis. I met in the street the funeral procession\nof a little girl who was being carried to the cemetery. In\nadvance of the coffin, a child of ten years, concealed under a\nfloating drapery, was carrying a basket of white flowers. Thus\nshe walked, gathering and smiling, happy with her part, until\ntheir arrival at the sepulchre; then throwing her basket into the\ngrave, she disappeared among the trees, delighted at having\nprepared this flowery bed for her playmate, who was to sleep\nthere the long night of death.\n\nMenander said in a celebrated verse, \"He whom the gods love dies\nyoung.\" And Sophocles said before him, \"It is good not to be\nborn; but if once born, the second degree of happiness is to die\nyoung.\" The ancients considered it fortune to be delivered from\nmortal misery. What would they have said if those who left them\nhad appeared upon the bosom of God in a beatitude and glory\nwithout end? _Bene in pace!_\n\n------------\n\n{407}\n\n    Harem Life in Egypt and Constantinople. [Footnote 95]\n\n    [Footnote 95: _Harem Life in Egypt and Constantinople_.\n    By Emeline Lott. 4th edition. 12mo, pp. 312. Richard Bentley.\n    New Burlington Street, London. 1867.]\n\n\nThis volume has run through several editions in England within\nthe last three years. It is destined from its popularity to run\nthrough as many more; but as yet, it has found no publisher on\nthis side of the Atlantic, although its merits are\nwell-established in British literature. Observing a new edition\nannounced by Bentley, it reminds us that the neat, unpretending\nlittle work has not received any recognition from our republic,\nnor has any attention been called to it. In truth, the American\npublic, deeply interested in travellers and travelling in the\neast, or in whatever comes from the press illustrating scriptural\nscenes and events, have strangely overlooked this production,\nwhich furnishes a better insight into oriental domestic life than\nany account published for many years.\n\nEgypt is now what it was in the days of the crucifixion and of\nJulius Caesar; it is unchanged, it is unchangeable, in its social\nstructure, as the pyramids in their architecture, or the sands of\nthe desert in their external aspect. To understand the condition\nof the people now, is to understand their condition when the\nIsraelites under the direction of Moses went out from among them.\nTo enter the family circle in the valley of the Nile for the\npurpose of learning their present mode of life, is at once an\nintroduction to all their progenitors who ever dwelt in the same\nregion in the reign of the ancient Pharaohs. In order to see what\na Roman city was in the first century, it is requisite to put\naside the ashes from a submerged Pompeii, or to remove the\nsuperincumbent earth from a buried Herculaneum. But in Egypt, to\ncomprehend what was the moral, social, intellectual, religious\nappearance of the country when Cleopatra sailed upon the river,\nall that need be done is to push aside the mat which serves for a\ndoor to the first mud hovel met with, or pass within the first\nportal where heavy hinges grate upon the ear an uncordial\nreception.\n\nThe same Egypt can be seen which Alexander of Macedon, Sesostris,\nand the shepherd-kings beheld. Egyptian institutions were never\nburied; or, if buried, their sepulchre is above ground. A living\ndeath is visible on all sides; it is a palsy that struck the land\nlong before the dawn of history, and may remain as it now is,\nwhen the history of the present century has passed into oblivion.\nAlthough the Egyptian mind and morals will not die in their body,\nstill no motion is in its limbs, no quickening vitality in its\njoints, no trembling in its nerves; the blood is stagnant; a\nblack pool as destitute of national animation as the waters of\nthe Dead Sea. Progress is a term never heard of near the\nhabitation of the Sphinx; and the period of ruins has gone by.\nEverything seems running rapidly to demolition; but nothing is\ndemolished; decay has in that mysterious soil a perennial\nexistence, a species of recuperation, that renews itself like the\ninteguments of neighboring snakes, lizards, and toads, which bury\nthemselves in the same rich slime.\n\n{408}\n\nA book, therefore, on modern harem life in Egypt, is in one sense\na hand-book for historians in their explorations after the\nvanities and household troubles of good King Solomon, when his\ndomestic peace and quiet, his comfort and felicity, were invaded\nby many more spinsters than the Levitical law allowed to any one\nwise man. This dame Emeline is the very woman to aid them in\ntheir archaeological researches. Her volume furnishes important\nhints and information; and if on the title-page nine centuries\nbefore the Christian era were substituted for the date of\npublication, instead of nineteen centuries after it, the change\nwould be so unimportant in a chronological point of view, that no\nannalist would be aware of the anachronism. It would look like a\nsecond edition of Herodotus, revised and improved, for the\nbenefit of the ladies, and far surpassing in truth the first\nimpression of that ancient Halicarnassian, full of his old\ngallinaceous and bovine stories.\n\nMrs. Lott, an English school-teacher, was engaged in London to\nproceed to Egypt in 1862-3, to take charge of the education of\nhis highness the Grand Pasha Ibraim, five or six years old, the\nson of Ismail Pasha, the viceroy, and the grandson of the\nrenowned and illustrious Ibraim. The lady in due time arrived at\nthe port of Alexandria, consigned to the delicate consideration\nand tender mercies of the viceroy's agent, like any other bale of\nvaluable and perishable drygoods. Her first glimpse of the land\nin the culinary and creature-comfortable line of development was\nnot favorable. She next proceeded to the city of Cairo by rail,\nand was invited to the house of the vice-regal commercial\npartner, a German in lineage and language, but with principles\nand refinement somewhat neglected from want of proper planting\nand propagation in his youthful European culture. At the\nresidence of this gentleman she was perpetually served with the\nsame dishes at breakfast, noon, and dinner--boiled and roast\nmutton, stringy and dry, vermicelli soup, tomatoes stuffed with\nrice, chicory, spinach, and \"the whole of the dishes were\nswimming in fat;\" oranges and coffee followed after. Considering\nthat the thermometer was raging above 100\u00b0, Fahrenheit, this\noriental feed was rather oleaginous, and the lady longed for the\nwings of a dove to devour her provender elsewhere. So far she had\nlearned one important lesson, and thus paints it. She says:\n\n  \"I can endorse the veracity of the statement made by a\n  contributor to _Once a Week_, who most naively and\n  truthfully asserts that 'the land of Egypt is ruled over by\n  twenty princes: one of whom is the viceroy, eighteen of the\n  others are known as consuls-general of European nations; but\n  the twentieth is the most powerful of all, and his name is\n  Baksheesh, (gift, present, bribery.')\"\n\nTo the high and mighty Prince Baksheesh, in duty bound we render\nall due homage; we bow our lowest salaam, and are pleased to make\nhis acquaintance. He is not wholly unknown to fame in this\nhemisphere; for a popular superstition prevails in the rural\ndistricts that his majesty has many loyal subjects and followers\nin our own dearly beloved and dearly governed model republic.\nPrince Baksheesh is a power in our institutions, and a party to\nmuch of our legislation. The misfortune of the unprotected female\nwas, that she did not propitiate the potentate; the superabundant\nfat would have been speedily withdrawn from the bill of fare.\n\n{409}\n\nAt last the day arrived for her to remove to the harem of the\nviceroy on the other side of the river; and she was destined to\nleave the hands of the agent in the same sort of consignment in\nwhich she had come into them, that is, amid bales, barrels, and\nboxes of merchandise. The dame, therefore, had no opportunity to\ntake a look into the royal market-basket, to ascertain how Ismail\nPasha provided for his little private family of three hundred\nfemales of different colors, ages, sizes,--and sexes of the\nfeminine and neuter gender. Although the English governess has an\neye for the ornamental and beautiful, it is nevertheless only one\neye; the other throws its dark splendor upon the useful and\nsubstantial. Sometimes she endeavored to close both against\nsights which were neither the one nor the other. The truth of\nhistory, however, compels her to supply her readers with\nspecimens of all these. She observes:\n\n  \"The vice-regal standard, the everlasting crescent, floated at\n  the stem and stern. On they rowed most vigorously, and in less\n  than ten minutes I was landed at the stairs of the harem. The\n  building is a very plain structure, the interior of which is\n  painted like the trunks of the trees of the Dutch model village\n  of Broeck. In appearance it resembles the letter E, and is a\n  large pile, composed of five blocks of buildings. Proceeding to\n  the one which faced the Nile, I entered the _harem_,\n  ('sacred,') passed through a small door--the grating sound of\n  whose huge hinges still seems to creak in my ears like the\n  grinding of the barrel-organ of an itinerant Italian or\n  Savoyard--which led into a court-yard, at that time lined, not\n  with a corps of the Egyptian infantry, with their shrill brass\n  bands playing opera airs, but with a group of hard-working\n  Fellahs and Arabs, toiling away like laborers in the London\n  docks, and rolling into the immense space hundreds of bales of\n  soft Geneva velvets, the costliest Lyons silks, rich French\n  satins, most elegant designed muslins, fast gaudy-colored\n  Manchester prints, stout Irish poplins, the finest Irish\n  linens, Brussels, Mechlin, Valenciennes, Honiton, and imitation\n  laces, Nottingham hose, French silk stockings, French and\n  Coventry ribbons, cases of the purest Schiedam, pipes of\n  spirits of wine, huge cases of fashionable Parisian boots,\n  shoes, and slippers, immense chests of _bon bons_ in\n  magnificent fancy-worked cases, boxes and baskets, bales of\n  _tombeki_, and the bright, golden-leaved tobacco of\n  Istambol, (Constantinople;) Cashmere, Indian, French, and\n  Paisley shawls of the most exquisite designs; baskets of\n  pipe-bowls, cases of amber mouth-pieces, cigarette papers, and\n  a whole host of miscellaneous packages too various to\n  enumerate, of other commodities destined for the use of the\n  inmates of that vast conservatory of beauty, all supplied by\n  his highness's partners. For, be it known to you, gentle\n  reader, that the Viceroy of Egypt may most appropriately be\n  styled _par excellence_ the Sinbad of the age, the\n  merchant-prince of the terrestrial globe.\n\n  \"Here I was received by two eunuchs, one of whom was attired in\n  a light drab uniform. ... I was then ushered through another\n  door, the portals of which were guarded by a group of eunuchs,\n  similarly attired, but whose uniforms were most costly\n  embroidered. Their features were hideous and ferocious, their\n  figures corpulent, and carriage haughty,\n\n  \"They also salaamed me in the most oriental style. Thence,\n  passing along a marble passage, I entered a large stone hall,\n  which was supported by huge granite pillars which led me to the\n  grand staircase, where I was received by the chief eunuch, who\n  is called _kislar agaci_, 'the captain of the girls.'\n\n  \"This giant spectre of a man ... advanced toward me, made his\n  salaam, and ushered me, the _hated_, despised Giaour, into\n  the noble marble hall of the harem, which was then for the\n  first time polluted by the footsteps of the unbeliever. The\n  scene around me was so singular and strange that I paused to\n  contemplate it. The hall was of vast dimensions, supported by\n  beautiful porphyry pillars, and the marble floor was covered\n  with fine matting. I was now handed over to the lady\n  superintendent of the slaves, a very wealthy woman, about\n  twenty-four years of age, with fine dark-blue eyes, aquiline\n  nose, large mouth, and of middle stature.\n\n  \"She was attired in a colored muslin dress and trousers, over\n  which she wore a quilted lavender-colored satin paletot. Her\n  head was covered with a small blue gauze handkerchief tied\n  round it, and in the centre of the forehead, tucked up under\n  it, a lovely natural dark-red rose. She wore a beautiful large\n  spray of diamonds arranged in the form of the flower\n  'forget-me-not,' which hung down like three tendrils below her\n  ear on the left side. Large diamond drops were suspended from\n  her ears, and her fingers were covered with numerous rings, the\n  most brilliant of which were a large rose-pink diamond and a\n  beautiful sapphire.\n{410}\n  Her feet were encased in white cotton stockings, and\n  patent-leather Parisian shoes. Her name was Anina: she had been\n  formerly an Ikbal 'favorite.' ... The lady superintendent now\n  took me by the hand, led me up two flights of stairs covered\n  with thick, rich Brussels carpet of a most costly description,\n  and as soft and brilliant in colors as the dewy moss of\n  Virginia Water. The walls were plain. Then we passed through a\n  suite of several rooms, elegantly carpeted, in all of which\n  stood long divans; some of which were covered, with white, and\n  others with yellow and crimson satin. Over the doorways hung\n  white satin damask curtains, looped up with silk cords and\n  tassels to correspond, with richly gilded cornices over each.\n  ... Against the walls were fixed numerous silver chandeliers,\n  each containing six wax candles, with frosted colored glass\n  shades made in the form of tulips over them. On each side of\n  the room large mirrors were fixed in the wall, each of which\n  rested on a marble-topped console table supported by gilded\n  legs. The only other articles of furniture that were scattered\n  about the apartments were a dozen common English cane-bottom\n  _Kursi_-chairs.\"\n\nShe is next conducted further on to some dormitories, where\nbedsteads are wanting, being an article of furniture unused by\nthe Gypsies. Against the walls were piled up beds in heaps,\ncovered over with a red silk coverlet. On the divan was placed a\nsilver tray--both toilet-tables and wash-hand-stands being\nunheard-of comforts--containing the princesses' toilet\nrequisites. In her general inspection the governess is led to the\napartments of the Princess Epouse, the mother of the little boy\nfor whom Mrs. Lott is engaged. This princess is dressed--but let\ndame Emeline describe the scene, as only a lady can do it:\n\n  \"The Princess Epouse, attired in a dirty, crumpled,\n  light-colored muslin dress and trousers, sat _\u00e0 la\n  Turque_, doubled up like a clasp-knife, without shoes or\n  stockings, smoking a cigarette. ... Her feet were encased in\n  _babouches_, 'slippers without heels.' ... In front of the\n  divan, behind and on each side of me, stood a bevy of the\n  ladies of the harem, assuredly not the types of Tom Moore's\n  'Peris of the East,' as described in such glowing colors in his\n  far-famed _Lalla Rookh_, for I failed to discover the\n  slightest trace of loveliness in any of them. On the contrary,\n  most of their countenances were pale as ashes, exceedingly\n  disagreeable, flat and globular in figure; in short, so rotund,\n  that they gave me the idea of large full moons; nearly all were\n  _pass\u00e9_. Their photographs were as hideous and hag-like as\n  the witches in the opening scene in Macbeth, which is not to be\n  wondered at, as some of them had been the favorites of Ibrahim\n  Pasha. ... Some wore white linen dresses and trousers. Their\n  hair and finger-nails were dyed with _henna_. ... They had\n  handsome gold watches ... suspended from their necks by thick,\n  massive gold chains. Their fingers were covered with a\n  profusion of diamond, emerald, and ruby rings; in their ears\n  were ear-rings of various precious stones, all set in the old\n  antique style of silver. ... Behind stood half-a-dozen of white\n  slaves, chiefly Circassians.\"\n\nThe mother leaves a favorable impression on the mind of the\ngoverness, who, being finally dismissed from the interview,\npursues her explorations and makes a great discovery neither\ncomplimentary to the princess nor cleanly, where water is\nabundant, but where ablutions seem to be abnormal; for it is\nwritten in her journal that\n\n  \"Thence we passed along a stone passage which leads to her\n  highness's bath-room. ... The marble bath is both long and\n  wide, with taps for hot and cold water. The water actually\n  boils into which their highnesses enter. This only occurs when\n  they have visited the viceroy, and not daily, or even at any\n  other time. The bath of the poets is a myth.\"\n\nThe governess at last reaches her own chamber, where she is\ndestined to sleep and seclude herself in her leisure hours. The\nprospect at first is not inviting, nor does a second view afford\nmore encouragement; an evident sense of disappointment, if not of\ndismay, is experienced; and thus she pours forth her vexation:\n\n{411}\n\n  \"On the right-hand side of the first room was the small\n  bed-room which was assigned to me as my apartment. It was\n  carpeted, having a divan covered with green and red striped\n  worsted damask, which stood underneath the window, which\n  commanded a fine _coup-d'ceil_ of the gardens attached to\n  the palace of the viceroy's pavilion. The hangings of the\n  double doors and windows were of the same material. The\n  furniture consisted of a plain green painted iron bedstead, the\n  bars of which had never been fastened, and pieces of wood, like\n  the handles of brooms, and an iron bar, were placed across to\n  support the two thin cotton mattresses laid upon it. There were\n  neither pillows, bolsters, nor bed linen, but as substitutes\n  were placed three thin flat cushions; not a blanket, but two\n  old worn-out wadded coverlets lay upon the bed. Not the sign of\n  a dressing-table or a chair of any description, and a total\n  absence of all the appendages necessary for a lady's bed-room;\n  not even--\"\n\nWell, well, Mrs. Lott, the \"not even\" was, in your civilized\nopinion, certainly very odd to be sure. But don't mind trifles;\nlet it be forgotten; let us ramble elsewhere. You were saying\njust now something about four broad steps; go on; that's right.\n\n  \"Four broad steps led down into the garden, close to a plain\n  white marble-columned gate, on the top of which stood out in\n  bold relief the statues of two huge life-sized lions. ... Here\n  and there were scattered rose-trees, the brilliancy of whose\n  variegated colors and the perfumes of their flowers were\n  delightfully refreshing; geraniums of almost every hue;\n  jessamines, whose large white and yellow blossoms were thrice\n  the size of those of England, and a variety of indigenous and\n  eastern plants, shrubs, and flowers, which were so thickly\n  studded about that they rendered the view extremely\n  picturesque, and perfumed the air, grateful to the senses.\n  Verbena trees, as large as ordinary fruit-trees; other plants\n  bearing large yellow flowers, as big as tea-cups, with most\n  curious leaves; cactuses, and a complete galaxy of botanical\n  curiosities, whose names the genius of a Paxton would be\n  perhaps puzzled to disclose, ornamented those Elysian grounds.\"\n\nThis is only one sketch of only one spot in the many gorgeous and\nluxurious localities. Space forbids copying more; but the book\nstates:\n\n  \"Leaving these neglected scenes of amusement, we proceed along\n  a path to the right, through a superb marble-paved hall, the\n  ceiling of which is in fresco and gold. It is supported by\n  twenty-eight plain pink-colored marble columns, surmounted by\n  richly-gilded Indian wheat, the leaves of which hang down most\n  gracefully, on each side of which, and also above ... are some\n  very handsome lofty rooms, the ceilings of which are also in\n  fresco, with superb gilded panels. ...\n\n  \"The grounds of Frogmore, the Crystal Palace, St. Cloud,\n  Versailles, the Duke of Devonshire's far-famed Chatsworth, and\n  our national pride, Kensington Gardens and Windsor Home Park,\n  exquisite, beautiful, and rural as they are ... all lack the\n  brilliant display of exotics which thrive here in such\n  luxuriance. The groves of orange-trees, the myrtle hedges, the\n  beautiful sheets of water, the spotless marble kiosks, the\n  artistic statuary, are all so masterly blended together with\n  such exquisite taste, that these gardens ... completely outvie\n  them.\"\n\nThe princesses were sometimes as highly adorned as the halls of\nmarbles and frescoes, and as ornamental as the gardens of\nblooming exotics. On the festival of the Great Bairam, or on\nstate occasions, when lady visitors made formal calls to compare\ncomplexions and cashmeres, their highnesses are spoken of with\nthe highest delight:\n\n  \"They wore the most costly silks, richest satins, and softest\n  velvets; adorned themselves with the treasures of their jewel\n  caskets, so that their persons were one blaze of precious\n  stones. That crescent of females (for they always ranged\n  themselves in the form of the Turkish symbol) was then a\n  parterre of diamonds, amethysts, topazes, turquoises,\n  chrysoberyls, sapphires, jaspers, opals, agates, emeralds,\n  corals, rich carbuncles, and rubies. In short, the profusion of\n  diamonds with which the latter adorned their persons from day\n  to day became so sickening to me that my eyes were weary at the\n  sight of those magnificent baubles, to which all women are so\n  passionately attached.\"\n\n{412}\n\nBut weary as were her British eyes, still she gazed in rapture\nwhen the darling gems were on exhibition; moreover, in the\njournal the impressions were faithfully recorded. On another\noccasion, when some princesses were coming,\n\n  \"The Princess Epouse, the mother of my prince, was attired in a\n  rich, blue-figured silk robe, trimmed with white lace and\n  silver thread, with a long train; full trousers of the same\n  material, high-heeled embroidered satin shoes to match the\n  dress. On her head she had a small white crape handkerchief,\n  elegantly embroidered with blue silk and silver, and round it\n  placed a tiara of May blossoms in diamonds. She wore a necklace\n  to correspond, having large sapphire drops hanging down the\n  neck. Her arms were ornamented with three bracelets, composed\n  of diamonds and sapphires, and an amulet entirely of sapphires\n  of almost priceless value. ... At times my eyes, when looking\n  at the Peris arrayed in all their gems, have become as dim as\n  if I had been fixing them on the noonday sun.\"\n\nWhat young lady of an enterprising turn of mind would not be\nwilling, after reading these glowing descriptions, to pack up her\nSaratoga trunks, to engage the Adams Express Company, and to\ncharter the Cunard line of steamers, to aid her on to a glorious\nfuture near the base of the pyramids? Certainly not one of the\nambitious and strong-minded. But they need not ask the English\ngoverness to go with them. She has been there; she will\nrespectfully decline going again--not she, as Shakespeare's other\nold lady in Henry the VIII. exclaims, \"not for all the mud in\nEgypt.\" For another part of the story remains to be told; another\nside of the picture to be presented; and dame Emeline tells it\ntruthfully, she paints it lifelike; the rose is beautiful, but\nbeware the serpent under it.\n\nMrs. Lott is apparently a gentlewoman, refined, accomplished,\nintellectual, with an appreciation of the difference between\ncivilized society and barbarism. But in the vice-regal harem,\neducation was not to be found; ignorance was universal,\nsuperstition reigned supreme. None could read, or write, or\nsketch, or converse on a rational subject. No one could sing or\nperform on a musical instrument; none cared for to-morrow or for\na hereafter. Their daily routine had all the monotony of the\ndesert with its burning sands, destitute of variety in incident\nor shade of change; it was equally unproductive and utterly\nworthless. They had nothing to expect with pleasing anticipation;\nthey had nothing to remember with delight. Physically, morally,\nmentally they were unclean and debased. Their passions, when\naroused, were ungovernable; their greatest joy was revenge upon a\nrival; and their revenge was deadly, by suffocation or\nsubmersion, poison or the bow-string. Their amusements were all\nsensual; their weary hours of listless idleness were passed in\nindulgence of some enervating vice alike deleterious to health,\ncomfort, and color.\n\nThe servants were steeped in only a lower depth of dirt and\ndepravity. The princesses had the power of life and death over\nthem, and it was a power often exercised; they would put them to\nthe torture for a trivial fault, the breaking of a plate or the\nfalling of a cup; and cheeks and arms seamed with parallel rows\nof the red-hot iron, attested how often and how unmercifully\ncruel had been their punishment. The food of the menials was not\nprepared for them, nor given to them; but they purloined by\nstealth from the dishes on their way to the princesses'\napartments; and after their repast was ended, the refuse of\nchicken and pigeon bones, of mutton, of soup, of rice, of\nvegetables, and the rinds of fruit were tossed into a basket in\none loathing mess, mixed up, around which the servants flocked\nlike carrion birds, and, squatting on the floor, inserted\nravenously their reeking hands to pick out disgusting morsels\nwith their dripping, unwashed fingers.\n\n{413}\n\nThe laundry did not require much water; for the volume informs\nus,\n\n  \"Those who performed the duties of washerwomen were occupied\n  daily in their avocation, except on the Sabbath, (Fridays.) But\n  that was not very laborious work, since neither bed, table, nor\n  chamber linen are used. Thus they were engaged until twelve,\n  when their highnesses partook of their breakfast separately. It\n  was served up on a large green-lackered tray, _minus_\n  table-cloth, knives and forks, but with a large ivory\n  tablespoon, having a handsome coral handle, the evident emblem\n  of their rank as princesses. It was placed upon the\n  _soofra_, a low kind of stool, covered with a handsome\n  silk cloth. The repast occupied about twenty minutes. Then\n  pipes, in which are placed small pills of opium, or more often\n  cigarettes and coffee, were handed to them, and each princess\n  retired to her own apartment. Thus they became confirmed\n  opium-smokers, which produced a kind of intoxication.\" ...\n\nTheir common indulgence in opium, with a profuse supply of\nEuropean wines and Schiedam gin, produced its natural results,\nand is thus depicted:\n\n  \"Oftentimes after the princesses had been indulging too freely\n  in that habit to which they had became slaves, their\n  countenances would assume most hideous aspects; their eyes\n  glared, their eyebrows were knit closely together; no one dared\n  to approach them. In fact, they had all the appearance of mad\n  creatures, while at other times they were gay and cheerful.\n\n  \"They only combed their hair (which was full of vermin) once a\n  week, on Thursdays, the eve of their Sabbath, (Friday,\n  _Djouma_;) when it was well combed with a large\n  small-tooth comb; and pardon me, but 'murder will out,' the\n  members of the vermin family which were removed from it were\n  legion. It was afterward well brushed with a hard hair-brush,\n  well damped with strong perfumed water. Their highnesses never\n  wore stockings in the morning, nor did they change any of their\n  attire till afternoon.\"\n\nWhen the summer heats set in, the harem was transferred to the\ncoast at Alexandria, to inhale the fresh breezes from the sea.\nThe preparation for flight was attended with some rich scenes and\nludicrous exhibitions. But their transit on the railroad, boxed\nup like pigs or poultry on a cattle-train, is indescribable in a\ndecent print. The prelude to the trip will bear repeating; it is\nan amusing contrast with the festal robes on the day of the Great\nBairam; the cutaneous sensation it excites is the penalty to pay\nfor the knowledge imparted; the company is right regal.\n\n  \"As soon as orders had been given to the grand eunuch to hasten\n  the departure of the vice-regal family to Alexandria, ... there\n  was bustle all day long. One morning when I returned from the\n  gardens, ... I entered the grand pasha's reception-room; ...\n  there were their highnesses, the princesses, squatted on the\n  carpet amidst a whole pile of trunks. They were all attired in\n  filthy, dirty, crumpled muslins, shoeless and stockingless;\n  their trousers were tucked up above their knees, the sleeves of\n  their paletots pinned up above their elbows, their hair hanging\n  loose above their shoulders, as rough as a badger's back,\n  totally uncombed, without nets or handkerchiefs, but, pardon\n  me, literally swarming with vermin! No Russian peasants could\n  possibly have been more infested with live animals. In short,\n  their _tout ensemble_ was even more untidy than that of\n  washerwomen at their tubs; nay, almost akin to Billingsgate\n  fisherwomen _at home_; for their conversation in their own\n  vernacular was equally as low. They all swore in Arabic at the\n  slaves most lustily, banged them about right and left with any\n  missile, whether light or heavy, which came within their\n  reach.\"\n\nAt last the governess lost her health. The food was too\nunsuitable for a Christian woman, and the atmosphere, redolent of\nthe overpowering rich perfumes of the gardens mingled with\nsickening, stupefying opium smell and smoke, along with other\nodors, almost intolerable. After visiting Constantinople with the\nharem, she threw up her engagement and returned to England.\n\nThis abasement of woman is not to be wondered at; for wherever\nthe Christian idea of marriage is lost or subverted, woman\nbecomes the mere object of passion, and degradation is sure to\nfollow.\n\n-----------\n\n{414}\n\n     Translated From Etudes Religieuses, Etc.,\n     Par Des Peres De La Compagnie De Jesus.\n\n     The Flight Of Spiders.\n\n     A Paper Read Before The French Academy Of Science,\n     March, 1867.\n\n\nAbout fifteen years ago, I was sitting in an arbor of my garden,\nreading, when a little spider fell on my book, whence I could not\ntell, and commenced to run over the very line I was reading. I\nblew hard to chase him away, but he would not go. He lifted\nhimself strangely up, and I cannot explain how, but he lodged on\na sprig of verdure just above my head. \"Well,\" said I, \"for a\nlittle animal like that, this is a wonderful feat! How has he\naccomplished it?\" To satisfy myself, I took him up again,\nbalanced him on my book, and, after assuring myself that he had\nno invisible thread to aid him, I blew again, and again the\nlittle fellow did the very same thing. With redoubled curiosity,\nI tried him once more, and, to see better, I sat down in the\nbright sunlight. Again I balanced him on the book, looked at him\nas closely as possible, and, when I felt assured no precaution\ncould have escaped me, I blew once more. ... Resuming the same\ninclined position, the spider as quick as lightning darted the\nfinest possible thread out of him, raised himself in the air, and\ndisappeared.\n\nI confess I was stupefied. Never had I imagined these little\nanimals could fly without wings; so I consulted several works on\nzoology, but I was astonished to find there was no mention made\nof the flight of spiders, nor of the ejaculatory movement of\nwhich I had witnessed so curious an example. [Footnote 96]\n\n    [Footnote 96: In M. Eug\u00e8ne Simon's _Natural History of\n    Spiders_, the most recent work of the kind, he says,\n    speaking of the manner in which _l'\u00e9p\u00e9ire diad\u00e8me_\n    constructs its web: \"Several authors suppose that the spider\n    darts its thread like an arrow, others imagine it throws it\n    upward in the air while flying as a fly would; but neither of\n    these explanations rests on observation, and they are, after\n    all, simple hypotheses.\" Then, describing his own observation\n    as to how a spider acts to make fast its great threads, he\n    says, \"It seems to take a horizontal position, and moves\n    contrary to the wind.\" M. Simon's work gives us nothing else\n    to lead us to suppose he has observed the wonders spoken\n    of.--Tr.]\n\nSo there was a new question presented to me, and my vocation to\nstudy the habits of these little animals--which hitherto had\ngiven me no concern--decided for me. I immediately lost all\nrepugnance, all distaste, and threw away all the unjust\nprecautions of which the spider is too often the object, and of\nwhich I was as culpable as any one else. And from that time I\nwelcomed its appearance; was most happy to meet with it, looked\nfor it, indeed, and studied its habits almost with _furor_.\nAnd I can say that, thanks to this hearty preoccupation, which\nnever left me, I found every opportunity to follow my\ninclination, and knew where to find spiders in all sorts of\nunheard-of places.\n\nSuch are the singular effects of curiosity once excited, and\nstill another proof that, in order to study nature well, we need\nonly a mysterious glimpse of the unknown to redouble all our\nenergies to explain it thoroughly.\n\nAnd as in this study, trifling as it may appear, I seem to have\nmet with facts not known hitherto, but which deserve to be\nunderstood, I here resume the principal ones: those that treat of\nthe flying of spiders; of the habitation of some species in the\nair; and of the gossamer or air threads--a singular phenomenon,\nfor a long time discussed in vain, but which I believe I have\ndefinitively solved.\n{415}\nI only ask the naturalists to judge one fairly, not by theory,\nbut by facts. And I am persuaded, if they will take the pains to\nverify what I advance, they will find me exact; and, if they\nbegin doubtingly, I hope, after they have read my observations,\nthey will conclude as others to whom I have communicated them.\nMocking and incredulous at first, they have ended by believing\ntheir own eyes, and testifying to the evidence presented to them.\nMay my labor prove useful, and, above all, contribute to the\nglory of the great God, whose just title is, _Magnus in magnis,\nmaximus in minimis_.\n\n                I.\n\n    Threads Thrown Out By Spiders.\n\nThe first thing that I perceived, and that put me on the track of\nthe rest, was, as I have just said, that the greater part of\n_aran\u00e9ides_, especially certain varieties of _thomises\nlycoses_, etc., besides the thread that they always draw with\nthem, have the power of darting one or more of extraordinary\nlength, and of which they make use to accomplish distances, to\nfasten their webs from one point to another, and even, as we\nshall see further on, to raise themselves in the air and there to\nseek their prey. The spider always points his abdomen to the side\nwhere he wishes to go. The thread shoots like an arrow, fastens\nitself by the end to the place destined, and the spider passes as\nunder a suspended bridge. If this thread is cut, it is\nimmediately replaced by another; and the ejaculation is so\nprompt, so rapid, the thread so straight, so tenuous, so\nbrilliant, that it might be taken, if I may so express myself,\nfor the jet of an imperceptible ray of light. To perceive this\nclearly, the spider must be held on a level with the eyes, which\nshould be shaded, and examined with one's back to the sun.\n\nThe best time for such an observation is in the morning or\nevening, when the sun is low in the horizon and the temperature\nis mild; for without this latter condition the torpid spider is\nmore inclined to creep along the earth than to throw out new\nthreads.\n\nSometimes, to excite them, they may be held by their ordinary\nthread and gently shaken or blown upon--just a few puffs of\nbreath--which they detest.\n\nI have thus been able to scan closely, while watching their\ndevelopment, this instantaneous jet of thread, which could not be\nless than five or six yards long, that is, fifteen hundred or two\nthousand times the length of the spider. What a tremendous\napparatus must be necessary to these little animals for so rapid\nan ejaculation, and one so disproportioned to their size! And\nespecially if we consider that this thread, inasmuch as it\nadheres to the animal, has not the appearance of an independent\norgan, but seems solely to obey its will. Thus I have seen\nspiders, who seemed to miss the end desired with the first\nstroke, continue to hold the thread in the same direction, and\nactually _palpitate_, if I may so say, while striving to\nmake it adhere.\n\nBut a truly interesting sight, and one obtained at a very\ntrifling expense, is that which the _thomises bufo_ offer,\ndescribed by Walckenaer, in the first volume of his _History of\nInsects_, page 506. In truth, these araneides do not only\nthrow out one thread, but an entire bundle of them, and are\nseemingly guided by the smaller threads, just as a peacock\nunfolds by degrees his splendid plumage.\n\n{416}\n\nAnd even in one's own room this sight may be enjoyed. It is only\nnecessary to collect these _thomises_ and keep them in\nseparate boxes, and nourish them in winter with one fly or so a\nmonth. Then take the boxes out, put them on a table in a very\nwarm room, and sit a little in the shade and watch them. Very\nsoon from each box will appear a multitude of threads, of extreme\nfreshness and fineness, which the spider throws into the air with\ninexhaustible profusion. At certain seasons of the year we can\nenjoy this spectacle again, and at even less expense.\n\n\n    II.\n\n    Flight Of Spiders.\n\nAnother property not less remarkable that these araneides possess\n(_thomises bufo, lycoces voraces_, etc.) is that of flying;\nthat is to say, of elevating themselves in the air, there\nsustaining themselves, and travelling about horizontally and\nvertically, with or without a thread; in a word, acting exactly\nas if in their own element. This fact I have witnessed a thousand\ntimes, and it has been certified to by a great number of people,\nwho, at first incredulous, and alarmed for the laws of\ngravitation, were compelled to confess the reiterated testimony\nof their own eyes.\n\nI had some pupils under my charge, and to them this study became\na continued source of amusement. During their recreation, they\nfound suitable spiders for me, and, when they brought them to me,\nI rested them on my fingers and made them mount upward in the\nair; and invariably, after having watched them for some moments,\nthey were entirely lost to sight. But when I made the\ndiscovery--of which I will speak later--of the general migration\nwhich some species make yearly toward certain regions of the\natmosphere, I had no longer any trouble to enjoy this performance\nto my heart's content.\n\nThe flight of spiders is sometimes very rapid, particularly when\nthey start. They often escape from one's hands while they are\ncarefully watched. This happened to me one day with a\n_voracious lycose_ that I had for a long time importuned\nwithout success. Just as I was going to give him up as entirely\nstupefied, he suddenly escaped from me by a lateral movement, so\nrapid that for a moment I lost sight of him; but, when I found\nhim a moment afterward, he was suspended quietly in the air. I\nalso remarked that he set out without throwing any thread, and\nthis was not the only time I made the same observation. I was\nexperimenting one day with some amateurs in the interior court of\nthe college where I live, and, having started a _lycose_, we\nsaw him occupy himself at first with the neighboring galleries,\nrunning up and down for about twenty yards, about a tenth of a\nyard from the arch, against which he knocked himself from time to\ntime, and groped about to look for a passage; not finding one, he\nthrew himself back into the court, raised perpendicularly, and\ndisappeared toward the clouds. His thread, if he had one, could\nnot have been longer than a tenth of a yard. Ordinarily, however,\nbefore they ascend, they throw out a thread which they follow for\na short time; then, arriving at a certain height, they break it,\nin order to navigate more easily. If any is left before them,\nthey wind it rapidly with their feet, throw it aside, and form\nthose pretty little crowns of white silk in form of\n_cracknels_, that we often see flying in the air in time of\ngossamers. Again, they balance themselves quietly with a thread\nwhich rises perpendicularly above them, and gives them the\nappearance of floating.\n\n{417}\n\nBut a peculiarity still more remarkable in the flight of spiders\nis the attitude that they take in flying. They generally swim\n_backward_, that is to say, the back turned from the earth,\nthe feet folded on the corselet, and perfectly immovable. How can\nsuch a flight be explained, for they are already heavier than the\nair? Plunged into alcohol, they sink quickly; but in the air they\nseem to possess an ease, a liberty, a facility of transport, so\nadmirable that I have never been able to see in them the\nslightest motion, nor even an apparent increase of weight. Does\nnot this fact present an interesting question for the skilful to\ncontemplate?\n\n\n    III.\n\n    How Long They Can Remain In The Atmosphere?\n\nAt this portion of my history I have to relate facts the most\ncurious and unexpected; and, unfortunately for me, more true than\nprobable. I acknowledge I was loath to publish them, or assume\nconcerning them any responsibility. But I was firmly convinced,\nand therefore hoped to be believed, especially by this generation\nof fearless naturalists, who are astonished at nothing in nature,\nand who, having often been surprised in the relation of almost\nincredible marvels, must certainly make allowances for a few more\nin another quarter.\n\nLet us look at, for instance, the wonderful things related of the\n_argyronete_, or aquatic spider. [Footnote 97]\n\n    [Footnote 97: The _argyronete_ is a spider that lives in\n    the water where she constructs a charming little edifice that\n    appears surrounded with a silky mortar. The down that covers\n    her contains a certain quantity of air for respiration. This\n    gives her in swimming the appearance of a ball of\n    quicksilver, from which we have her name.]\n\nI could not tell anything more unlikely, so I will only exact for\nthe atmosphere a companion to what the P\u00e8re de Lignac discovered\nin the last century for the water. Yes, I pretend there are\nspiders that live in the air as well as those living in water,\nand that every year, from the earliest days of spring, there is,\nunknown to us, a general migration of spiders toward the\natmosphere, where they pass their best season, form their nets,\nchase their prey, and only return to earth in the first fogs of\nautumn to find their quarters for the winter. I add, also, that\nthis ascent and descent give rise to the curious phenomenon,\nstill so badly explained, of the gossamer. And as it was to the\nstudy of this phenomenon that I owe my knowledge of the rest, may\nI be permitted here, by way of demonstration, to relate briefly\nthe path I have followed and the proofs which have led to the\nconviction I express?\n\nAttracted, as I was, by all that concerns spiders, I could not\nremain indifferent to a fact so important and interesting as the\nperiodical apparition of those threads which in spring and autumn\nwe see flying about in long white skeins, clinging to trees, to\nhedges, and to the vestments of the passers-by, carpeting the\ncountry in a few hours with more silk, and finer and whiter, than\ncould be spun in a year by all the reels in the world. Admirable\nnetting, glistening in the light of the setting sun, and\nreflecting the sweetest, softest tints of gold, vermilion, and\nemerald, and receiving the pretty and poetical name of \"_fils\nde la Vierge_.\" Was there not between this phenomenon and my\npreceding observations a secret tie, some mysterious relation? I\nseemed to foresee it, and, setting to work immediately, rejected\nfrom the very beginning the usual explanation of this phenomenon.\n\n{418}\n\nHow, indeed, can we admit these floating gossamers as merely the\nrefuge webs of spiders, torn by the violence of the wind from the\ntrees and forests and carried capriciously through the air? Will\nnot the slightest observation convince us that they never appear\nbut in the calmest moments, on days foggy in the morning, but\nafterward beautiful, and not preceding a storm; never in summer,\noften in the spring and autumn, and sometimes even in winter? If\nthe winds carry them, why do they not appear in summer? Are\nviolent winds and spider-webs both wanting? And who has ever seen\none of these webs carried by a hurricane, especially in quantity\nsufficient to produce such a phenomenon? For the fall of\ngossamers sometimes lasts for almost entire days, and in certain\ncountries during the middle of the day the fields are covered\nwith them. Add, too, that violent winds are generally local,\nwhile this phenomenon is universal, and so periodical that in the\nsame climates it appears at the same epochs, and, when one knows\nwhat produces it, it is easy to predict the time and day of the\napparition.\n\nDiscontented, then, on this point with books and their\nexplanations, I turn completely to the side of nature, and\npresent all I observed.\n\nFrom the first appearance of these threads in autumn, I was\nstruck with the immense multitudes of new spiders met with\neverywhere, and which I had not seen during the summer. Little\nbrown _lycoses_ filled the air, so that it seemed as if it\nhad rained them. If one walked in the fields, the meadows, the\ngardens, on the borders of the woods, among heaps of dried\nleaves, scattered all through the forest everywhere, could be\nseen myriads of these little brown spiders, jumping up and flying\nbefore me in every direction, and exactly such as I had already\nrecognized as such excellent swimmers. After having passed the\nwinter in the earth, in the holes of worms that they completed\nwith a little silk, they reappeared after the cold in great\nnumbers, to disappear again entirely in the first bright days of\nspring, and as if by enchantment. If one is seen again during the\nsummer, we may be sure it is some female retarded by laying her\neggs, and dragging laboriously her cocoon after her. Now, what\nhas become of the others?\n\nFor several months I could not satisfy myself on this point,\nwhen, on the 21 St of October, 1856, in the enclosure of the\nlittle seminary of Iseure, near Moulins, I came to a positive\ndecision, I was observing the fall of a large quantity of\ngossamers, which were falling on that day in large white flakes,\nwhen I perceived close to me in the air one of those little black\nspiders descending gradually, and as if she were jumping. She\nheld by an invisible thread to a large flake, which came down\nslowly about seven or eight yards above her; but, keeping outside\nof it, she hung by the end of the long thread, like an aeronaut\nunderneath his balloon. My attention once attracted, I noticed so\ngreat a number that I was astonished I had not taken care sooner;\nfor there was scarcely a flake underneath which there were not\none or two, and this sometimes even before the flake itself was\nvisible. [Footnote 98]\n\n    [Footnote 98: There is an observation which confirms my own.\n    We read in _Darwin's Journal_, page 159: \"Mr. Darwin saw\n    a large number of gossamers on the ship Beagle, when she was\n    about 60 miles from the mouth of the Rio de la Plata. It was\n    the first of November, and these gossamers were carried by a\n    very light breeze, and on each were found an immense number\n    of little spiders, similar in appearance, about the twelfth\n    of an inch in length, and in color a deep brown. The smallest\n    were a deeper shade than the others. None were found on the\n    white tufts, but all on threads.\" _Journal of Researches\n    into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries visited\n    during the Voyage of his Majesty's Ship, the Beagle,_\n    1845.]\n\n{419}\n\nEach one was separated by a slender thread, and followed the\nmotion of its balloon. If they met a tree or a bush, they landed\nupon it; if not, coming close to the earth, they ran along and\nwere lost in the verdure. If I approached them too quickly or\nmade a noise, they remounted rapidly by their threads and went to\ndisembark somewhere else.\n\nI also examined some of the flakes. They were all shining white\nmats, appearing as if they had been washed. Several contained\nwings and feet of flies, fragments of the case of little\ncoleoptera, and other remnants of their aerial festivities.\n\nThis encounter was for me a revelation. I knew where the spiders,\nwhom I had seen disappear so brusquely, took refuge, and, however\nrash my judgment may appear, I felt assured I had solved an\ninteresting problem.\n\nBut to establish seriously and give to science an opinion so new\nand original as that the atmosphere may be peopled with spiders,\nI soon felt that more proof was necessary in order to sit down\ncalmly under my personal conviction. So I concluded I should not\nbe doing too much if I added to the verification of their descent\nthat of their ascension, and could surprise them in this new\nmigration. I waited, therefore, impatiently for the spring.\n\nBut that spring, and for five or six that followed it, great was\nmy disappointment; for, though I perceived several isolated\nascensions, yet nothing in the proportion I had imagined or that\ncould justify my hypothesis. I began then to doubt seriously my\nsuccess, when an incident occurred that relieved my\nembarrassment, and proved how trifling sometimes are the causes\nwhich lift the veil from nature. I was looking straight upward,\nbut sitting close to the earth, and so as to be able as much as\npossible to exclude the sun from my eyes. And here, by the way, a\nfact is made palpable, by no means microscopic, but which has\nescaped so long not merely the observation of the crowd of vulgar\nobservers, but of those even who are wide awake and study\ncarefully; namely, that it is not necessary to carry one's nose\nalways in the air, if I may so express myself, to examine\nclosely, to investigate, or to render a faithful account of\nphenomena.\n\nOn looking upward--as an ascension only takes place on very\nbeautiful days, succeeding generally to bad weather--spiders\ncannot be distinguished from the multitude of other insects which\nfill the air. But if, on a beautiful day, mild, calm, and\nbrilliant in sunlight, succeeding as nearly as possible to a rain\nwarm with the south wind, at about nine or ten o'clock in the\nmorning, a post is chosen on an eminence of a meadow or an\navenue, and there, as near the ground as may be, and crouching\nlow, the observer will look horizontally, he will perceive a\nseries of fire-works, formed of innumerable threads launched from\nevery direction and inclined toward the sky. This is the prelude.\nSoon the spiders detach themselves and mount slowly by their\nthreads. The most conspicuous are the _thomises bufo_,\nbecause they are the largest, and because they only ascend with\nan entire bundle of threads, which gives them the appearance of\nsmall comets.\n\n{420}\n\nThus have I decided\n\n1st. That there is not only one ascension every year, but\nseveral, at least partial ones; that they do not always take\nplace in spring, but often in the autumn, and sometimes even in\nthe winter; and in general, from the descent which has taken\nplace in the beginning of autumn until the definitive ascension\nin the spring, there are but few favorable days of which the\nspiders do not profit to make an aerial journey, or at least to\nthrow out a large number of threads. Thus, in the Beaujolais,\nwhere I have lived for several years, there were partial\nascensions on the 1st, the 19th, and the 28th of November, 1864;\nthe 21st, the 23d, and especially the 25th of October, the 9th of\nNovember, and the 6th of December, 1865. In 1866, the 18th and\nthe 30th of January, the 3d of February, the 3d, 14th, and 31st\nof October, and the 17th of December. In 1867, the 10th of\nFebruary, ... the last, however, less considerable than might\nhave been predicted by the beauty of the day. The day previous\nwas so mild, though cloudy, that many of the spiders may have\nembarked _incognito_. Many, also, may not have judged it\n_a propos_ to fly away, for a great number still remained on\nthe ground. I forgot to observe the temperature of all the days I\nhave noted. The director of the Normal School of Villefranche\nhaving had the kindness to show me the meteorological register\nwhich he had kept with great care, I was able to prove that in\ncalm weather only ten or twelve degrees of heat were necessary to\ninduce them to mount upward. The least exposed begin; then\nimmediately the others, so soon as the heat reaches them; but\nafter three or four o'clock in the afternoon no more ascensions\nare perceived, unless they are provoked; and this does not always\nsucceed,\n\n2d. Before taking their flight, they generally cling to some\nelevated object that they meet with easily, such as shrubs,\nbushes, props of vines, or blades of grass escaped from the\nscythe. To these they affix their threads and warm themselves\nwell in the sun before commencing their excursion. This is the\nhappy moment for amateurs to make their observations, for there\nis scarcely a blade of grass that does not contain one or more;\nand, if the branches of young trees are suddenly struck with a\nslight blow, a great number are detached, suspended at the end of\ntheir threads; and very often rare specimens are thus found not\ndiscoverable elsewhere.\n\n\n         IV.\n\n    To What Height Do They Raise\n    Themselves in the Atmosphere?\n\nOn this point I have not been able to make any direct\nobservation. Perhaps I have dreamed of offering objections to the\nconcourse of intrepid human navigators who undertake such\nperilous excursions in the air, and for my interest in the study\nI have found two excellent reasons. The first, that it would be\nwell for them to know that, if they have not had rivals, they\nhave had precursors, who, for 6000 years, have executed silently\nand noiselessly what they have claimed for themselves by every\neffort of puffs and publicity. The second, and a still more\nserious objection and that I believe will truly interest the\nfuture in this young industry, is that if the argyronete and its\nbell has given to science the instrument with which the divers\nexplore the depths of the sea, why may not the study of aerial\nspiders furnish for aeronauts--these divers in air--the complete\napparatus which they require to raise themselves to any height,\ndirect their movements, and maintain themselves at will? Have not\nthese little animals resolved this problem for centuries? Yet the\npresent state of aerostation does not afford ground sufficient\nfor comparison.\n\n{421}\n\nWe are, therefore, reduced to conjecture; and, if I may be\npermitted to express mine, this is what I think:\n\nI believe that spiders rise to the same height where on the fine\ndays of summer one can see the swallows and martins hover, almost\nlost to sight, in pursuit of gnats that people these regions of\nthe atmosphere. I found this belief on the webs of spiders seen\nfalling in autumn, that seem to come at least from nearly such\nheights. They begin to be seen at a hundred or a hundred and\nfifty yards, and there is no great temerity in affirming that\nthey have already traversed a good part of their course. An\nobservation made in 1864, if conclusive, would tend to make\nremoter still the habitation of spiders; for the fog that\ndetermined the fall that year was a _high_ fog, that is to\nsay, one of those uniform mists that hide the sky for several\ndays together, and seem to extend to a great height. But, I\nrepeat, this is all conjecture. One good observation would have\nbeen worth far more.'\n\n\n          V.\n\n      Conjectures On The Mode Of Building\n      Of Spiders In The Air.\n\nPerhaps here I should stop, and, having stated facts, leave to\nothers their explanation. How do spiders sustain themselves in\nthe air? How can they so long brave the winds, the rains, the\nstorms; arrange their webs in emptiness and without apparent\nmeans of support? Prudence counsels me to avoid these questions,\nbut my _r\u00f4le_ of simple observer permits them. However, in\nwaiting for better things, I decide still to hazard some\nconjectures, were it only to prove that a fact once admitted, it\nwould not be absolutely impossible for the wisest to explain it.\n\nThe first idea that came to me was that these spider-webs raise\nthemselves in the air as the kites of children, and, made fast to\nthe tops of trees and edifices by long threads, they are\nsustained by their own lightness. This idea was suggested to me\nby a sight I was witness to one day at the Seminary of Vals, near\nLe Puy. From a corner where I was in shadow, I perceived\ndistinctly on each high ridge of the roof, lightened by the rays\nof the sun, long threads which rose perpendicularly in the air,\nlike large cords, balancing themselves slowly right and left,\nwithout ever going out of a certain field of oscillation. But I\nsoon gave up this idea. How admit, in truth, that on two or three\nthreads, and without any other means of support, spiders could\nweave their true webs? Would not some of these aerial\nconstructions tumble down every day, ruined by their own weight?\nwhile it is acknowledged they only fall in autumn, and always\ntogether.\n\nI therefore rather incline to believe that the spiders are\nsustained in the air by the distention of an interior vesicle,\nanalogous to that of fish, and that they ejaculate by their\nthreads, which are numerous, and pierced with an infinity of\nlittle tubes, large bundles of threads, by which are taken the\ninsects that serve for their prey; that they resist the winds as\nfish do the tossing of the sea, and their threads, being\nglutinous, are not dampened by the rain; and also being excellent\nconductors of caloric, as is proved by the abundant drops of dew\nwhich they pearl near the earth, on the hedges, etc.; and if\nafter a calm night they are touched by an autumn fog, these heavy\nand moistened threads weaken and fall one over the other, and\nform the silky flakes that are seen from ten to eleven o'clock in\nthe morning, flying about in cloudy days with the spiders who\ninhabited them during the summer.\n{422}\nThis, hoping for better, is the explanation I hazard, and I\nsubmit it with the rest to the appreciation of competent men. If\nonly these pages attract attention to a merited subject, and\nprovoke numerous observations, which alone can ever fully\nelucidate it, the author will be more than repaid for the few\nresearches he has presented in this article.\n\n--------\n\n  Translated From The \"Revue Du Monde Catholique.\"\n\n      John Tauler.\n\n     By Ernest Hello.\n\n\nHistory has an astonishing memory. She records the day and hour\nof battles with exact fidelity. She knows a thousand things. She\nhas recently discovered, if I do not mistake, the name of Julian\nthe Apostate's cook. She remembers everything of little\nimportance. The names of celebrated mistresses who have amused or\npoisoned renowned personages, are transmitted from age to age.\nErudition has been making strides during the last hundred years,\nas if she had seven-leagued boots. To deserve the admiration and\ngratitude of mankind, however, she should not have degraded\nherself, but taken a higher sphere in her progress. Her memory\nindicates greatness of genius; but she is like calumny, she\nincreases in size as she advances through the centuries. In her\nlabors, researches, and exploits, she has been mostly busied with\nsoldiers, and frequently forgotten God and man. She could not\nthink of everything at once; the hidden history of humanity is\nyet to be written; the greatest events of the world are secret to\nthis very day; and those who reflect on them are men of a special\ncaste.\n\nIf there were question of the battle of Marathon, or of Antony\nand Cleopatra, our contemporaries would be found well instructed;\nbut do they know John Tauler, the German Tauler, of the Dominican\nor preaching order?\n\nMaster Tauler was a great preacher--powerful and popular. One\nday he gave a learned discourse, in which he taught the way of\nperfection, with all his characteristic assurance. To become\nperfect, he enumerated twenty-four conditions, which he developed\nbefore an attentive and brilliant audience. After the sermon, a\nlayman, one of the poorest and most ignorant of his hearers, came\nto him. History, by one of those distractions so usual for her to\nhave, when there is question of God, has forgotten the name of\nthis individual. This simple layman said to Tauler:\n\n\"Master, the letter kills, and the spirit gives life; but you are\na Pharisee.\"\n\nDoctor Tauler: \"My son, I am now old, and no one has ever spoken\nto me in this manner.\"\n\nThe Layman: \"You think I speak too bluntly to you; but it is your\nown fault; and I can prove that what I say to you is true.\"\n\nDoctor Tauler: \"You will do me a favor, for I have never loved\nthe Pharisees.\"\n\n{423}\n\nThen the layman, probing into the doctor's mental condition,\nshowed him that he was held captive by the mere letter of the\nevangelical law, and devoid of its spirit.\n\n\"You are a Pharisee,\" proceeded the layman, \"but not a\nhypocritical Pharisee. You are not on the road to hell, but on\nthat which leads to purgatory.\"\n\nDoctor Tauler embraced the man, and said to him: \"I feel at this\nmoment as the Samaritan woman must have felt at the well; you\nhave revealed to me all my faults, my son; you have told all that\nwas most secret in my soul. Who, then, has told you? It is God; I\nam convinced it must be so. I entreat you, my son, by the death\nof our Lord, to be my spiritual father, and I, a poor sinner,\nwill become your son.\"\n\nThe Layman: \"Dear master, if you speak thus contrary to order and\nreason, I shall not remain with you any longer, but straightway\nreturn to my own house.\"\n\nDoctor Tauler: \"Oh! no. I beg you, in the name of God, to stay\nwith me, and I promise not to speak thus again.\"\n\nThe docility of Tauler is sublime and touching. His great good\nwill, which broke the pride of science, led him into the paths of\nspiritual contemplation.\n\n\"Tell me, I conjure you, in the name of God,\" said Tauler, \"how\nyou have succeeded in arriving at the contemplative state?\"\n\nThe Layman: \"You ask me a very odd question. I confess to you\nfrankly that, if I should recount or write all the wonderful\nthings which God has been doing to me, a poor sinner, for twelve\nyears, there would be no book large enough to contain them.\"\n\nThe layman then recounted how he had been deceived in his\nspiritual life; how, influenced by Satan, he had practised\nimprudent austerities, which would have injured both his body and\nsoul; and how, warned by God, he had returned to the paths of\nwisdom.\n\nBoth Tauler and the layman were then lifted up to the regions of\ncontemplation. The unknown monitor then said: \"If the God whom we\nworship could be comprehended by reason, he would not be worthy\nof our service.\"\n\nBut before his great illumination, Tauler suffered during two\nyears frightful temptations. Abandoned, poor, suffering, that man\nof iron was shaken like a reed. The layman comes to his\nassistance, and sustains in his time of misery him whom he had\ncrushed in his period of pride.\n\n\"For the first time,\" said the layman, \"God has touched your\nsuperior faculties.\"\n\nAt the end of two years, the doctor again ascended the pulpit.\nThe crowd which came to hear him was large. Tauler cast his eyes\nover the expectant multitude, then drew his cowl over his eyes\nand prayed.\n\nThe crowd awaited him; but he spoke not a word. Tears filled his\neyes and rolled down his cheeks. Tauler wept bitterly.\n\nWhat a scene! The audience become impatient. Some one asks Tauler\nif he will preach. Tauler continues weeping. He wept and wept;\nand the multitude, anxious to hear his inferior oratory, and\nincapable of appreciating the higher eloquence of tears, could\nnot comprehend the doctor's conduct. At last Tauler dismissed the\nassembly; for his sobs choked his utterance. He asked pardon of\nthe people for having kept them uselessly waiting; and they went\nhome. \"Now,\" said some of them, \"we see that he has become a\nfool.\"\n\n{424}\n\nBut after five days' silence, Tauler preached before the friars\nof the convent, and he was sublime. One of the friars went to the\npulpit and addressed the congregation as follows: \"I am requested\nto make known to you that Doctor Tauler will preach here\nto-morrow; but if he acts as he did last time, remember not to\nblame me.\" \"How will he succeed?\" said one to another. \"I do not\nknow,\" was the answer; \"God knows.\"\n\nThis time Tauler could control his voice, and _silence_ was\nhis theme. He had built his eyrie in silence, as an eagle on the\nsummit of a cliff. His language, worked out in silence, seemed to\nlong after it; to return to its home, and die away in the high\nsombre clouds of complete solitude. Silence is the doctrine of\nTauler; his secret, his food, his substance and his slumber.\nAbsolutely free from all oratorical finery, his sermons go right\nto the mark, without respect for conventionality or the cant of\nordinary discourses. He utters what he wishes to express; praises\nsolitude, and returns into it. This is the reason why his\nexternal word takes nothing away from his interior recollection.\nHis words do not betray his soul. Silence is the guardian angel\nof strength.\n\nIt was doubtless this profound doctrine of silence which gave to\nthe eloquence of Tauler an extraordinary virtue. This man, who\nseemed to come out of a tomb, appeared with a thunderbolt in his\nhand. Fifty men, after the sermon, remained in the church as if\ntransfixed by an invisible hand. Thirty-eight of them were able\nto move during the half-hour which followed; but the twelve\nothers could not stir. Tauler said to the unknown layman, his\nadviser: \"What shall we do with these people, my son?\" The layman\nwent from one to the other and touched them, but they were as\nimmovable as rocks.\n\nTauler was frightened at the paralysis which he had caused. \"Are\nthey dead or alive?\" said he to his friend. \"What do you think?\"\n\"If they are dead,\" replied the layman, \"it is your fault, and\nthat of the Spouse of souls.\"\n\nThis fact, which is historical, seems like a legend.\n\nThis picture would be magnificent, if an artist should sketch it.\nThe place where Tauler had just preached was a cemetery, and the\ntwelve men who were lying on the ground in ecstasy resembled\nthose who slumbered in death beneath. The orator, walking with\nhis friend through the audience, who had become almost his\nvictims; feeling the pulse and the face of his hearers, to detect\nin them after the sermon, as after a battle, some sign of life;\npassing through the ranks of the vanquished and healing the\nwounded, must have seemed something superhuman. At last the\nfriend of Tauler found that the thunderstruck hearers breathed\nstill, \"Master,\" said he, \"those men still live. Request the nuns\nof the convent to take them away from here; for this cold floor\nwill injure them.\" One of the nuns, who was a listener to the\nfearful discourse, had to be carried to her bed, where she lay\nmotionless.\n\nThe biography of John Tauler, which serves as prologue to his\nsermons, says nothing of his exterior life; but dwells specially\non his unhistorical and legendary character. Those who wrote\nabout him have not deigned even to inquire in what century he\nlived. This strange man has dispensed history from its ordinary\ninquiries, as if eternity had been the sole theatre of his\nterrestrial existence.\n\n{425}\n\nHis friends are as strange as himself. The astonishing layman,\nwho tells his name to nobody, and gives us no means of\ndiscovering it, was not the doctor's only teacher. Another of his\ninstructors was a beggar, just as extraordinary.\n\nTauler, according to Surius, petitioned God during eight years\nfor a master capable of teaching him the truth. One day when his\ndesire was more than usually strong, he heard a voice saying to\nhim, \"Go to the door of the church. Thou wilt find there the man\nwhom thou seekest.\" He obeyed, and met at the appointed spot a\nbeggar, whose feet were soiled with mud, and whose rags were not\nworth three half-pence. They began a dialogue, of which the\nfollowing is a portion:\n\nDoctor Tauler. \"_Good_ day, my friend.\"\n\nThe Beggar. \"I do not remember ever to have had a _bad_ day\nin my life.\"\n\nTauler. \"May God grant thee prosperity.\"\n\nThe Beggar. \"I know not what adversity is.\"\n\nTauler. \"Well, may God make thee happy!\"\n\nThe Beggar. \"I have never been unhappy.\"\n\nUrged for an explanation, the mendicant affirms that, \"by means\nof silence, he had arrived at perfect union with God; never being\nable to find pleasure in anything less than God.\"\n\nTauler. \"Whence comest thou?\"\n\nThe Beggar. \"From God.\"\n\nTauler. \"Where hast thou found God?\"\n\nThe Beggar. \"Where I have left all creatures.\"\n\nTauler. \"Where is God?\"\n\nThe Beggar. \"In men of good will.\"\n\nTauler. \"Who art thou?\"\n\nThe Beggar. \"I am a king.\"\n\nTauler. \"Where is thy kingdom?\"\n\nThe Beggar. \"In my soul.\"\n\nWe need often recall to our minds, in reading Tauler's life, that\nhe was really a man of flesh and bone, an historical personage.\nSurius, Fathers Echard and Touron, have written his real life\ncircumstantially. He was born in 1294. He was an Alsatian. He\nlived at Cologne, and died probably at Strasburg. We cannot fix\nthe date of his death. It happened May 17th, 1361, says Father\nAlexander. Father Echard places it in the year 1379. Another\nhistorian, M. Sponde, puts it in 1355.\n\nLet us now speak of his doctrine.\n\n\n    II.\n\nThe doctrine of Doctor Tauler is the practice of divine union.\nThis union, transcending human thoughts and hopes, is the secret\nof his life and the leading principle of his work. His sermons\nare full of instruction regarding this union.\n\nHis _Institutions_ also teach it. Some writers hostile to\nTauler pretend to have found in his writings the foreshadowing of\nquietism. This mistake can be refuted in three ways: by the works\nof Tauler, which always affirm human activity to the most\ncontemplative soul, thus clearly separating the doctrine of the\nquietists from that of the German thinker. Secondly, Bossuet,\nwhom no one will suspect of any leaning toward quietism, says of\nTauler: \"He is one of the most solid and exact of the mystical\ntheologians.\" Thirdly, Tauler himself predicted quietism in a\nremarkable monograph, blaming strongly all that Molinos, Madame\nde Guyon, and Fenelon afterward asserted.\n\nA close study of the Alsatian doctor shows that he always gives\nto both internal and external activity all the reality and all\nthe rights which they possess.\n\n{426}\n\n\"If any one,\" says he, \"ascends to such a height of contemplation\nas Saints Peter and Paul reached; and he perceives that a sick\nbeggar needs his help to warm his soup, or for any other service,\nit would be much better for him to leave the repose of\ncontemplation, and aid the poor man, instead of remaining in the\nsweetness of contemplative life.\" (_Institutions_, p. 195.)\n\nHere is the plain truth and no illusion. And elsewhere he writes:\n\"Men should not pay so much attention to what they do, as to what\nthey are in themselves; for if the core of their heart be good,\ntheir acts will be so also without difficulty; and if their\nconscience be just and right, their works cannot be otherwise.\nMany make sanctity [to] consist in action; but action is not the\nchief element in it. Holiness must be judged in its principle as\nwell as in its acts. In other words, we must be interiorly saints\nbefore we can perform exterior holy actions. No matter how good\nmay be our works, they do not sanctify us as works. It is we, on\nthe contrary, who make them meritorious, in virtue of inner\nsanctity which is their producing principle. It is in the bottom\nof the soul that we find the essence of a just man.\"\n(_Institutions_, p. 156.)\n\nHere is the truth again. Collate those two passages, after having\nstudied them separately, and you will find that they throw\ncomplete light on the nature and value of human acts.\n\nThe almost continual ecstatic state in which Tauler lived, never\nmade him forget his smallest duties.\n\nIt has been often remarked that grace adapts itself to the\nnatural qualities of the individual whom it sanctifies. This is\nas true of nations as of individuals. In Italy, asceticism has\nthe color of the sun. Italian ascetics shout, burn with ardor,\nand seem full of exaggerated transports to the nations of cooler\nblood. The landscape of Italian asceticism presents you a burning\nsky, an ocean of fire, and a scorching earth. Sadness is\ngenerally wanting. In Spain, the hue is more sombre. The same\nardor is there; but ardor tempered with jealousy. There is\ninterior disquietude in Spanish mysticism, and even adoration in\nit examines itself as if suspicious of its truth. In Germany,\nprofound gravity and stern austerity lead the soul into a\nhorrible place. In Italy, images come crowding together, and\ndivine love, instead of rejecting them, embraces them. The soul\nof the Italian saint holds garlands of flowers in his hands,\noffering them joyously to the blessed sacrament. Familiarity and\nadoration unite, like the two species of electricity before the\nthunder-clap. Familiarity, wedded to adoration, appeared in St.\nFrancis of Assisi. The greatness of that strange man, who saw\nbrothers and sisters in everything, and conversed with water,\nfire, the birds, and his monks, in the same tone and spirit, is\nnot immediately manifest to superficial minds. Plain good nature\nveils his wonderful character. In Germany, those images which\npoetry presents to love are accepted with great precaution.\nAdoration is sober in thought and expression; and aspires to\nsomething sublime, whose form and name are intangible. German\nadoration is philosophical, meditative, broad, comprehensive,\naustere, silent, wrapped up in herself, and self-sufficing. She\nborrows only what is strictly necessary from persons and things.\nThe world is a servant which she employs only with regret. She\nholds aloof from all creatures, and her words sound like\nconcession. She says to no one, \"My brother,\" or \"My sister.\" If\nshe had a brother. he would be silence. Her sister would be the\nmist which surrounds God.\n\n{427}\n\nTauler is one of the most majestic representatives of Teutonic\nasceticism.\n\nA disciple of St. Dionysius the Areopagite and of that layman of\nwhom we have written, in the wake of those two great characters\nhe follows, with eye and wing of eagle, into the region of\ntranslucent darkness. He does not flutter there, he _soars_;\nor, if he flies, his motion is so high and rapid, that it seems\nlike the active repose of a sublime and fruitful immobility.\n\nTauler seems to desire obscurity. The remarkable effects of his\npreaching on his audience are less like thunder pealing in his\nlanguage, than like the awful presence of the sacred cloud where\nthe thunder is reposing.\n\nEvery man is a universe in himself. Unity and variety are the two\nterms of the antinomy, without which there is no life. But\nperfection consists in equilibrium between those terms. Such\nperfection is very rare. In general the antinomy of life is\nreplaced by the contradictory, which is death. Man is divided\nbetween good and evil, always attempting an impossible\nreconciliation between them. Contradiction is a dead force which\ntries to serve two masters. An antinomy is a living force which,\nhaving chosen a master, and obeying but him, desires to serve him\nin a thousand different ways always useful. Nothing better\ndisplays the unity of a landscape than the variety of colors\nwhich it presents to the eye at the same time. The lights and\nshades, the undulations of the soil, and the accidents of sun,\nclouds, villages, forests, and spires, all are harmonized in the\neye of the spectator; and the more numerous, varied, and\nunexpected are the details, the more does he experience delight\nand a certain dilation of mind and heart in the contemplation of\ntheir unity. If he takes away some of the circumstances, he mars\nthe effect of the whole; for he cannot even destroy a shadow\nwithout diminishing the sunshine. What is true of a landscape is\nalso true of a book or a man. But Tauler lost the balance between\nunity and variety, for he gave all to one and nothing to the\nother. Few individuals, even among the greatest saints, have been\nso ardent in the sentiment, love, pursuit, and conquest of unity.\nHe seeks after it incessantly, and it haunts him. He never seems\nto look at the road he is travelling. He fixes his eyes solely on\nthe goal ever present to his soul. He turns neither to the right\nnor the left. He knows not whether there be flowers or thorns on\nthe borders of his pathway. Do not ask him to imitate St. Antony\nof Padua, and preach to the fishes of the streams. He minds\nneither fishes nor birds. He seems to regard creation as a\nstranger, of whom he had heard tell long ago, but whose\nremembrance is now but faintly glimmering in his mind.\n\nHis love of unity, his call to unity, his transports for it,\nalways take the same shape, the same key and accent; and produce\nin the end a certain monotony, which is not a question of\ndoctrine, but an affair of nature and temperament.\n\nTauler somewhere relates the history of a hermit, from whom a\ntroublesome visitor begged something that was lying in the cell.\nThe hermit went in to find the required object, but forgot at the\nthreshold what was wanted, for the image of external things could\nnot remain in his head. He went out, therefore, and asked the\nvisitor what he sought. The visitor repeated his petition.\n{428}\nThe hermit re-entered his cell, but again forgot the request; and\nwas at last obliged to say to his guest: \"Enter and find yourself\nwhat you seek, for I cannot keep the image of what you ask for\nsufficiently long stamped on my brain to do what you desire.\"\n\nTauler, in narrating this story, unintentionally describes his\nown character. In every one of his sermons, he chooses a text and\na subject. This was required by circumstances and by his\naudience. But the moment he enters the cell of his contemplation,\nhe forgets text and everything else, and mounts into the realms\nof sublimity where he loses himself in that supreme unity after\nwhich his heart is always aspiring. The moment he begins to fly,\nhe forgets the course he must take. With one stroke of her wings,\nhis intellect finds her love, and then soars in her natural\nelement, with plumes unruffled. Far above modes and forms of\nearth, she stretches out her broad wings in the cerulean vault of\nher beloved repose. If any should then ask him about some\nordinary detail, he would certainly answer like the recluse above\nmentioned: \"Enter yourself, and find what you are inquiring\nafter. I cannot keep the image of material or minor things long\nenough in my mind to fulfil your request.\"\n\nTauler is continually citing Saint Dionysius the Areopagite. In\nfact, these two great men are at home in the same latitudes. The\nsermons of Tauler are to the works of the Areopagite what a\ntreatise of applied mathematics is to one on theoretical\nmathematics. Tauler, like St. Dionysius, dwells in the interior\nof the soul, that secret and deep abode, the name of which he is\never seeking without finding, and which he ends by calling\nineffable as God himself.\n\n\"It is in this recess of the soul,\" he preaches, \"that the divine\nword speaks. This is why it is written, 'In the midst of silence,\na secret word was spoken to me.' Concentrate then, if thou canst,\nall thy powers; forget all those images with which thou hast\nfilled thy soul. The more thou forgettest creatures, the more\nthou wilt become fit and ready to receive that mysterious word.\nOh! if thou couldst of a sudden become ignorant of all things,\neven of thy own life, like St. Paul, when he said, 'Was I in the\nbody or out of the body? I know not, God knows it.'\" ... \"Natural\nanimation was suspended in him, and for this reason his body lost\nnone of its powers during the three days which he passed without\neating or drinking. The same happened to Moses when he fasted\nforty days on the mountain, without suffering from such long\nabstinence, finding himself as strong at the end as at the\nbeginning.\"\n\nThe desire of Tauler that his hearers should become _Christian\nchildren_, ignorant or forgetful of everything in sublime\necstasy, shows plainly the nature of his charity. He wished for\nthem absolute perfection, contemplative and active,\ntransfiguration, transport, exactness, total accomplishment of\ntruth, and the plenitude of all heavenly things. The atmosphere\nin which he lived favored his hopes and helped the efficacy of\nhis teaching. He declares that in the monastery when a soul is\nsuddenly called to some interior consideration, it can leave the\nchoir in the midst of the exercises, and plunge itself unseen\ninto the abyss of meditation to which God draws it. He also\naffirms that when friars pass several days in ecstasy, they have\nno reason to be disturbed at any irregularity of theirs which may\nresult from such an accident, provided they obey the rule again,\nwhen they become masters of themselves.\n{429}\nThus the prodigious transports of true asceticism are ever\nstrengthening; while those of false mysticism enervate the soul.\nHence it is that Tauler, though he is always speaking of\nravishments, never loses the character of force, and of that\nausterity which is the sign of God and the test of true\ncontemplation.\n\n\"Where then does God act without a medium? In the depths, in the\nessence of the soul? I cannot explain; for the faculties cannot\napprehend a being without an image. They cannot, for instance,\nconceive a horse under the species of a man. It is precisely\nbecause all images come from without to the soul, that the\nmystery is hidden from it; and this is a great blessing.\n_Ignorance plunges the soul into admiration_. She seeks to\ncomprehend what is taking place in her; she feels that there is\nsomething; but she knows not what it is. The moment we know the\ncause of anything, it has no longer any charm for us. We leave it\nto run after some other object; always thirsting for knowledge,\nand never finding the rest which we seek. This knowledge, full of\nignorance and obscurity, fixes our attention on the divine\noperations within us. 'The mysterious and hidden word' of which\nSolomon writes, is working in our minds.\" (_Sermons_.)\n\nMany men of genius, from the beginning of the world, have studied\nthe human soul, and many are illustrious for the profundity of\ntheir psychological researches. Yet compared to the great\nmystical writers, those philosophers are mere children. Merely\nhuman psychology skims over the surface of the soul, only\nanalyzing its relations to the interior world. They are ignorant\nof the phenomena which take place in the secret recesses of the\nmind. The great light, the incarnate Word, alone can throw its\nrays into those abysses. It is remarkable that those who study\nthe soul for curiosity, merely to find out, and consecrate their\nlife to such investigations, discover very little. While those\nwho care nothing for simple science, but who act virtuously, obey\nand glorify the Lord, see all things properly. Instead of aiding\nvision to peer into the soul's _penetralia_, curiosity dims\nthe light. _Simplicity_ is the best torch in those\ncatacombs. _Simplicity_, commissioned by God, penetrates\ninto the abysses of the soul, with the audacity of a child sent\nby its father.\n\nThe interior and extraordinary efforts by which Tauler rose to\nthe height of contemplation, gave him, though he knew it not, an\nastounding knowledge of the resistance which man makes to man and\nto God; of our combats, defeats, and victories; and of those\nartifices by which we veil from ourselves our true situation\nduring the battle. The rounds by which the soul ascends are\ncounted, and yet the ladder of perfection has no summit.\n\nThe gospel, so merciful to sinners, vents all its wrath on the\nScribes and Pharisees. All its charity is for external enemies;\nall its severity for interior enemies. Jesus Christ used the whip\nonce in his life to show men in what direction his indignation\nwas turned. We have Magdalen and the woman taken in adultery on\nthe one hand; the money-changers of the Temple, the Scribes and\nPharisees on the other. _There is a line of fire separating\nsinners from the accursed_. All Catholic doctrine, all\nascetical tradition, is but the echo of Christ's mercy and\nChrist's anger. Tauler teaches like all the great doctors, in\nthis respect.\n\nHe reprobates exterior practices which are devoid of charity, as\nthe works of hell, most hateful to the Holy Spirit. The fixedness\nof his ideas gives a singular solemnity to his repetitions. On\nevery page his hatred of works done without interior life shows\nitself.\n{430}\nSuch works are his abomination. In all his meditations, prayers,\nexperiences, and contemplations, he condemns them. \"This\ndoctrine,\" says he, \"ought to be attentively meditated by those\nwho torment and mortify their poor flesh, plucking out the bad\nroots which lie hidden around the core of man's heart. My\nbrother, what has thy body done that thou shouldst scourge it in\nthat fashion? Those men are fools who act as if they wanted to\nbeat their heads against the wall. Extirpate thy vices and thy\nbad habits, instead of tormenting thyself as thou dost.\" ...\n\"There are men in the cloister and in solitude whose soul and\nheart are always distracted by a multiplicity of external things.\nThere are men, on the contrary, who in public places, in the\nmidst of a market, and surrounded by countless distractions, know\nso well how to keep their heart and senses recollected, that\nnothing can trouble their interior peace or injure their soul.\nThese deserve the name of religious far more than the former.\"\n(_Sermons_.)\n\nTauler goes farther. When those men who place God in external\nacts remain apparently virtuous, \"the Lord,\" says he, \"turns away\nfrom them. But when, in his mercy, he allows them to fall into\ngrievous exterior faults, then he returns to them and offers them\nforgiveness.\" Tauler is always in the sky. He never stays long on\nearth. \"God,\" says he, \"can unite himself to the soul simply,\nimmediately, _and without image_. He acts in the soul by an\nimmediate operation; he operates in the depths of the mind where\nno image ever penetrates, and which are accessible only to him.\nBut no creature can do this. God, the Father, begets his Son in\nthe soul, not by means of an image, but by a process similar to\nthe eternal generation. Do you want to know how divine generation\ntakes place? God the Father knows himself, and comprehends\nhimself perfectly. He sees down to the very source of his being;\nand contemplates himself, not by aid of an image, but in his own\nessence. Thus he engenders his Son in the unity of divine nature.\nIn this manner also the Father produces him in the essence of the\nsoul, and unites himself to her.\" (_Sermons_.)\n\nAll the discourses of Tauler end by a refrain. The chorus of his\nsong is ever divine unity. Tauler is hardly a man; he is a voice\nspeaking in the wilderness, calling men to descend into the\ndepths of their souls. All his doctrine may be resumed in this\nword, to which we must give its etymological signification:\n_Adieu, \u00e0 Dieu_. [Footnote 99]\n\n    [Footnote 99: The point of these words is untranslatable. The\n    sense is _adieu_ to creatures; and turn to God--_\u00e0\n    Dieu!_--[Translator's Note.]]\n\n-----------\n\n           New Publications.\n\n\n  History of Civilization in the Fifth Century.\n  Translated, by permission, from the French of A. Frederick\n  Ozanam, late Professor of Foreign Literature to the Faculty of\n  Letters at Paris. By Ashley C. Glyn, B.A., of the Inner Temple,\n  Barrister-at-Law. London: W. H. Allen & Co. For sale by The\n  Catholic Publication House, 126 Nassau street, New York.\n\n{431}\n\nA work like this furnishes the best antidote to the poison\ncontained in the writings of such sophists and falsifiers of\nhistory as Buckle and Draper. It substitutes genuine philosophy\nand history for the base metal of counterfeiters. It exhibits\ntruthfully what Christianity--that is, the Catholic Church, which\nis concrete, real Christianity--has done in creating the\ncivilization whose benefits we are now enjoying. The translator's\npreface furnishes so interesting a sketch of M. Ozanam's life and\nliterary career, that we are sure of giving a great gratification\nto our readers by transferring the greater portion of it to our\npages.\n\n  \"A few words may be said as to the career of the author,\n  Frederic Ozanam, whose name has not yet become widely known in\n  this country. He was born August 23d, 1813, at Milan, where his\n  father, who had fallen into poverty, was residing and studying\n  medicine. His mother, whose maiden name had been Marie Nantas,\n  was daughter to a rich Lyonnese merchant, and it was to that\n  city that his parents returned in 1816. The father obtained\n  there a considerable reputation as a doctor, and died from the\n  effects of an accident in 1837. His son pursued his studies at\n  Paris with great success, and was destined for the bar. He took\n  a prominent place in the thoughtful and religious party among\n  the students, and his published letters show how he became\n  identified with the movement set on foot by Lacordaire and\n  others. He was especially distinguished, however, by the\n  foundation of an association of benevolence, called the Society\n  of St. Vincent of Paul, which from its small beginnings in\n  Paris spread over France, and has at the present time its\n  conferences, composed of laymen, in all the larger towns of\n  Europe. M. Ozanam showed, even during his student life, a\n  leaning toward literary pursuits, and a distaste for the\n  profession of the bar, to which he was destined; but he joined\n  the bar of Lyons, obtained some success as an advocate, and was\n  chosen in 1839 as the first occupant of the professional chair\n  of Commercial Law, which had just been established in that\n  city. The courses of lectures given by him were well attended,\n  the lectures themselves were eloquent and learned, and M.\n  Ozanam seems to have preferred inculcating the science of\n  jurisprudence to practising in the courts. But in the course of\n  the following year, 1840, he obtained an appointment which was\n  still more suitable to his talent, the Professorship of Foreign\n  Literature at Paris, and which gave him a perfect opportunity\n  for the cultivation of his favorite pursuit, the philosophy of\n  history. Shortly after his appointment, M. Ozanam married, and\n  the remaining years of his life were spent in the duties of his\n  calling; in travelling, partly for the sake of health and\n  pleasure, partly to gain information which might be woven into\n  his lectures; and in visits to his many friends, chiefly those\n  who had taken an active part with him in upholding the\n  interests of religion in France. He never entered upon active\n  political life, though he offered himself upon a requisition of\n  his fellow-townsmen as representative of Lyons in the National\n  Assembly of 1848. In politics M. Ozanam was a decided liberal,\n  in religion a fervent Catholic. His letters show a great\n  dislike of any alliance between the church and absolutism, and\n  a conviction that religion and an enlightened democracy might\n  flourish together. He wrote in the _Correspondant_, which\n  embodied the newer ideas, and was frequently animadverted upon\n  by the _Univers_, which represented the more conservative\n  party in church and state. His more important works were\n  developed from lectures delivered at the Sorbonne; and his\n  scheme was to embrace the history of civilization from the fall\n  of the Roman Empire to the time of Dante. But failing health,\n  although much was completed, did not allow him entirely to\n  achieve the great object which he had originally conceived when\n  a mere boy; and the touching words in which he expressed his\n  resignation to an early death, when his already brilliant life\n  promised an increase of success, and his cup of domestic\n  happiness was entirely full, may be found among his published\n  writings. M. Ozanam seems to have continued his literary labors\n  as long as rapidly increasing weakness would permit, but after\n  a stay in Italy, which did not avail to restore his broken\n  health, he reached his native country only to die, September\n  8th, 1853, in the fortieth year of his age, and the heyday of a\n  bright and useful career. He was lamented by troops of friends,\n  old and young, rich and poor--the latter indeed being under\n  especial obligations to his memory. His friend, M. Amp\u00e8re,\n  became his literary executor, and undertook the task of giving\n  his complete works to the public, for which end a subscription\n  was quickly raised among those who had known and respected him\n  at Lyons and elsewhere. From the lectures which he had\n  completed and revised, from reports of others, and his own\n  manuscript notes, an edition of his complete works was formed\n  in nine volumes, comprising _La Civilisation au Cinqui\u00e8me\n  Si\u00e8cle, Etudes Germaniques, Les Po\u00ebtes Franciscains, Dante et\n  la Philosophie Catholique au Treizi\u00e8me Si\u00e8le_, and\n  _M\u00e9langes_,\n  to which were added two volumes of his letters.\n\n{432}\n\n  \"The work which has now been translated forms the first two\n  volumes of the above series, and was intended by the author as\n  the opening of the grand historical treatise which he had\n  designed. As it was delivered originally in the shape of\n  lectures, and preserves that form in the French edition, it has\n  been necessary, in order to preserve the continuity of the\n  historical narrative, to alter the constructions occasionally,\n  and to pass over a sentence here and there which refers solely\n  to the audience of students to which the lectures were\n  originally addressed.\"\n\n---\n\n  The Illustrated Catholic Sunday-School Library.\n  First series of 12 volumes, pp. 144 each.\n  New York: The Catholic Publication Society,\n  126 Nassau street. 1868.\n\nThis is the initial set of a New Illustrated Catholic\nSunday-School Library, now in preparation by the Catholic\nPublication Society. It contains 12 handsome volumes, put up in a\nneat paper box. The titles of the volumes in this, the first\nseries, are as follows:\n  _Madeleine, the Rosi\u00e8re;_\n  _The Crusade of the Children;_\n  _Tales of the Affections;_\n  _Adventures of Travel;_\n  _Truth and Trust;_\n  _Select Popular Tales;_\n  _The Rivals;_\n  _The Battle of Lepanto and The Relief of Vienna;_\n  _Scenes and Incidents at Sea;_\n  _The School-Boys and The Boy and the Man;_\n  _Beautiful Little Rose;_\n  and _Florestine, or Unexpected Joy_.\nFrom the above list it will be seen that the set comprises\nfiction, history, and adventures. This set of books has been\nselected with an eye to give our Catholic youth useful as well as\nentertaining reading. The illustrations are good, but might be\nbetter--however, they are a great improvement on the class of\nillustrations heretofore printed in our Catholic books. The type,\npaper, and binding are excellent. We hope these books will be\nextensively used as premiums in our schools, as well as find a\nplace in every Catholic library in the country.\n\n---\n\n  Assemblee Generale Des Catholiques en Belgique.\n  27 Sept., 1867. Bruxelles: Devaux.\n\nThis large volume of 900 royal octavo pages, which has been just\nreceived from M. Ducpetiaux, of Brussels, is a complete record of\nthe transactions of the late Catholic Congress of Malines. Among\nother things it contains the complete report of F. Hecker on the\nstate of Catholicity in the United States, correctly translated\ninto French. It is truly surprising to see what an immense amount\nof business can be transacted in one week, when all are intent\nupon doing the work in hand, and nothing else. Some of our\nlegislators might learn a valuable lesson in this regard from\nthis volume. The noisy and vulgar writers for the newspapers, and\nthe other clamorous declaimers in speech and print, who are\nconstantly repeating their hoarse outcry of ignorance and\nsuperstition against the Catholics of Europe, would be completely\nsilenced and put to shame, if that were a possible thing, if the\nrecords of the Congress of Malines could be placed in the hands\nof all their intelligent readers. We may safely challenge the\nworld to produce another similar volume, bearing so clear an\nimpress of intelligence, good taste, patriotism, philanthropy,\nand religious zeal as this. Give us only a sufficient quantity of\nCatholicity like this, and we will renovate the earth.\n\n---\n\nReceived from Kelly & Piet, Baltimore:\n\n  _The Ghost_; a comedy in three acts. Taken from the\n  French. Pp. 50. Price, 50 cents.\n\n  _The Banquet of Theodulus; or, The Reunion of the Different\n  Christian Communions._ By the late Baron de Starck. New\n  edition. Pp.204. Price, $1.\n\n  From H. M'Grath, Philadelphia: _White's Confutation of the\n  Church of Englandism, and Correct Exposition of the Catholic\n  Faith_. Translated from the Latin by E. W. O'Mahony. 1 vol.,\n  pp. 342. New Edition. Price, $1.25.\n\n---\n\n\"The Catholic Publication Society\" has in press, and will soon\npublish, the second series of the new _Illustrated Catholic\nSunday-School Library_, and a new edition of _Moehler's\nSymbolism; Problems of the Age, Nellie Netterville_, and _A\nSister's Story_ are now being printed, and will be ready in a\nshort time.\n\n----------\n\n{433}\n\n            THE CATHOLIC WORLD.\n\n       Vol. VII., No. 40.--July, 1868.\n\n\n      A Plea For Liberty Of Conscience.\n\n\nForeseeing that we shall be obliged, in this present article, to\npresent some very unpalatable truths to a portion of our readers,\nwe assure them in the outset that we do not wish unnecessarily to\nrevive unpleasant recollections.\n\nFacts are facts, however, history is history, and truth is truth;\nand so long as we do not cherish a malevolent spirit, or seek to\nembitter and envenom the minds of our fellow-men against each\nother, there is no reason why we should not have liberty to speak\nplainly, even about very ugly and very discreditable things. On\nthe present occasion, we use this liberty in defence of the weak\nand defenceless against tyranny and oppression, in defence of the\nrights of conscience and religious freedom in the case of a\nconsiderable number of persons grossly disregarded and violated.\nThe right which we undertake to defend is the right to embrace,\nprofess, and practise the Catholic religion; and the wrong which\nwe wish to contend against is the system of domestic and social\ntyranny by which this right is impeded. It may appear to some a\nvery curious statement, yet we venture to make it boldly, that in\nevery part of the world where the English race is dominant,\nCatholics have been engaged, ever since the era of Protestant\nascendency, in a struggle for liberty of conscience against\nspiritual tyranny, either political, social, or both combined. We\ndo not propose to go back to the period of penal laws, civil\ndisabilities, and legal persecution in Great Britain and America,\njust at present. This is a chapter in history already tolerably\nwell elucidated and likely to be still further commented upon in\nthe future. We will let it pass, however, for the present, and\nconfine our view to a more recent period, during which,\ntheoretically speaking, in England Catholics have enjoyed full\ntoleration, and in the United States equal liberty with other\ncitizens.\n\nNotwithstanding this theoretical liberty. Catholics have been\nexposed, as every one knows, to outbreaks of popular violence, in\nwhich their blood has been shed, their churches and other\nproperty burned and destroyed, and their religion made the object\nof denunciation, vituperation, and ridicule in a wholesale\nmanner.\n{434}\nThe primary cause of this state of things is to be found in the\nrepresentation which Protestant preachers and writers have made\nof the Catholic religion. On this head we will content ourselves\nwith quoting the language of a Protestant clergyman, the Rev.\nLeonard W. Bacon, of Williamsburg, L. I., which we have just seen\nin a report of one of his sermons published in the _Brooklyn\nTimes_ for March 17th, 1868:\n\n\"The duty of considering the question now submitted to us has\nrequired me to stand before shelves filled with volumes of\nantipapal literature, and to glance from page to page of its\ncontents. The character of much of that literature is a shame and\na scandal to the cause in which it is uttered. It is full of evil\nand uncharitable talk against Romanists and their clergy, and\ndeformed with bad temper and bad logic and reckless assertion.\" A\nfew sentences further on he designates a certain class of writers\nagainst the Catholic religion as the \"scurrilous crew of\nantipopery-mongers, who make a trade of the prejudices and\npassions of the American public, feeding them with vituperation\nand invective.\"\n\nThis description applies to a class of writers in England and\nIreland equally as well as to the class designated among\nourselves. We pass over all that the general body of the Catholic\nclergy and people have had to suffer from the general prejudice\nagainst them created and excited by the calumnies and invectives\nof these writers and declaimers against their religion. We fix\nour attention upon one point only, what those persons have had\nand still have to suffer from this prejudice who have become\nCatholics from conviction and choice, or who have wished to do\nso, and would have done so, had they not been deterred by the\nviolent opposition they have encountered.\n\nIn England, a little stream of reconversion began to set back to\nthe ancient church during the cruel and despotic reign of\nElizabeth, which continued to run during several succeeding\nreigns, but at last was either totally or almost dried up. Its\nsource received a new supply through the influence of the French\nclergy who were refugees in England, and at length the current\nbegan to flow more fully and strongly than ever. Within the last\ntwenty-five years the movement of return to Catholic unity has\nbeen steadily progressing, until it has become so considerable as\nto attract universal attention, and awaken general anxiety\nconcerning its probable results. In the United States, a few rare\nand isolated instances of conversion occurred from time to time\nduring the early part of the present century, which have become\nmuch more numerous within the past twenty-five years, from\nvarious causes which we need not specify. At present, there are\nprobably fifty thousand converts within the fold of the Catholic\nChurch of this Republic, a great many more who would gladly\nbecome Catholics if there were no sacrifices to be made in order\nto do so, and an indefinite number of persons who are more or\nless favorably predisposed toward the Catholic religion or\npartially convinced of its truth. From the first day on which\nthese strayed children of the holy Mother Church began to retrace\ntheir steps to her blessed fold to the present moment, there has\nbeen essentially the same story to tell of the disregard and\nviolation of that liberty of conscience and right of religious\nfreedom which Protestants have been so loudly proclaiming ever\nsince they have had existence.\n{435}\nIn the earlier period of this disastrous epoch, some have\nsuffered a literal martyrdom, and all along, down to the present\ntime, many others have endured a moral martyrdom which is perhaps\nharder to bear as well as more lingering in its agony. Very many\nhave needed a virtue and constancy truly heroic or bordering on\nthe heroic, in order to nerve themselves to the sacrifices and to\npush through the opposition which they have been forced to\nencounter as the condition of becoming members of the Catholic\nChurch and following the voice of their reason and conscience.\n\nThose whose memory goes back over the last twenty or twenty-five\nyears, can recall the storm of indignation and obloquy evoked by\nthe first remarkable conversions which took place as the sequel\nof the Catholicizing movement originating at Oxford. As a general\nrule, the converts in England, even though belonging to the\nhighest classes in society, including the nobility, and well\nknown for their exemplary moral character, found themselves\nostracized from the circles in which they had been wont to move,\nshunned by their most intimate friends, in many instances\nexcluded from intercourse wholly or in great measure with the\nmembers of their own families. Some persons of high rank were\nobliged to go abroad, in order to find the society of persons of\ntheir own class which they needed for themselves and their\nfamilies. It was the same in our own country. A convert to the\nCatholic Church found himself treated as an individual who had\nabjured Christianity, engaged in a conspiracy against his country\nand the human race, or as if he had been detected in perjury or\nforging notes. Every one was speculating upon the motives and\ncause of his strange conduct, as they have been recently, in\nEngland upon the Rev. Mr. Speke's sudden disappearance and\nmysterious rambles. Insanity was the most frequent and the most\ncharitable reason assigned for an act generally considered as\nutterly unreasonable and disreputable. Some were excluded from\nthe bosoms of their own families; some were disinherited by those\nwhose heirs of blood they would have been; and others, who were\nhelpless, dependent persons, were thrown upon the world by near\nand rich relations, who had hitherto supported them, and would\ngladly have continued to do so had they consented to smother\ntheir consciences. Some have been thrown out of business and\nemployment, reduced to straits in order to gain a living, or even\nto extreme poverty and suffering. We do not allude now to those\nProtestant clergymen with families who have resigned their\nbenefices in the Church of England, or given up their salaried\noffices in the Protestant Churches of the United States. The\nsacrifices made by these individuals, although very great, were\nunavoidably necessary, and cannot be attributed to any injustice\nor illiberality in the Protestant community. But we refer to\nthose cases where persons have been deserted and abandoned by\nthose on whose previous good-will, patronage, or custom they had\nbeen dependent for the means of gaining their living, for no\nother reason than the simple fact of their becoming Catholics. We\nmay add to these more serious matters the infinitude of petty\ngrievances and annoyances to which many persons are subjected by\ntheir relatives and friends. Their religion is attacked and\nridiculed, without regard to the proprieties of polite\nintercourse, as if a Catholic were out of the category of persons\nwhose convictions and sentiments are entitled to respect.\n{436}\nObstacles are placed in the way of their fulfilling the duties of\ntheir religion. Their children are enticed to eat meat on days of\nabstinence, to attend Protestant churches, to read anticatholic\nbooks, to shun the society of Catholics, without regard to the\nconscience of the child or the authority of the parent. Every\npossible influence is brought to bear upon them to make them feel\nthat their religion places them at a social disadvantage, and\nthat Protestantism is more genteel and respectable. In short, if\nwe try to imagine the state of things which converts to\nChristianity had to struggle with in Rome and the gentile world\nafter the laws had ceased to persecute, but before the Christian\nreligion had ceased to be a despised and unpopular religion, we\nshall have a very good counterpart of the present condition of\nCatholic converts in England and the United States.\n\nThe trials and difficulties of those who are on the way to the\nCatholic Church are even greater than those which have to be\nencountered afterward. Not to speak of the interior trials which\nare necessarily involved in the process of conversion, even for\nthose who are perfectly free and independent, or even placed\nunder influences which facilitate the transition to Catholicity,\nthere are exterior difficulties in the case of most persons of\nthe gravest and most distressing nature. Besides the opposition\nof relatives and friends, in the shape of argument, entreaty,\nexpostulation, sorrowful disapprobation, which is the more\npainful and the harder to be overcome the more kind and\naffectionate it is in manner and spirit, the dread of wounding\nand grieving those who are dearest and most respected,\ndisappointing their hopes and incurring their displeasure, there\nis often to be encountered the might of spiritual tyranny, the\nviolence of a parent's or husband's despotic will, and, in short,\na _persecution_ worse to be borne than would be a summary\ntrial and execution. Unhappily, these trials are often too great\nfor the courage of those who have received the inward vocation to\nthe Catholic faith, and who are required to undergo so much if\nthey would follow it. Some are afraid of losing caste, some of\nbeing turned out of doors, some of losing their livelihood;\nothers are afraid of encountering the anger and reproaches of\ntheir friends, or the scorn and calumny of the world, or the loss\nof popularity. There are those who are deterred by their dainty\nand fastidious dislike of mingling with the poor, and who cannot\nbring themselves to go to a church which is humble or mean in its\nappearance, to receive the sacraments from a priest of unpolished\nexterior. But these last have themselves only to blame, although\nwe may commiserate their weakness, and lay the chief blame of it\non the false maxims prevalent in the community at large.\n\nIt would be easy to cite numerous instances in illustration of\nall that we have just said upon this subject, from personal\nknowledge or the testimony of others; and if it were possible for\nthe complete history of the conversions to the Catholic Church\nwhich have occurred during the last quarter of a century to be\nwritten and published, it would be, for the most part, only an\nextensive commentary upon the statements we have made. Even then\nthe saddest part of the story must remain untold, unless all\nthose who have been deterred from obeying the voice of conscience\ncould be induced to publish their confessions to the world, and\nthose who have died in perplexity and distress for the want of\nthose sacraments which their own cowardice or the refusal of\ntheir friends prevented them from receiving, could come back from\nthe grave to add their testimony to that of the living.\n\n{437}\n\nThe writer of these pages was acquainted with a gentleman of\neminent position in the world, who was for a long time a Catholic\nat heart, and who on his death-bed desired to see a priest with\nwhom he was intimately acquainted, that he might receive the last\nsacraments from his hands. This priest, who was a man of the\ngreatest dignity of character and universally venerated in the\ncommunity, called at the house several times, was politely\nreceived, but never permitted to see the dying man. When the poor\nold man perceived his last hour drawing near, he called his\nfaithful Irish nurse to his bedside, as the only true friend to\nwhom he could open his grief, and confided to her the sorrow that\nwas darkening his dying moments. He told her that he desired to\nsee a priest, to make his confession and to receive the last\nsacraments, but that his request was denied, so that he had given\nup all hope of his salvation, and believed himself doomed to die\nin despair. The good girl comforted and soothed him, assured him\nthat he need not distrust the mercy of God, and explained to him\nthat in his case a perfect contrition for his sins would suffice\nfor their full remission. He begged of her to teach him how to\nmake the acts of faith, hope, charity, and contrition, to recite\nprayers by his side, and to help him to prepare for death. She\ndid so, and through her holy ministrations his soul was\ntranquillized, so that he died in peace.\n\nThe writer was once sent for by a man of unusual intelligence and\nplain, respectable standing, who was in reduced circumstances,\nand dying of a slow consumption. He learned from the lips of this\nman that he had been for some time perfectly convinced of the\ntruth of the Catholic religion, and was satisfied that it was his\nduty to be received into the church. Nevertheless, it was\nimpossible to persuade him to act on his convictions, because he\nwas sure that the assistance of certain societies, upon which his\nfamily depended, would be withdrawn. He hoped to recover, and\npromised that, if he did, he would profess his faith openly; but\nwe never heard anything more from him, and have never heard the\nconclusion of his sad history.\n\nIt is but a few months since a young widow lady, a convert, was\nturned out of house and home, not very far from our own city,\nafter the decease of her father, with whom she had been residing,\nby her own brother, for the sole reason that he did not wish to\nlive in the same house with a papist. We will not multiply\ninstances; but they will rise up in abundance before the memories\nof many who will read these pages; and if a recording angel could\ntake down what will be remembered, thought, and felt by all whose\neyes will peruse these lines, they would be transformed from a\nbrief and tame summary into a whole volume of living and pathetic\ninterest far surpassing the most thrilling tales of fiction;\nTears will be shed, sad memories will throng upon many minds,\nmany hearts will ache, we are assured, over the words we are\nwriting in perfect calmness and composure, and without any direct\nintention of awakening emotion. Some will think of trials past,\nsome of trials present, and others will recall to mind their own\nweakness and timidity in the hour when they were tried and found\nwanting.\n{438}\nThere are many others, however, and will be many more hereafter,\nto whom this plea for the liberty of conscience will be, as we\ncordially trust, not merely a subject of personal interest, but\nalso a practical help in surmounting their difficulties. We\nallude to those who are now turning or who will hereafter turn\ntheir faces wistfully toward the Catholic Church, but have first\nto overcome the obstacles we have described above before they can\nenter its portal. For this class of persons we have the most\nprofound sentiment of pity and sympathy. The rich and\nindependent, the able-minded and able-bodied, who can take care\nof themselves, men who can assert their own rights, and those\ngenerous youths to whom a glorious career is open in the\npriesthood, do not claim our sympathy, for they do not need it.\nBut we pity the helpless and dependent; those who struggle with\npoverty and live on the bounty of others, delicate, gentle women,\nand all the weak, feeble children of God who would fain follow\ntheir conscience if they were let alone and not interfered with,\nbut who shrink back appalled when it is a question of nerving\nthemselves to meet opposition and push their way through trials.\nIt seems to us that there is something hard and cruel beyond all\nother forms of tyranny in that usurped, unjust despotism which is\nexercised over these tender consciences. What can be a more\nodious or flagrant violation of all right and justice than to\nattempt to crush a conscience by force, to quell it by threats,\nto wear it out by opposition, to stifle it by fear, or to lure it\nby selfish, temporal interests? All will answer this question\nalike, and admit, at least in theory, the wrong that lies in the\nattempt of any person to violate the rights of any other person's\nconscience. The only point really open to discussion is, What\nconstitutes a violation of just and rightful liberty of\nconscience? The question respecting the right or expediency of\nenforcing obedience to the dictates of conscience and the\nfulfilment of certain moral obligations is quite a different one,\nthough closely related to the antecedent question. We cannot, in\narguing with non-Catholics on these points, assume the truth of\nCatholic principles, or urge any consideration which necessarily\npresupposes the Catholic religion to be the true one. Of course,\nin the last analysis, we must come back upon the fundamental\nprinciple that the law of God is supreme and must be obeyed at\nall hazards, let come what will. No matter what human laws, what\nprivate interests, what dreadful penalties, may stand in the way,\nGod must be obeyed, conscience must be followed, duty must be\ndone. The authority of the state must be braved, human affections\nmust be disregarded, life must be sacrificed, when loyalty to the\ntruth and to the will of God requires it. Those who reject the\nauthority of the Catholic Church, however, do not admit that the\nCatholic law is the law of God; and we must therefore either make\nour sole issue with them on this precise point of the truth of\nthe Catholic doctrine, which is the same thing as a declaration\nof perpetual war, or we must find some middle term common to\nboth, upon which the peace of social relations can be settled and\nthe mutual rights and liberties of conscience be secured. We are\nobliged, therefore, to waive all claim of right and liberty to\npractise the Catholic religion, which is based on its positive\ntruth, so far as this argument is concerned, and to present only\nsuch claims as a fair-minded person, whether Protestant, Jew, or\ninfidel, may admit as just and reasonable, without changing in\nthe least his own particular opinions.\n{439}\nIt is not to be expected that all our arguments will be equally\napplicable to every class of persons, whatever their religious\nopinions may be; but we will endeavor to furnish at least one or\ntwo for each of the principal classes into which the non-Catholic\ncommunity is divided. If some of our Catholic readers are\noffended by our seeming to take a tone too apologetic and\ndefensive, we beg them to remember that the early Christian\napologists were not ashamed to do the like. They vindicated the\nChristians of their own time from such accusations as worshipping\nan ass's head and drinking the blood of infants. It is painful\nand humiliating to be obliged to vindicate ourselves from gross\ncalumnies; but it is an act of charity toward those who are\ndeceived by these calumnies, and still more toward these helpless\nand defenceless persons who must suffer from them.\n\nWe begin on the lowest possible ground by affirming that a person\nin becoming a Catholic commits no offence against the laws of\nmorality or against the civil and social laws commonly recognized\namong non-Catholics. There is no treason against society, no\noffence against domestic rights, no repudiation of any moral\nduties or obligations, nothing to make a person a bad citizen, a\nbad neighbor, a bad husband, wife, or child. There is no\ndisobedience against any lawful external authority which has any\nright to inflict any penalties affecting a person's social or\ncivil rights. There is no reason, therefore, why a person who\nembraces the Catholic religion should be treated by his\nacquaintances or society in general as a criminal, and made to\nsuffer in his social and domestic relations. In our heterogeneous\nsociety, everything is tolerated which is not _contra bonos\nmores_. That which strikes at the order and peace of the\nnatural relations binding us together in society cannot be\ntolerated even on the pretext of liberty of conscience or\nopinion. Therefore, Mormonism has no rights under our laws, and\nought not to be tolerated, and Mohammedanism could not be\ntolerated. If the Catholic Church were really what it has been\nrepresented to be by many, it could not claim liberty or even\ntoleration in non-Catholic states. But it is not what its enemies\nhave represented it to be. A person who becomes a consistent\nCatholic will be a good citizen and respect the laws. He will be\nfaithful to his social and domestic duties, and strictly\nobservant of all moral obligations. It is not the spirit of the\nCatholic religion to introduce discord or trouble into families\nor societies, or to interfere with any just and lawful rights.\nThe only annoyance which can arise will be the annoyance which\npersons wishing to violate the natural laws will meet with from\nthe conscientious observance of morality by the Catholic party.\nSuppose a Catholic lady wishes to go to Mass, to confession, to\ndevote a part of her time to meditation or charitable works? Does\nthat necessarily interfere with the perfect fulfilment of all her\nduties toward her family and society? Is it any greater liberty\nthan that which women generally expect to be conceded to them,\nand which they take at any rate, whether it is granted with a\ngood or a bad grace? Let the question be decided by the actual\nconduct of those who have become Catholics in their relations\nwith others who are not of their faith, and we are not afraid of\nthe judgment which candid and fair judges will render. Certainly,\nthen, they ought to enjoy the same liberty which is conceded to\nthose who profess any other form of religion not contrary to the\nreceived standard of good morals, and to those who profess none\nat all.\n{440}\nThose who profess the latitudinarian opinion that all religions\nare alike, and who claim unbounded liberty of opinion for all,\nought to be the first to give to Catholics the full benefit of\nthis privilege.\n\nWith those who are more strongly attached to their own form of\nreligion and hold it to be the only true one, the case is\nsomewhat more difficult. Such persons may say that a person\nbrought up in what they call the true, Evangelical, reformed\nfaith, or in the pure, apostolical, Protestant Episcopal Church,\nespecially if he has been a communicant, and most of all if he\nhas been a minister, is an apostate from his faith as a\nChristian, a renouncer of his baptism, and therefore a criminal\nbefore God and the church, if he, to use their language, becomes\na Romanist. Let it be so. When argument and persuasion have been\ntried and have failed, let the church pronounce her spiritual\ncensures on the disobedient member. We cannot complain of that.\nLet him be canonically deposed if he is a minister. We cannot\ncomplain of that, either. But is there any reason why our\nEvangelical or High-Church friends should think it necessary or\nexpedient to proceed any further? Suppose they do regard the\nperson in question as a delinquent and as an unfortunate dupe of\nerror and delusion. Will our Evangelical friends affirm the\nprinciple that none but the elect are entitled to the rights and\nprivileges arising out of natural and social relations? Will our\nHigh-Church friends affirm the same, substituting for the elect,\nconsistent members of their own communion? If not, we cannot see\nwhy they may not allow Catholics the same indulgence which they\nconcede to sinners, heretics, and infidels. We put them the plain\nquestion, whether they have any right to interfere with the\nconscience and the religion of another, or to use any kind of\ncoercion or persecution against any one, whatever may be the\nrelation in which he stands toward them. Some of them may perhaps\ndeny that a well-instructed member of that which they deem to be\nthe true church can become a Catholic conscientiously and\nsincerely. But suppose it is so. Where is the authority to compel\nhim to fulfil his conscientious obligations of a purely spiritual\nnature? We are not now speaking of young children who have not\nattained to years of full discretion, over whom parents certainly\nhave an authority which must be respected. But, apart from this\nexception, what authority can be claimed for enforcing any\nreligious obligation by any other means than an appeal to the\nconscience itself? If there are any who really think there is a\nright of excommunication in their church which extends so far as\nto exclude a person from his privileges as a member of society,\nand to reduce him to the state of one who is _vitandus_, or\nan outcast to be shunned by all, we only desire that they will\nact out their doctrine impartially and universally. Is it not, at\nleast, _inexpedient_ to appeal to it in the present state of\nsociety, while no kind of disability is contracted by those who\nprofess the principles of Bishop Colenso or Herbert Spencer?\n\nThe case may be supposed of persons, influenced by no ill feeling\nat all, who would desire to withdraw from all intimacy with\nrelatives or acquaintances who have joined the Catholic Church,\non the ground that their conversation and influence may be\ndangerous to young persons in the family. Such a motive as this\nwe can respect, for we can and must respect fidelity to\nconscience, even when it is an erroneous conscience which is\nfollowed.\n{441}\nMoreover, no one is bound to keep up any intimate relations which\ntranscend the bounds of ordinary courtesy with any persons\noutside the immediate family circle, unless it is agreeable to\nhimself to do so. But what is to be said of those who, on a plea\nof conscience, sunder the closest bonds of nature, or threaten to\ndo so? We can easily understand that a Jew, a Puritan, an\nold-fashioned Lutheran, a Presbyterian, or an English Churchman\nmight be so thoroughly absorbed in his religion, and so intense\nin his attachment to it, that the conversion of a wife or child\nto the Catholic Church would be a far worse blow to his\naffections, and a more blighting disappointment to his hopes,\nthan would be the sudden death of either one, however tenderly\nloved. An intelligent Jewish gentleman once told the writer of\nthis article that he was deterred from receiving Christian\nbaptism by the fear of causing the death of his aged father; and\nthis is not an unusual instance either among the descendants of\nthe ancient Pharisees or the adherents of the \"straitest sects\"\nof Protestant Christians. In such cases, where no softening of\nthe temper and no modification of the mental condition takes\nplace, there is no room for argument. The word of our Lord must\nbe fulfilled--that he came not to bring peace, but a sword. One\nwho has to choose between submission to the will of another and\nthe disruption of the most sacred human ties, must choose the\nlatter when the former involves the violation of a certain and\nknown law of God. There is, therefore, no other course open to a\nCatholic in such a case except the one of professing and\npractising the Catholic religion openly, without regard to\nconsequences. If they are excluded from their homes and abandoned\nby their friends, they must try to bear it patiently. We would\nscorn to appeal to the mere sentiment of human pity or to the\nmaxims of indifferentism, in arguing with any man who should say\nthat his religious principles require him to banish a wife, a\nson, or a daughter out of his house. It is our opinion, however,\nthat in most instances, after persons have had time for cool\nreflection, they will not deliberately affirm that their\nreligious principles do require these harsh measures. No one will\npretend that they require or authorize any kind of tyrannical or\nvexatious persecution, or an abandonment of those who have a\nnatural claim to protection to poverty and suffering. We are\ndisposed to think that prejudice, passion, wounded pride, and\nsimilar causes have a great deal to do with the line of conduct\nalluded to. And one good reason for thinking so is the fact that\nso many firm and consistent Protestants, and even bishops or\nother clergymen of standing, have acted differently, and have\ntreated Catholic converts even of their own families with\nkindness and courtesy. We have supposed hitherto that we were\narguing with a person who would not admit that a convert from the\nreligion he himself professes can be sincere and conscientious.\nIt is impossible, however, to sustain such a position on any\nground which the majority of intelligent non-Catholics will admit\nto be reasonable; for it can be sustained only by one of three\narguments. First, that the illumination of the Holy Spirit gives\nto the individual reason an infallible certainty of the truth of\nsome one form of anticatholic belief. Or, second, that some such\nform is at least made morally certain by rational evidence of\nsuch a kind as to exclude all probability that the Catholic\nreligion may be true.\n{442}\nOr, third, that some certain and unerring authority, to which one\nis bound to submit his private judgment, exists in one of the\nseveral communions calling itself the true church of God. The\nfirst argument cannot be brought into the forum of discussion,\nbecause there is no certain, external test by which it can be\nproved that such an illumination exists, or by whom among various\nclaimants it is possessed. The second is refuted by the simple\nfact that so many intelligent and learned persons are convinced\nby the Catholic arguments. The third is refuted by the fact that\nno one of the churches claims infallibility. High-Churchmen claim\na teaching authority for their communion, but it is not claimed\nby their church itself in any such sense as to exclude the right\nand duty of testing its claims and doctrines by private judgment\non the Scriptures. Those who make the claim of authority in\nbehalf of this church do not pretend that it is more than a\nportion of the universal church, and therefore, by the very claim\nthey put forth, directly suggest and provoke an examination of\nthe question what the universal church really teaches. The most\nlearned and eminent theologians among them distinctly assert that\nthe doctrines of the Church of England must be interpreted in\nconformity with the teaching of the Catholic Church. Will any\nreasonable person, then, pretend that one may not examine all the\nevidence that can be adduced to prove what that teaching is; or\nthat he may not conscientiously and sincerely adopt the\nconclusion that this teaching is really identical with the\ndoctrine of the Roman Church? We may cite here the judgment of\nDr. Johnson, who was a staunch Episcopalian, upon this point.\nBoswell relates it in these words: \"Sir William Scott informs me\nthat he heard Johnson say, 'A man who is converted from\nProtestantism to popery may be sincere. He parts with nothing: he\nis only superadding to what he already had. But a convert from\npopery to Protestantism gives up so much of what he has held as\nsacred as anything he retains; there is so much _laceration of\nmind_ in such a conversion that it can hardly be sincere and\nlasting.'\" [Footnote 100]\n\n  [Footnote 100: Boswell's _Johnson_. Edit, Bait., Bond,\n  1856, p. 168]\n\nIn truth, every form of dogmatic and positive Protestantism\npresents its lines of fracture from the great mass of Christendom\nso conspicuously to the eye, that it is absurd to pretend that\nits relation to that mass is not a thing to be examined and\njudged of by every one who is capable of judging for himself,\nthat is, by every one who is responsible to his conscience and to\nGod for his belief upon those doctrines affirmed by the Catholic\nChurch and denied by his own detached body. An old-fashioned,\nstrict Israelite can make a far more plausible claim for\nauthority over the conscience in behalf of the synagogue, than\nany Protestant can make for his church. The Jewish hierarchy had\nonce authority from God, and has only been superseded by the\nsovereign authority of Jesus Christ. We cannot argue with him,\ntherefore, that a Jew who renounces Judaism violates no\nobligation of conscience toward a lawful authority, except by\nadducing the evidence that Jesus is the Messias foretold by the\nprophets. Upon his own premises he must regard such a person as\nan apostate and a rebel. The only reason which could have any\nweight with him, why he should continue to show the same kindness\nto a member of his family who had been baptized as before, would\nbe, that it is better to leave such a case to the judgment of\nGod, and refrain from an exercise of severity which could do no\ngood, but rather aggravate the difficulty.\n{443}\nThe majority of Jews at present are, however, rationalists. They\nplace the essence of religion in mere Theism and natural\nmorality, regarding the peculiarities of Judaism as accidentals.\nOn their own ground, therefore, they can have no excuse for\nobtruding any claim of Judaism over the reason, conscience, or\nprivate judgment of any of their number. Take away a divinely\nappointed, infallible authority, and in all matters of purely\nreligious belief and practice each individual is in possession of\nfull liberty, for the right use of which he is responsible only\nto God. Moreover, in matters of positive, dogmatic doctrine, the\nmajority of non-Catholics acknowledge that only probability is\nattainable. Logic and good sense have brought them to this\nconclusion as contained in the premises with which they started.\nBut in questions of probability and matters of opinion, persons\nof equal sincerity and conscientiousness may differ. We are\ncertain that this will be admitted as an axiom by our\nnon-Catholic readers. But if this be so, those who profess to be\nconvinced of the truth of Catholic doctrines ought to be regarded\nas sincere and conscientious, which we think most of our\nnon-Catholic friends will also admit. Every one must see, then,\nhow contrary to every right and honorable principle it is to\nattempt to act on the minds of those who desire to become\nCatholics by any other means than argument and persuasion. How\ndangerous, how unjust, how mean it is to strive to terrify or\nwheedle them into a forced acquiescence in the will of others\nthrough human and worldly motives! It would be almost an insult\nto our readers to argue this point gravely. Those who follow the\nprinciples of Demas in the _Pilgrim's Progress_, and are in\nfavor of religion only when she walks in silver slippers, will\nnot publicly avow and defend any such base maxims, or maintain\nseriously that their great objection to the Catholic religion is,\nthat it is not sufficiently genteel. Even the _New York\nHerald_ flouts scornfully the religion of velvet cushions,\nwhich makes the elect to consist solely of the _\u00e9lite_ of\nsociety.\n\nBut at last we come at what is the real _gravamen_ of the\ncomplaint against Catholics on the part of those who are disposed\nto be fair and kindly. It is not that we hold certain doctrines\nas opinions, or adopt certain modes of worship as suited to our\ntaste. This could be allowed without difficulty as our undoubted\nright, provided we would admit that the Catholic Church is only\nthe best and most perfect among several forms of religion. But we\nmaintain its exclusive truth and legitimacy, and proclaim it to\nbe the only way of salvation. It is unpleasant for one to have\nhis wife, or children, or near friends, look upon him as a person\nexcluded from communion with them in spiritual things and out of\nthe way of salvation. Very true! But what does this prove? It\nproves that the ideal of society is only actualized in religious\nunity. It makes no difference what your ideal is, whether it is\nsomething purely natural, or, under some form, supernatural.\nThere must be unity either in some negative or some positive\nform. That is, there must be something to give those who are\nclosely connected on the earth the same idea of the tendency and\nend of this earthly life, and of the future life which is to\nsucceed it. Yet we find that society is not in this ideal state\namong us. It is impossible for Catholics to sacrifice their\nconvictions and violate the dictates of their conscience, for the\nsake of a unity which they believe to be chimerical.\n{444}\nWe believe that it is only the Catholic religion which can bring\nsociety to its ideal perfection, and therefore we shall, for this\nreason, as well as for higher ones, do all in our power to make\nit universal. Probably our Evangelical friends await the\nmillennium, and other classes of the religious community await\nthe universal triumph of some kind of church of the future, while\nthe sceptics look for a millennium of science and common sense.\nMeanwhile, it is probable that some time must elapse before any\nsuch epoch shall arrive, and we must live together in all manner\nof political and social relations. It is only by a jealous regard\nfor the personal religious liberty of every individual that we\ncan live together in peace and harmony. Is it not, then, better\nthat, if we cannot immediately heal all the wounds of society, we\nshould at least alleviate them as much as possible, awaiting a\nmore radical cure at a future time?\n\nWe have already, in a former article, expressed our views upon\nthis point sufficiently, so that we need not dwell upon it any\nlonger at present. Happily, these are the views which are\npractically carried out in a great number of cases, and are\ngaining ground more and more. The state of things we have\ndescribed is becoming ameliorated even in England, but much more\nin our own country. If the just, honorable, and rational temper\nof the best class of non-Catholic Americans toward the Catholic\nreligion and its members were universal, and all persons disposed\nto become Catholics were treated with the same delicate respect\nfor their liberty of conscience which some have experienced,\nthere would be no occasion for this reclamation in behalf of that\nliberty. Those of our readers who can class themselves under this\ncategory may understand, therefore, that with them we have no\ncontroversy; but are combating an enemy as hostile to their own\ndomestic and social peace and well-being as to our own.\n\n----------\n\n          Benediction.\n\n\n  \"We go so far, and with so much trouble, to obtain the\n  blessings of certain holy persons, and of the holy father the\n  pope; yet here is the Lord of saints, and the God of whom Pius\n  IX. is only the vicegerent, and we cannot intermit our\n  socialities or forego our ease to receive his blessing!\"\n                                      E. A. S.\n\n\n          The Invitation.\n\n  The balmy May is breathing on the air,\n  The rich, red sun sinks slowly down the west.\n  Come forth, dear soul, and be an honored guest:\n  One doth invite thee to his house all fair;\n  One great and good, this eve, doth wait thee there.\n  Nay, nay, not that dear friend whose hand hath prest\n  So oft thy own; not any ruler blest.\n  Of happiest clime: a nobler friendship share.\n  Ah! no; no poet doth such kindness move;\n  No wise, nor good, nor grand, nor holy, whom\n  The race reveres: a better friend would prove\n  His love; a greater asks thee to his home.\n  Within the tabernacle of his love,\n  The Lord of heaven awaits thee: wilt thou come?\n\n---------\n\n{445}\n\n\n    Nellie Netterville; Or, One Of The Transplanted.\n\n\n    CHAPTER IX.\n\n\nTo this proposition Nellie joyfully assented, and he led the way\naccordingly up a rocky path winding westward toward the cliffs.\nOnce or twice he turned as if to give her aid, but Nellie skipped\nlike a young kid from rock to rock, exulting in her independence;\nand, finding that she declined assistance, he went on in silence\nuntil they reached a point among the cliffs, high enough to give\nthem a full sea view toward the west.\n\nThe Atlantic lay beneath them, rolling in its mighty volume of\ndeep waters, and dashing them against the cliffs below with the\nstrength and calmness of a sleepy giant. Nellie had often seen\nthe _sea_, that narrow strip of water, namely, which\nseparated her own birth-home from the birth-place of her kindred;\nbut of the mighty ocean, with its thousand voices coming up from\nthe deep caves below, its murmurings and whisperings, its\ninfinite variety of tints and aspects, its lights and shadows,\nits clear green depths and crystal purity, such as no smaller\nsheet of water can ever boast of, she had never even dreamed\nbefore; and as her eye roamed over the smooth expanse until it\nreached that uttermost point where sea and sky seem to blend\ntogether, a sense of vastness and power fell upon her soul which\nalmost oppressed her. For a few minutes Roger watched her as she\nstood there in hushed and breathless admiration, but just as the\nsilence was beginning to be oppressive he broke in by saying,\nsoftly, \"Yes, yes! it is all bright, and smooth, and shining now;\nbut I have stood here on an autumn evening, and watched it when\nit was black and swollen, brimful beneath the coming storm--when\nthe wind seemed almost a living power--a thing to be seen as well\nas felt--as it swept over that mighty mass of waters, mingling\nits hoarse voice with theirs, and forcing on their waves, as a\ngeneral forces on his troops, until it dashed them in a very\nfrenzy of fruitless valor against the beetling cliffs beneath us.\nAnd, in truth, I almost prefer it in those moods,\" he added, like\none thinking his own thoughts aloud; \"for then it looks simply\nlike what it is, a huge monster ever greedy for its prey,\nwhereas, now, in this lazy sunshine, it seems to me nothing more\nor less than a great smiling treachery, wooing its victims toward\nit, only that it may afterward the more thoroughly engulf them.\"\n\n\"It is a great, beautiful terror, even as it is to-day,\" said\nNellie breathlessly. \"What a height we are above it! It makes me\ngiddy only to look down?\"\n\n\"Do not look, then,\" said Roger anxiously, \"but rather turn\ninward toward yonder isle, which is only separated from the\nmainland by a narrow strip of water. There are cliffs upon that\nisland which look westward over the ocean and rise eighteen\nhundred feet above it, and the inhabitants will tell you that,\nwhen the weather is calm enough, you can see from thence, at the\nsetting of the sun, the 'Hy Brysail'--the enchanted isle, the\n'Tir-na-n'oge,' or land of eternal youth and beauty, to which\ndeath and sorrow never come, and where (so the old legend tells\nus) a hundred years of this mortal life pass swiftly as a single\nday.\n{446}\nFew, as you may well suppose, are the favored mortals who have\never reached it, and fewer still, if any, who have ever come back\nto tell the tale of their adventures.\"\n\n\"It is a pretty legend,\" said Nellie, straining her eyes over the\nocean as earnestly as though she seriously expected to discover\nthe fairy island of which he spoke floating on its bosom. \"Have\nyou ever really seen anything like land in that direction?\"\n\n\"If you choose, we can go some of these days on a voyage of\ndiscovery,\" said Roger, smiling at her seriousness; \"only, if we\ndo find 'Hy-Brysail,' I warn you that we shall have to stay\nthere. Such is the law by which adventurers to its shores are\nbound. It does not seem a hard law either, does it? Would you\nobject to it. Mistress Netterville?' to be young and beautiful\nfor ever! Sorrow forgotten as if it had never been, beneath the\nspells of that magic land!\"\n\nNellie drew a long breath, and her blue eyes grew well-nigh black\nwith suppressed feeling as she looked westward toward the ocean.\nBut she did not answer.\n\n\"Well,\" he said, finding she would not speak, \"will you try the\nadventure with me, or do you still prefer earth and its passing\nshowers to this land of eternal sunshine?\"\n\nNellie sighed--it almost seemed as if she were making a real\nchoice; and when he playfully repeated, \"Have you decided? which\nshall it be--this old kingdom of Grana Uaille or Tir-na-n'oge?\"\nshe quite seriously replied:\n\n\"Not Tir-na-n'oge, certainly; though a year ago, perhaps, I might\nhave chosen otherwise. But youth and its sunshine is not real\nhappiness, after all, although sometimes it looks very like it;\nand even if it were, there is something to me in a life of\nhappiness, simple and unalloyed, less noble, and less like the\nchoice of a soul predestined to eternity, than in one of sorrow\nbravely borne.\"\n\n\"Sorrow has done its work well for you, at all events,\" said\nRoger, moved to a higher feeling of reverence than, two minutes\nbefore, he would have thought it possible to have entertained for\na creature so young and still so childish.\"\n\n\"Woe to the soul upon which it does it not, once that soul has\nbeen delivered to its guidance,\" Nellie answered softly, and\nalmost as it were beneath her breath.\n\nRoger gazed upon her silently. It seemed as if she were changing\nbeneath his very eyes from a bright, impulsive child into a woman\nof deep and earnest feeling--a woman in every fibre of her fine,\nstrong nature--and yet still in the untried freshness of her\nsixteen years as innocent and confiding as a child.\n\n\"Then you prefer a happiness which would bring with it the zest\nof contrast?\" he added, as if to prove her further.\n\n\"I would prefer, at all events, a happiness founded upon duty,\"\nshe answered gravely; and then, as if half-ashamed of her own\nearnestness, she asked him lightly:\n\n\"Is it not strange to find these floating traditions of a\nparadise of peace and plenty among a people so completely bereft\nof both as these poor creatures, by their very condition as a\nconquered race, must necessarily be?\"\n\n\"For that very reason!\" he answered quickly; \"for that very\nreason! Men despised as savages and treated as wild beasts, will\neither brood over schemes of real vengeance or soothe themselves\nwith dreams of unreal bliss.\n{447}\nIs it wonderful, therefore, that these poor people, with their\ndreamy and imaginative natures, should sometimes look wistfully\nover the broad ocean, and fancy they see a land where (if once\nonly it could be reached) flowers, and joy, and eternal sunshine,\nwould console them for the misery endured among these barren\nrocks, in which they have been forced by their enemies to seek--I\nwas going to say, a home--it would have been far more correct to\nhave said--a prison?\"\n\n\"Nay, but now it is you that are unjust,\" said Nellie,\nsmiling--\"unjust to this fair land you live in. The kingdom of\nGrana Uaille can in no sense of the word be called a prison; and\neven were it ten times less beautiful than it is, to me it would\nstill remain the one bright memory left me to look back to in\nthis great year of sorrow.\"\n\nRoger turned quickly round, but Nellie met his eye with such a\nlook of frank candor and unconsciousness as to the possibility of\nany hidden meaning being attachable to her words, that he felt\ntacitly rebuked beneath it, and merely said:\n\n\"Ay; but, Mistress Netterville, I was talking of a home.\"\n\n\"Home!\" said Nellie softly--\"home, after all, is but the place\nwhere the heart garners up its treasures. These were almost the\nlast words my dear mother said to me, and now I feel their truth;\nfor if she were but once more at my side, the barrenest island in\nClew Bay would become to me, I think, at once as home-like almost\nand dear as Netterville itself.\"\n\nAgain Roger seemed on the point of saying _something_, but\nagain he checked himself and was silent.\n\nNellie saw the flush upon his brow, and interpreted it her own\nway.\n\n\"You are not angry. Colonel O'More,\" she said, with the\nsimplicity of a child; \"surely you do not fancy, because I spoke\nof Netterville, that I am ungrateful for the kindness which has\nmade this island like a second home to me.\"\n\n\"No, indeed,\" he answered, with a smile so bright that it must\nhave reassured her even if he had not said a word in answer. \"No,\nindeed. I was, or at all events I _am_, only thinking how I\ncan best persuade you and Lord Netterville to consider this\nisland as your home, even in the absence of its lawful owner.\"\n\n\"Absence,\" said Nellie; \"are you going then, and wherefore?\"\n\n\"Wherefore?\" said O'More quickly. \"I marvel that you cannot\nguess. Because, Mistress Netterville, though I live upon this\nisland, and though its inhabitants acknowledge me as their\nchieftain, it is yet a sorry fact that I am poor, poorer in\nproportion than the poorest of the number; an outlaw besides,\nwith every man's hand and sword against me, and nothing but the\ntraditions of past greatness to soothe, or, which much oftener is\nthe case, to add bitterness to the meanness of my present\nstation.\"\n\n\"Why call it meanness?\" said Nellie, flashing up. \"You have\nfought and lost for your king and country, as we all have fought\nand lost; and your enemies may take your lands indeed, but they\ncannot rob you of the glory of the cause for which you have\ncontended, nor can they make you other than you are, a descendant\nof brave old Grana Uaille and the inheritor of her kingdom.\"\n\n\"Kingdom!\" said Roger, with a little bitter laugh. \"Turn your\neyes inland, Mistress Netterville, and look from the northern\npoint of Clew Bay southward toward the spot where Croagh Patrick\ncasts its shade upon the bright waters.\n{448}\nThat was the old kingdom of Grana Uaille, and my inheritance upon\nthe day that I was born. My earliest recollections therefore are\nconnected with this wild land, and every rock and cave in its\nfair winding coast-line was as familiar to me in my childish days\nas the toys in their nursery are to more tenderly nurtured\nchildren. But they sent me at last to Spain for that education\nwhich would have been denied me here, and I only came back (while\nstill a mere raw boy) to fight under the banner of my kinsman, I\nwill not trouble you with a history of that war; you know it,\nalas, too well already! But when Preston took refuge in Galway,\nand the other chiefs of the confederation dispersed in different\ndirections, I made the best of my way hither, hoping, amid the\nwilds and fastnesses of my own country, to be permitted to remain\nat peace. Rumors reached me on the way of the great scheme of the\ntransplantation, and of the numbers flocking from the eastern\ncounties to usurp, against their will, the possessions of their\npoorer brethren in the west. Soon after that, came tidings that\nthe enemy had reserved the coast-line for themselves, then that\nthey had swarmed over into some of the Clew Bay islands, and\nthen, at last, that they had taken possession of and fortified\nCarrig-a-hooly, the old castle of Grana and the spot where I was\nborn. Still I pressed unhesitatingly forward; for I remembered\nthe 'Rath,' and knowing that it was, or used to be, almost a\nruin, I hoped it would have escaped them, and that I might find\nthere a refuge and concealment for the moment. Mistress\nNetterville, you can guess at the result. I went as you went, and\nfound as you found, that it was occupied already. Major\nHewitson--\"\n\n\"What of Major Hewitson?\" a voice asked impatiently at his elbow.\nRoger turned, and found himself face to face with Henrietta, who\nhad glided so quietly up the mountain path that neither he nor\nNellie had an idea of her presence until she announced it by this\nquestion.\n\nRemembering her kindness of the day before, Nellie's first\nimpulse had been to greet her eagerly; her next was to retreat a\nstep behind O'More, with an uncomfortable though only half\nacknowledged consciousness that she herself would be considered\nby Henrietta as one too many in the coming conversation. There\nwas, in truth, a flush on the young lady's brow and a sparkle in\nher eye, by no means inviting to familiarity, and without seeming\nconscious even of Nellie's presence, she repeated the question\nangrily to O'More:\n\n\"What of Major Hewitson? What of the owner of yonder castle?\"\n\nRoger looked at her steadily, then removing his cap, and speaking\nin his most courtly tones, he answered quietly:\n\n\"Nothing, Mistress Hewitson, nothing at least, unfit to be said\nin the presence of his daughter.\"\n\n\"That won't do!\" cried Henrietta passionately, \"that won't do. I\nheard his name as I came up, and I will know what you were saying\nof him.\"\n\nRoger laughed a bright, merry laugh, which Nellie thought no\nill-humor could have resisted, and he answered frankly:\n\n\"Nay, for that matter. Mistress Hewitson, if you insist upon it,\nyou are quite welcome to hear not only all that I did say, but\nall likewise that I was about to say on the subject of your\nfather. I had just observed to Mistress Netterville (whose person\nyou seem somehow to have forgotten since yesterday) that I found\nMajor Hewitson in possession of my last refuge on the mainland,\nand I was going to add that, as he had thus made _his_\nfortune at my expense, I trusted he would not endeavor to prevent\nme seeking mine, where in these days Irishmen most often find\nthem, under the golden flag of Spain.\"\n\n{449}\n\nSpain! Nellie's heart leaped up suddenly, and then grew very\nstill. This, then, was the meaning of that word \"absence\" which\nhad already startled and, even against her will, disturbed her.\nThis was his meaning. He was about to leave Ireland for ever, and\nmake a home for himself in his mother's land. Nellie's heart\nleaped up, and then grew very still!\n\nWhen she returned to a consciousness of the outward world around\nher, Henrietta was saying eagerly:\n\n\"Do not wait to know what he may think upon the subject; but go\nat once. Remember you are an outlaw, and that an outlaw is one\nwhom the law permits to be hunted like a wild beast, and slain\nwhenever or however he may be taken.\"\n\n\"And this, then, is the fate which your worthy father is\npreparing for me?\" Roger asked in a tone of bantering politeness,\nwhich, considering the circumstances and Henrietta's evident\nexcitement, Nellie could not help thinking almost unkind. \"It is\nthus, like a wild beast, as you rightly term it, that he is about\nto set upon me and slay me unawares.\"\n\n\"I do not say it! I do not know it!\" said Henrietta, almost\nsobbing. \"I only say--only know that there are fresh troops of\nsoldiers coming in to-day; that there have been for at least a\nweek past prayer-meetings and preachings and waitings on the\nLord, things which all portend a coming danger, and one that\nprobably will point toward you. Colonel O'More, be merciful; take\nmy warning for what it may be worth, and ask no further\nquestions. Remember, that if I think not with my father in these\nmatters, I am still, at all events, his daughter. And now I must\nbegone, for with all my skill at the oar, and little Paudeen's to\nboot, I shall have hard work to get back in time for the mid-day\nmeal, and the long and weary homily by which it is seasoned and\nmade pleasant to unbelievers like myself.\"\n\nHenrietta turned as if to depart, but yet she did not. She seemed\nto be struggling hard with some hidden feeling, and at last, with\nan effort so violent that it was visible, at least to Roger's\neyes, she flung her arms round Nellie's neck.\n\n\"I know nothing of you but your name, young mistress,\" she said\nin a smothered voice; \"but I know, at least, that I and mine have\nwrought you a great injustice. That injustice unhappily I have no\npower to repair; but yet, if ever you have need of any help that\nI can give, and will come and ask me for it, believe me, instead\nof heaping coals of fire on my head, you will be giving me the\nonly real happiness I can feel, so long as I know that, by my\nresidence in these lands, I am usurping the rights of others.\"\n\nHenrietta almost flung Nellie from, her as she finished speaking,\nand then, without another word, either to her or Roger, she took\nthe down path of the cliff, and was out of sight in a moment.\n\nThe two whom she left behind her continued silent, until they saw\nthe \"corragh,\" or small boat, in which she had come, and which\nhad been waiting for her beneath the cliffs, gliding once more\nout into the open bay; then they also turned their steps\nhomeward, and Roger, with no small dash of enthusiasm in his\nmanner, exclaimed:\n\n{450}\n\n\"Brave girl! would you believe it, this is the second time she\nhas given me notice of a snare? only the first time,\" he added,\nwith perhaps some intuitive guess at the sort of questioning that\nmight be going on in Nellie's mind, \"only the first time it was\nby Paudeen, who sails her boat, and who, she well knows, may be\ntrusted in all that regards the safety of his chieftain. But what\nis the old white-haired gospeller up to now, I wonder? I own I am\nfairly puzzled!\"\n\n\"We are not, I trust, the cause of this fresh trouble to you?\"\nsaid Nellie timidly.\n\n\"Oh! no. I think not; for your sake I trust not,\" he answered\nthoughtfully. \"It seemed to me to be altogether personal to\nmyself; for if it had been about the priest, I think she would\nhave said so.\"\n\n\"The priest! where is he?\" Nellie asked. \"I did not even know\nthat there was one upon the island.\"\n\n\"Not upon this island, but on another, as you shall see to-morrow\nif you choose to make one of his Sunday congregation. But yonder\nis your grandfather watching for you: had we not better go and\njoin him?\"\n\nNellie assented, and quickening her pace almost to a run, she was\nin her grandfather's arms ere Roger, who came on more leisurely,\nhad time to join them.\n\nLord Netterville gazed lovingly into Nellie's face, and smiled as\nhe saw the bright color which exercise had called into her pale\ncheeks. Then he turned courteously toward his host. Perhaps he\nhad some vague idea in his old head that the fate of his\ngrandchild was to be henceforth, in some way or other, connected\nwith that of Roger; perhaps he was not himself aware of the\nsignificance of his action; but this at all events is certain,\nthat, instead of relinquishing Nellie's hand, he kept it tightly\nin his own, and when the young chieftain approached to greet him,\nlaid it silently in that of Roger.\n\nThere was enough in the action itself, and still more in the way\nin which it was done, to send the blood scarlet to Nellie's brow,\nand she struggled to release her hand. For one moment, however,\nRoger held it, gently but firmly, he even made a movement as if\nhe were about to raise it to his lips; instead of doing so,\nhowever, he dropped it quietly, and said in a low voice:\n\n\"Not now, not yet; but when you are once more at your mother's\nside, will you permit me to remind you of this moment, and to ask\nfor the treasure which I now relinquish, at the hands of her who\nis your only lawful guardian?\"\n\n\n    Chapter X.\n\nEarly the next morning, Nellie found herself gliding over the\nwaters of Clew Bay in one of the native corraghs of the country,\nunder the protection of her host. He was captain and crew all in\none, and she was his only passenger; for it had been decided on\nthe previous evening that Lord Netterville was not in a fit state\nto endure the fatigue of such a voyage, and with old Nora to look\nafter his creature comforts, and Maida to guard him in his lonely\nfortress, Roger assured his granddaughter that she need have no\nscruple in leaving him during the two or three hours required for\ntheir enterprise. And Nellie had readily obeyed; for, if the\ntruth must be told, she had begun to rely implicitly upon his\njudgment, and to submit to it as unquestioningly as if she had\nbeen a child.\n{451}\nThe little shyness produced by Lord Netterville's thoughtless\naction of the day before had entirely worn off, partly because\nshe herself had striven _womanfully_ against the feeling,\nbut chiefly because Roger, thoroughly comprehending how needful\nit was to her comfort that, during her residence in his lonely\nkingdom, she should be entirely at her ease in his society, had\nadopted, as if by instinct, precisely the affectionate, brotherly\nsort of manner which was of all others the best calculated to\nproduce this result. Nellie therefore gave herself up without a\nthought to the pleasant novelty of a brotherly sort of petting\nand protection which seemed to call for nothing more than quiet\nacceptance on her part, and she listened to Roger with the keen\nand unsated interest of a child as he told her the names, one\nafter another, of many of the clustered islands and rugged\nrocklets, glittering like jewels in the deep bosom of the bay,\nalmost always contriving to add some little legend or stray scrap\nof history, which gave each for the moment an especial, and (if\nthe expression may be allowed toward inanimate objects) an almost\npersonal interest in her eyes. At last he turned her attention\ntoward the mainland, pointing out the graceful windings of Clew's\nvaried shore, its wave-worn caverns and rocky arches, its cliffs\nwith their mantles of many-colored lichens which made them look\nat that distance as if nature had stained them into an imitation\nof most curiously-colored marble; and beyond these again, its\nbroad tracts of uncultivated bog-land, purple with heath in\nautumn, but now yellow with gorse or dark with waving fern, its\nhills rising one above another in lonely, savage grandeur, with\nCroagh Patrick, the monarch of them all, standing up on the south\nside of the bay, and looking down in haughty, cold indifference\nupon its waters as they flowed beneath him. Nellie followed his\neye and finger eagerly as he pointed out each individual feature\nin the scene before her; but observing that he lingered for a\nmoment on Croagh Patrick, she turned toward him for explanation.\n\n\"It is Croagh Patrick,\" he said; then perceiving that she was not\nmuch the wiser for the information, he added in some surprise,\n\"Do you not know the legend, that it was from the cone of yonder\nhill St. Patrick pronounced the curse which banished all venomous\nhurtful things from Ireland? Had the saint lived in these days,\"\nRoger added, in that undertone which Nellie had by this time\ndiscovered to be natural to him in moments of deep feeling, \"it\nis not, I think, against toads and snakes that he would have\ndirected his miracle-working powers, but against the men who,\ncoming to a land which is not their own, make war in God's name\nagainst God's creatures, hunting them down with horn and hound,\nand snaring and slaying them with as little compunction as they\nwould have snared or slain a wolf.\"\n\n\"Would he then have expelled me also?\" asked Nellie, with a\nwicked smile. \"You know that I, too, (and more's the pity!) have\nblood of the hated Saxon in my veins.\"\n\n\"Certainly not,\" said Roger promptly, \"with your blue-black eyes\nand blue-black hair, he would without a doubt (saint and prophet\nthough he was) have been deluded into believing you a Celt.\"\n\n\"And so I am almost,\" said Nellie, with childish eagerness; \"only\nconsider, Colonel O'More, we have been in the country almost\nthree hundred years, and in all that time, until my dear father's\nmarriage with my mother, (who is unfortunately an Englishwoman,)\nit has been the boast and tradition of our race that its sons and\ndaughters have never wedded save with the sons and daughters of\ntheir adopted land.\"\n\n{452}\n\n\"Remember, then, that it will be for you to renew the tradition,\"\nsaid Roger suddenly, and without reflection. He repented himself\nbitterly a moment afterward, as he caught a glimpse of the flush\nupon Nellie's half-averted face, and in order to undo the evil\nwhich he had done he added hastily, \"Yonder is our destination,\nthat bare, black rock jutting out from the mainland far into the\ndeep waters.\"\n\n\"It is not then an island?\" said Nellie a little disappointed. \"I\nfancied you said yesterday that it was one.\"\n\n\"Perhaps I did, for it juts out so far and so boldly into deep\nwater that, from many parts of the bay, it looks almost like an\nisland. You cannot see the hermitage from this, but yonder is the\nchurch, perched right upon the cliffs above.\"\n\n\"Perched!\" repeated Nellie, with a sort of shudder. \"I should\nhardly say even that it _was perched_, for to me it looks as\nif it were actually toppling over.\"\n\n\"And so it is,\" said Roger; \"the tower is out of the\nperpendicular already, and I never hear a winter storm without\npicturing it to myself as going (as go most certainly it will\nsome day) crash over the cliff. It is safe enough, however, in\nthis calm weather,\" he added, for he saw that Nellie was\nbeginning to look nervous, \"or I never should have thought of it\nas a refuge for its present occupant, though, for that matter, it\nwas but a choice of evils, his life being in jeopardy whichever\nway he turned.\"\n\n\"Is he then especially obnoxious?\" Nellie asked; \"or is it only\nthat, like all our other priests, he is forced to do his mission\nsecretly?\"\n\n\"Especially obnoxious? I should think, indeed he was,\" said\nRoger; \"for he was chaplain to the brave old bishop whom they\nhanged at the siege of Clonmel, and was present at his death. How\nhe managed to escape himself, has always been a marvel to me; but\nescape he did, and came hither for a refuge. I stowed him away in\nthe ruined hermitage overhead, with a few other poor fellows who\nare outlawed like myself, and in greater danger, and his presence\nhas never been even suspected by the enemy; so that he might, if\nhe had been so minded, have escaped long ago by sea. But when he\nfound us here, without sacraments or sacrifice, (for our priests\nhave been long since driven into banishment,) he elected to\nremain, and now, at the peril of his life, he does duty as a\nparish priest among us.\"\n\n\"Brave priest! brave priest!\" cried Nellie, clapping her hands.\n\"He must feel very near to heaven, I think, engaged in such a\nmission, and living like a real hermit up there on that barren\nrock.\"\n\n\"And so in fact he is; or at least he lives in a real hermit's\ncell,\" said Roger. \"It was built in the time of Grana Uaille by a\nholy man, in whose memory the rock is sometimes called 'the\nhermit,' though more generally known as 'the chieftain's rock.'\"\n\n\"But why the change of names?\" asked Nellie.\n\n\"Because,\" he answered, with the least possible shade of\nbitterness in his manner, \"because, as often happens in this\nwicked world, persons who have been made heroes in the eyes of\nmen are made more account of than those who are heroes only in\nthe sight of God. This hermit had lived here for many years in\npeace and quiet, when the chief of a tribe of Creaghts, at enmity\nwith Grana Uaille, having been beaten by her in a battle, took\nrefuge with him among these rocks.'\n{453}\nThe hermit hid him in the church, which, being an acknowledged\nsanctuary, even Grana Uaille, stout and unscrupulous as she was\nin most things, did not dare invade in order to drag him from its\nshelter. But she swore--our good old Grana could swear upon\noccasion as lustily as her rival sovereign your own Queen\nBess--Grana swore that neither the sanctity of his hermit friend\nor of his place of refuge should avail him aught, and that,\nsooner or later, she would starve him into submission. She landed\naccordingly with her men, and surrounded church and hermitage\nupon the land side, that toward the sea being left unguarded and\nunwatched because, owing to the height and steepness of the cliff\nitself, and the position of the church tower, built almost\nimmediately upon its edge, there seemed no human possibility of\nevasion that way. The chief, however, and his hermit proved too\nmany for her after all; for by dint of working day and night,\nthey succeeded, before their store of provisions was entirely\nexhausted, in cutting through the floor and outer wall of the\nchurch, and so making a passage which gave them instant access to\nthe cliffs outside. This was by no means so difficult a task as\nat first sight it seems; for the floor of the building is only\nhardened earth, and its walls a mere mixture of mud and rubble,\nthe very tower itself being only partially built of stone. I have\noften, when a boy, crept through the aperture, but it is nearly\nfilled up with rubbish now, and almost, or I think quite\nforgotten among the people, who have been using the church for\nthe last twenty years as a storehouse for peat and driftwood for\ntheir winter firing. Useful enough, however, the poor chieftain\nfound it; for one fine moonlight night he walked quietly through\nit into the open air, swung himself down the cliffs as\nunconcernedly as if he had been merely searching for puffins'\nnests, and finally escaped in a boat left there by his friends\nfor that very purpose. Next day, the hermit threw the church\ngates open, and sent word to Queen Grana that her intended victim\nhad escaped her. You may imagine what a rage the virago\nchieftainess was in at finding herself thus outwitted; but I have\nnot time to tell you now, for here we are close into shore, and\nit is time to think of landing.\"\n\nRoger had lowered the sail while speaking, and he now began\nsculling the boat round a low sandy point which hid the harbor\nfrom their view. While he was occupied in this manner, Nellie,\nchancing to turn her head in the direction of Clare Island,\nperceived another corragh fast following in their track, and\nrowed by a boy, who was evidently working might and main in order\nto overtake them. She mentioned the matter to Roger, who\ninstantly ceased his toil, and turned round to reconnoitre.\n\n\"It is Paudeen,\" he said at once. What, in Heaven's name, has\nsent him to us here?\"\n\nThe boy saw that he was observed, and without stopping a moment\nin his onward course, made signs to them to await his coming.\n\nRoger did as he was desired; and in a few minutes more the two\ncorraghs were lying together side by side, and so close that\ntheir respective occupants could have conversed easily in a\nwhisper.\n\n\"What is it, Paudeen?\" asked O'More; \"have you any message for\nme, or is there anything the matter that you have followed us so\nfar?\"\n\n{454}\n\n\"It's Mistress Hewitson who is wanting to see you,\" said the boy.\n\"She was prevented leaving as soon as she intended, and she sent\nme on before to ask you not to quit the island until she had\nspoken to you. You were gone, however, before I could get there;\nso, guessing well enough where you would most likely be upon\nSunday morning, I followed you down here.\"\n\n\"But if you came straight from the mainland, how is it that I did\nnot meet you in the way?\" asked O'More suddenly, a strange\nsuspicion of even Paudeen's simple faith passing rapidly through\nhis mind.\n\n\"Because I didn't come from it at all, at all,\" the boy answered\ncurtly. \"It is yonder they're staying now,\" he added, pointing to\nAchill Island; \"and they do say in the house that Clare Isle will\nbe the next to follow.\"\n\n\"And is it to tell me this that Mistress Hewitson is about to\nhonor me with a visit?\" Roger answered bitterly. \"The formality,\nmethinks, was hardly needed, considering all that her father has\nrobbed me of already.\"\n\n\"Sorrow know, I know what she will be wanting; but this at all\nevents I know for certain, that it is for nothing but what is\ngood and kind,\" said Paudeen; adding immediately afterward in a\nmusing tone, \"though how _she_ can be what she _is_,\nconsidering the black blood that is running in her veins, it\nneeds greater wits than I can boast of to be able to discover.\"\n\n\"Well, well,\" said Roger, \"I believe you are about right there,\nPaudeen. So now go back at once, and say to Mistress Hewitson\nthat she shall be obeyed, and that I will return to Clare Island\nin time to receive her at the landing-place.\"\n\n\"Let me go back also,\" said Nellie, in a smothered voice. \"If I\nand my grandfather have brought this danger to your door, it is\nonly just that we should share it with you.\"\n\n\"Share it. Mistress Netterville? Nay, but you would double it!\"\ncried O'More vehemently. \"In the face of anything like real,\npresent danger, I should infallibly lose my life in anxiety for\nyours. In point of fact, however, he added, seeing that she still\nlooked distressed and anxious; in point of fact, the danger\n(whatever it is) cannot be immediate, since it is evident that\nMistress Hewitson expects by her intended visit to give me such\ninformation as may enable me to evade it. Possibly she has heard\nfurther details concerning those plans of the old man, her\nfather, at which yesterday she obscurely hinted. It may even be,\nas Paudeen seems to think, that they intend to put an English\ngarrison on the island, and she may hope to soften matters for us\nby giving me this previous notice. Any way, I entreat you not to\nbe over anxious; for though I acknowledge that we live in\nperilous times and places, yet still, and if only for that very\nreason, it behoves us to keep our common sense intact, and not to\nallow it to be scared by every passing cloud that seems to\nthreaten us with storm.\"\n\nAfter such words as these, Nellie felt there was nothing for it\nbut to land the moment the boat reached shore, and Roger helped\nher out with a sort of graceful tenderness, which seemed  tacitly\nto ask forgiveness for the constraint he had been compelled to\nput upon her inclinations.\n\nThen he pointed to a scarcely discernible path among the\nbrushwood, and said hastily:\n\n\"That path will take you straight to the church. If any one ask\nyou any questions, the watchword is, 'God, our Lady, and Roger\nO'More.' Farewell! Get as near the altar as you can; tell them\nnot to wait for me, but I will be back in time to fetch you.\"\n\n{455}\n\nHe waited one moment, to make sure that she understood him, then\npushed the boat out into deep water, and without even venturing\nto look back, pursued his way diligently homeward.\n\nThe breeze had died away, so that he would, he knew, be\ninfinitely longer in returning to Clare Island than he had been\nin coming from it. As he passed Paudeen, he had half a mind to\nhail him, but reflecting that he would probably lose more time by\nthe stoppage than he could gain by the boy's assistance, he\nchanged his mind and went on his way alone. It was hot and weary\nwork, but he put all his strength and will to it, and did it in a\nshorter time than he had expected. Not, however, before his\npresence was apparently sorely needed; for just as he neared the\nharbor, the deep, angry bay of the wolf-dog Maida reached his\near. This was followed by a woman's voice, endeavoring probably\nto soothe the dog, and this again by a long, shrill whistle which\ncame like a cry for aid across the waters. Thus urged, O'More\npulled with redoubled energy, and next moment was in the harbor.\nA corragh, ownerless and empty, was lying loose beside the pier,\nand a few yards from the landing-place he saw a girl standing\nmotionless as a statue, one hand raised in an attitude of\ndefence, confronting Maida, who, with head erect and bristling\nhair, seemed to bid her advance further at her peril. Had she\nattempted to retreat, had she shown even a shadow of timidity or\nof yielding, the dog would undoubtedly have torn her into pieces;\nbut, with wonderful nerve and courage, she had so far stood her\nground, and, rebuked by her stillness and unyielding attitude,\nMaida, up to that moment, had fortunately contented her sense of\nduty by keeping a close watch upon her proceedings. Horrified at\nthe sight, and dreading lest Maida might mistake even the sound\nof his voice for a signal of attack, Roger hastily leaped on\nshore. Henrietta heard him, and without even daring to turn her\nhead in his direction, whispered softly:\n\n\"Call off your dog--for God's dear sake, call her off at once!\"\n\nRoger made no reply, (for, in fact, he did not dare to speak,)\nbut he made one bound forward and placed himself between her and\nher foe. Maida instantly abandoned her threatening look to greet\nher master, and for one half-moment he employed himself in\ncaressing and calming down her fury. Then he turned eagerly to\nHenrietta:\n\n\"How is this. Mistress Hewitson? For God's sake, speak! The dog\nhas not injured you, I trust?\"\n\nHenrietta did not at first reply. She was as white as ashes, and\nher eyes glittered with a strange mingling of courage and of\ndesperate fear. \"Send away the dog,\" she cried at last; \"send\naway the dog. I cannot bear to see her,\" and then burst into\ntears.\n\nRoger said one word, and Maida instantly flew toward the castle.\nHe was about to follow in the same direction in order to procure\nsome water, but the girl caught him by the arm, and held him so\nthat he could not move.\n\n\"Calm yourself, I entreat you,\" he said, fancying she was still\nunder the influence of terror. \"No wonder that even your high\ncourage has given way. Let me call Nora. She will help you to\ncompose yourself.\"\n\n\"Call no one,\" Henrietta gasped.\n\n\"Call no one; but tell me, is there not a priest and some other\noutlaws in hiding on the chieftain's rock?\"\n\n{456}\n\n\"What then?\" he asked, the blood suddenly rushing to his heart as\nhe thought of Nellie.\n\n\"What then?\" she repeated fiercely; \"because, (oh! that I had\nknown it but an hour ago,) because death is there, and treachery\nand woe! But whither are you going?\" she cried, following him as\nhe broke suddenly from her grasp, and began to retrace his way\ntoward the pier.\n\n\"Whither? whither?\" he answered, like one speaking in his sleep.\n\"There, of course. Where else? My God, that I should have left\nNellie there!\"\n\n\"The girl!\" cried Henrietta; \"and you have been there already,\nand have had time to row all this way back? My God, then it will\nbe too late to save her. The church must be in flames ere now.\"\n\nO'More made no reply, but leaped at once into the boat. \"What do\nyou want?\" he asked, almost savagely, as Henrietta followed him.\n\"What do you want here--you, the child of her assassin?\"\n\n\"I want to save her, and, still more, to save my father, if I\ncan, from this most fearful guilt,\" she answered promptly. Roger\nmade no further opposition. Once fairly out of harbor, he rowed\nwith all the energy of despair, and Henrietta helped him nobly.\nThey were obliged to trust entirely to their oars, and the delay\nwas maddening. Roger never cast a single glance toward the spot\nwhere all his soul was centred, but Henrietta could not resist a\nlook once or twice in that direction.\n\nSuddenly she cried out.\n\n\"What is it?\" he asked nervously; \"what is it?\"\n\n\"They have fired the church,\" she said, in smothered tones.\n\"There is a cloud of smoke; and now--my God!--a jet of flame\ngoing through it to the sky!\"\n\nHe made no reply, but he bent to the oar until the bead-drops of\nmingled agony and toil stood thick upon his brow.\n\n\"God help them! They must be trying to escape,\" she muttered yet\nagain, as something like a shot or two of musketry reached her\near.\n\nFaster he rowed, and faster. The boat leaped like a living thing\nalong the waters. They were close to the cliff at last. Overhead,\nthe sky was hidden by a canopy of heavy smoke, with here and\nthere a streak of fire flashing like forked lightning athwart it.\nUnderneath, the water lay black as ink, in the reflection of the\nclouded heavens, as the boat rushed through it. One more effort,\nand they were in the cove--another, and they were flung high and\ndry upon the beach. Roger jumped out without a word. Was he in\ntime? or was he not? His whole soul was engrossed in that fearful\nquestion.\n\n\"What are you going to do?\" asked Henrietta, uncertain as to what\nher own share in the enterprise was to be. He had been searching\nin the bottom of the boat for something; but he looked up then\nwith a kindling eye, and said:\n\n\"Will you be true to the end?\"\n\n\"So help me God, I will!\" she answered in that quiet tone which\ntells all the more of steady courage that it has no touch of\nbluster in it. He had found what he wanted now--a cutlass and a\ncoil of rope--and answered rapidly:\n\n\"Take the boat out of this, then, and wait beneath the cliffs.\nWait till I come, or until yonder tower falls, as fall it must,\nand soon. After that, you may go home in peace. Yes, peace! For\nhappen what may, your soul, at any rate, will be guiltless of\nthis day's murder.\"\n\nHe shoved the boat back into deep water as he finished speaking,\nand then, without even looking back to see if Henrietta followed\nhis directions, strode rapidly up the cliffs.\n\n{457}\n\n\n      Chapter XI.\n\nHappily unconscious of the peril by which her own life was so\nspeedily to be placed in jeopardy, Nellie stood for a few minutes\nafter Roger left her, watching his progress through the water,\nand speculating anxiously enough upon the nature of the summons\nwhich had been delivered to him by Paudeen. In spite of his\napparent coolness, there had been something in the way in which\nhe had almost forced her to leave him--something in the haste\nwith which he had given her his last directions--something (if it\nmust be confessed) in the very fact of his having rushed off\nwithout even a parting word or look, which made her suspect the\ndanger to be more real and immediate than he wished her to\nsuppose it. And now, as she watched him bending to the oar as if\nhis very life depended on his speed, suspicion seemed all at once\nto grow up into certainty, and she bitterly regretted the shyness\nwhich had prevented her insisting on returning with him to the\nisland. Regrets, however, were now in vain, and remembering that,\nif she delayed much longer, she would in all probability be too\nlate for Mass, and so lose the only object for which she had\nremained behind, she turned her face resolutely toward the path\npointed out by Roger. It was less a path indeed than a mere\nnarrow space left by the natural receding of the rocks and loose\nboulders, which lay scattered about in all directions. Such as it\nwas, it led Nellie in a zigzag fashion upward toward the cliffs,\nturning and twisting so suddenly and so often, that she could\nhardly ever see more than a yard or two before her, while the\nboulders on either side, being generally higher than her head,\nand the intervals between them filled up with tall heather and\nscrubby brushwood, she might as well, for all that she could have\nseen beyond, have been walking between a couple of stone walls.\nThe congregation had in all probability already reached the\nchurch, or else they were coming to it by another path; for not\nthe sound of a voice or of a footstep either before or behind her\ncould she hear, though she paused occasionally to listen. Once\nindeed, but only once, at a sudden opening among the boulders,\nshe fancied she saw something like the glistening of a spear in\nthe brushwood underneath, and a minute or two afterward the air\nseemed tremulous with a low sighing sound, as if some one were\nwhispering within a few yards of her ear. Nevertheless, when she\npaused again in some trepidation to reconnoitre, everything\nseemed so lonely and so still around her, that she was obliged to\nconfess that her imagination must have been playing her sad\ntricks. The light which she had seen was, in all probability, a\nmere effect of sunshine on some of the more polished rocks, while\nthe sough and sigh of the waters, as they lapped quietly on the\nbeach below, might easily have assumed, in that distance and in\nthe calm summer air, the semblance of a human whisper. Once she\nhad satisfied herself upon this point, she resolved not to be\nfrightened from her purpose by any nervous fancies; and\nstimulating her courage by the reflection that, if an enemy\nreally were lurking near, her best chance of safety would be the\nchurch, in which her countrymen and women were already gathered,\nshe toiled steadily upward until she reached the platform upon\nwhich it was erected.\n{458}\nA sudden turn in the path brought her face to face with it almost\nbefore she fancied that she was near, and she only comprehended\nhow heartily she had been frightened on the way, by the sense of\nrelief which this discovery imparted. It was a low, mean-looking\nedifice enough, with the hermit's cell built aslant against the\nwall, and forming in fact a kind of porch, through which alone it\ncould be entered. From the moment it first came in sight, the\npath had narrowed gradually until there was barely room at last\nfor the passing of a single person, and while it appeared to\nNellie to descend, the rocks on either side rose higher, slanting\neven somewhat over, so as partially to impede the light. From\nthis circumstance she was led to fancy that both cell and church\nhad been built originally below what was now the present surface\nof the land, a fact which, joined to its desolate, ruinous\ncondition, might easily have pointed it out to Roger as a fitting\nplace for the concealment of his friends. The low door of the\nporch was closed and fastened upon the inside, so that she was\nobliged, very reluctantly, to knock on it for admittance. A\nmoment afterward she heard the sound of footsteps, the door was\ndrawn back an inch or two, and some one from behind it whispered\nin Irish, \"Who are you, and for whom?\"\n\n\"For God, our Lady, and Roger O'More,\" Nellie promptly answered.\n\n\"Enter, then, in the name of God,\" the voice replied; and a\nstrong hand being put forth, she was drawn within the building as\neasily and unresistingly as if she had been a child, and the door\nwas again closed behind her. The cell into which she had been\nthus unceremoniously introduced was very dark, and she could only\njust perceive that the person who had played the part of porter\nwas a tall, soldierly-looking fellow, and therefore, she\nconcluded, one of the outlaws, of whose residence in the building\nRoger had informed her.\n\n\"You have been long a-coming,\" said the man. \"Why is not the\nchieftain with you?\"\n\n\"How do you know that he brought me hither?\" asked Nellie,\nstartled by the knowledge he seemed to have of her proceedings.\n\n\"We keep a good look-out seaward upon Sunday mornings,\" he\nanswered significantly. \"Why did he go back?\"\n\n\"A message--summons from the island,\" said Nellie; not well\nknowing how much or how little it would be prudent to\ncommunicate. \"It was nothing of any consequence, I believe; and\nhe said you were not to wait. He will probably be here before all\nis over.\"\n\n\"Good,\" said the man; \"then follow me.\" He went on as he spoke,\nNellie stumbling as well as she could after him in the dark,\nuntil they reached the thick matting of dried grass which\nseparated the church from the porch outside. Here the descent\nbecame so sudden that she would inevitably have been precipitated\nface foremost into the midst of the congregation, if her\nconductor had not caught her by the arm in time to prevent this\ncatastrophe, and landed her safely on the other side. The\ninterior of the building, as Nellie saw it in that dim light, had\na much nearer resemblance to a ruinous barn than to a place of\nChristian worship. As Roger had already told her, it had been so\nlong dismantled and forgotten as a church that the people had\ncome to look upon it simply as a storehouse for their winter\nfiring, a fact amply attested by the piles of drift and brushwood\nwhich rose in all directions, blocking up the narrow windows, and\nforming a gigantic stack against the wall behind the altar.\n{459}\nThis latter was of stone, facing the door by which she had just\nentered, and so placed that there was a considerable distance\nbetween it and the wall beyond.\n\nIn this desolate-looking building about twenty or thirty people\nwere assembled, most of them women and young girls, with a\nsprinkling of old men and half-a-dozen younger ones, in whom\nNellie fancied she recognized the outlawed soldiers of the royal\narmy. Two or three of these last stole a curious glance upon her,\nas she moved onward toward the altar; but the greater part of the\ncongregation were so absorbed in earnest and loudly-uttered\nprayer, that they seemed absolutely unconscious of the entrance\nof a stranger. Passing quietly, so as not to disturb them in\ntheir devotions, Nellie made her way to a spot from whence she\nhad a full view of the priest as he sat, a little on one side,\nengaged in hearing the confessions of those who presented\nthemselves for that purpose. He was in truth a hero in Nellie's\neyes--the best of all heroes--a Christian hero. He had stood by\nthat brave old bishop who had gone to death for an act of\npatriotism which, in the old heroic days of Rome, would have set\nhim as a demigod upon pagan altars. Quiet and self-possessed, he\nhad knelt, amid the thunders of the battle-field, to hear the\nconfessions of the wounded soldiers. He had plunged into the fell\natmospheres of plague and fever, braving death in its worst and\nmost loathsome forms in the exercise of his ministerial\nfunctions. He had buried the dead--he had consoled the widow and\norphan, made such by the reckless cruelty of man; and now, when\nhe had exhausted all the more heroic forms of service to his\nLord, he had come hither, like that Lord himself--like the good\nShepherd of the Gospel--to gather up the young lambs into his\narms, and to comfort a conquered and stricken people; to pour the\nconsolations of religion upon hearts wrung and disconsolate in\nhuman sorrow; to preach of heaven to men forsaken of the earth,\nand to teach them, houseless and hapless as they were, to lift up\nthose eyes and hands, which had been lifted in vain to their\nbrother man for mercy, higher and higher still, even to that\nAlmighty Father to whose paternal heart the life of the very\nleast of his little ones was of such unspeakable and unthought-of\nvalue that not a hair might fall from one of their heads without\nhis express permission. Thoughts like these passed rapidly\nthrough Nellie's mind as she watched the old man bending\nreverently and compassionately to receive, in the exercise of his\nministerial functions, each new tale of sin or sorrow which, one\nafter another, the poor people round him came to pour into his\nsympathizing ear.\n\nWe have called him \"old,\" for his hair was white and his face was\nploughed into many wrinkles; yet Nellie could not help suspecting\nthat the look of wearied, patient age upon his features was less\nthe effect of years, than of the toil and suffering by which\nthose years had been utilized and made fruitful in the service of\nhis Master. Altogether she felt drawn toward him by a feeling of\nreverent admiration, which would probably have found vent in\nwords, if he had not been so completely occupied in his\nministerial duties as to make it simply impossible to interrupt\nhim. For in a congregation deprived, as this had been, of a\npastor for many months, there was of course much to be done ere\nthe commencement of the Sunday service.\n{460}\nThere were confessions to be heard, and infants to be baptized,\nand more than one young couple--who had patiently awaited the\ncoming of a lawful minister for the reception of that\nsacrament--to be united in holy wedlock. At last, however, all\nthis was over, and Nellie had just made up her mind to go and\nspeak to him in her turn, when, to her infinite annoyance, he\nrose from his place and commenced robing himself at the altar.\nKneeling down again, therefore, she endeavored to withdraw her\nthoughts from all outward things, in order to fix them entirely\nupon the coming service. In spite, however, of her most earnest\nefforts, she felt nervous and unhappy at the prolonged absence of\nO'More, and she could not help envying the people round her, as\nwith all the natural fervor of the Celtic temperament, they\nabandoned themselves to prayer; prostrating, groaning, beating\ntheir breasts, and praying up aloud with as much naive\nindifference to the vicinity of their neighbor, as if each\nindividual in presence there imagined that he and his God were\nthe sole occupants of the church. Poor Nellie could obtain no\nsuch blest absorption from her cares. Her eyes would glance\ntoward the door for the coming of Roger, and her ears would\nlisten for his footsteps; once or twice, indeed, she felt quite\ncertain that she heard him moving quietly behind the screen of\nmatting, which shut in the church from the porch outside, and\nbecame, in consequence, nervously anxious to see him lift it and\ntake his promised place beside her. He never came, however, yet\nthe sounds continued, accompanied at times by a slight waving of\nthe screen, as if a hand had accidentally touched it; and this\noccurred so often that Nellie began at last to be seriously\nalarmed. She thought of Paudeen's mysterious message to his\nchieftain, and her own half extinguished fancy of having seen a\nspear among the brushwood recurred vividly to her mind. What if\nshe had seen rightly, after all? What if an enemy were really\nlurking in the neighborhood; or, worse still, crouching behind\nthat terrible screen, ready to massacre the congregation as they\npassed through it to the open air after service? The thought was\ntoo terrible for solitary endurance, and she was just about to\nlessen the burden by imparting it to her nearest neighbor, when\nshe found herself forestalled by a heavy, stifling cloud of\nsmoke, which rolled suddenly through the church and roused every\ncreature present to a sense of coming danger. There was a rustle\nand a stir, and then they all stood up, men and women and little\nchildren, gazing with wild eyes and whitened faces on each other,\nuncertain of the \"how or from whence\" of the threatened peril.\n\nThe priest alone seemed to pay no attention to the circumstance;\nnevertheless he felt and comprehended far better than they did\nthe nature of the fate awaiting them, and hurried on to the\nconclusion of the Mass, which was by this time, fortunately,\nwell-nigh over.\n\nHe had hardly finished the communion prayer before the heat and\nsuffocation had become unbearable. In an agony of terror, the\npeople made a rush to the gates, and tore down the screen of\nmatting which separated the church from the porch beyond.\n\nThen arose a wild cry of despair, filling the church from floor\nto ceiling--the cry of human beings caught in a snare from\nwhence, except by a cruel death, there was no escaping. The porch\nwas already a blazing furnace, filled almost to the roof, with\nfagots burning in all the fury that pitch and tar, and other\ncombustibles flung liberally among them, were calculated to\nproduce.\n{461}\nThese, then, were the sounds which had disturbed Nellie during\nMass. The enemy had profited by the rapt devotion of these poor\npeople to build up, unheard and unsuspected, their death-pile in\nthe porch, after which doughty deed they had retired, closing the\ngates behind them, and trusting the rest to the terrible nature\nof the ally they had so recklessly invoked.\n\nTo attempt a passage through that sea of fire in its first wild\nfury would have been instant death; and amid the cries of women\nand children, many of whom were well-nigh trampled to death\nbeneath the feet of their fellow-victims, the crowd swayed\nbackward.\n\nThen came another horror. An unhappy girl, one of the foremost of\nthe throng, in her eagerness to escape, had rushed so far into\nthe porch that her garments caught fire, and, mad with pain and\nfear, she flung herself face downward upon a heap of driftwood\nnear her. It was all that was needed to complete the work of\ndestruction. The wood, dry and combustible as tinder, ignited\ninstantly, and in two minutes more was a mass of flame. In vain\nsome of the men, with the priest at their head, leaped on it in a\nwild effort to trample it out before it could spread further. As\nfast as it was stifled in one place it broke out in another, the\nsubtle element gliding along the walls and seizing upon stack\nafter stack of wood with an ease and speed that mocked at all\ntheir efforts to extinguish it. No words can paint the horrors of\nthe scene that followed! Heavy volumes of black smoke, ever and\nanon rolling upward from some new spot upon which the fire had\nfastened, at times shut out the light of day, and made the\ndarkness almost palpable to the senses. Fire, bright and angry,\nflashing at first here and there at intervals, like forked\nlightning, through the gloom; then coming thicker and quicker, as\nit grew with what it fed on, hurrying and leaping in its exultant\nfury, licking up and devouring with hungry tongues all that\nopposed its progress--now spreading itself in sheets of molten\nflame, now contracting into red, hissing streams, bearing a\nterrible resemblance to fiery serpents, but never for a moment\nslackening in its work of woe, winding hither and thither, and in\nand out, and fastening with all the malice and tenacity of a\nconscious creature upon everything combustible within its reach,\nuntil the very rafters overhead were wreathed in flame--and\nunderneath that awful canopy the panting, shrieking crowd,\nstruggling in that sulphurous atmosphere of smoke and fire,\nrushing backward and forward, they knew not whither, in search of\na safety they knew too well they could never find; for even while\nobeying the animal instinct to fly from danger, there was not a\ncreature there who did not feel to the very inmost marrow of his\nbeing, that unless a miracle were interposed to save him, he was\ndoomed then and there to die.\n\nNellie was the only person in the church, perhaps, with the sole\nexception of the pastor, who made no vain effort at escaping.\nDriven by the swaying of the others, after their first rush to\nthe door, backward toward the altar, she had remained there\nquietly ever since, praying, or trying to pray, and shutting eyes\nand ears as much as might be to the terrible sights and sounds\naround her. Accident had, in fact, brought her to the only spot\nin the building where safety was for the moment feasible.\n\n{462}\n\nThe altar was built, as we have already said, of stone, and being\nplaced at some distance from any of the walls, the space in\nfront, though stifling from heat and smoke, was clear of fire,\nand consequently of immediate danger.\n\nHither, therefore, the priest, who, having done all that man\ncould do toward the stifling of the flames, now felt that another\nand a higher duty--the duty of his priestly office--must needs\nbe exercised, endeavored to collect his flock, and hither, at his\nbidding, one by one they came, every hope of rescue extinguished\nin their bosoms, and scorched, and bruised, and half-suffocated\nas they were, lay down at his feet to die. There was no loud\nshrieking now--the silence of utter exhaustion had fallen upon\nthem all, and only a low wail of pain broke now and then from the\nwhite, parched lips of some poor dying creature, as if in human\nexpostulation with the sputtering and hissing of the flames that\nscorched him. Once, and only once, a less fitting sound was\nheard--a curse, deep but loud, on the foe that had so ruthlessly\ncontrived their ruin.\n\nIt reached the ear of the priest as he stood before the altar,\nsometimes praying up aloud, sometimes with look and voice\nendeavoring to calm his people, waiting and watching with wise,\nheroic patience for the precise moment when, all hopes of human\nlife abandoned, he might lead them to thoughts of that which is\neternal.\n\nBut that muttered curse seemed to rouse another and a different\nspirit in his bosom, and filled with holy and apostolic anger, he\nturned at once upon the man who spoke it.\n\n\"Sinner!\" he cried, \"be silent! Dare you to go to God with a\ncurse upon your lips? What if he curse you in return? What if he\nplunge you, for that very word, from this fire, which will pass\nwith time, into that which is eternal and endures for ever? O my\nchildren, my children!\" cried the good old man, opening wide his\narms, as if he would fain have embraced his weeping flock and\nsheltered them all from pain and sorrow on his paternal bosom,\n\"see you not, indeed, that you must die!--with foes outside, with\ndevouring flames within, all hope of life is simple folly. Die\nyou must. So man decrees; but God, more merciful, still leaves a\nchoice--not as to death, but as to the spirit in which you meet\nit. You may die angry and reviling, as the blaspheming thief, or\nyou may die (O blessed thought!) as Jesus died--peace in your\nhearts and a prayer for your very foes upon your lips. Have pity\non yourselves, my children; have pity on me, who, as your pastor,\nwill have to answer for your souls, as for my own, to God--and\nchoose with Jesus. Put aside all rancor from your hearts.\nRemember that what our foes have done to us, we, each in our\nmeasure, have done by our sins to Jesus. Pray for them as he did.\nWeep, as he did for _your_ sins (not _his_) upon the\ncross, and kneel at once, that while there yet is time I may give\nyou, in his name and by his power, that pardon which will send\nyou safe and hopeful to the judgment-seat of God.\"\n\nClear, calm, and quiet, amid the confusion round him, rose the\nvoice of that good shepherd, sent hither, as it seemed, for no\nother purpose than to perish with his flock; and like a message\nof mercy from on high his words fell upon their failing hearts.\nThey obeyed him to the letter. Hushed was every murmur, stifled\nevery cry of pain, and, prostrate on their faces, they waited\nwith solemn silence the word which they knew would follow. And it\nwas said at last.\n{463}\nWith streaming eyes, and hands uplifted toward that heaven to\nwhich he and his poor children all were speeding, the priest\npronounced that _Ego te absolvo_, which speaking to each\nindividual soul as if meant for it alone, yet brought pardon,\npeace, and healing to them all. Something like a low \"Amen,\"\nsomething like a thrill of relief from overladen bosoms,\nfollowed; and then, almost at the same instant, came a loud cry\nfrom the outside of the church--a crashing of doors--a rush--a\nstruggle--a scattering of brands from the half-burned-out fagots\nin the porch--and, blackened with smoke and scorched with fire,\nO'More leaped like an apparition into the midst of the people. A\nshout almost of triumph greeted his appearance, for they felt as\nif he _must_ have brought safety with him. It seemed, in\nfact, as if only by a miracle he could have been there at all.\nUnarmed as he was, he had rushed through the English soldiers,\nand they, having all along imagined him to be in the church with\ntheir less noble victims, were taken so completely by surprise\nthat they suffered him to pass at first almost without a blow. By\nthe time they had recovered themselves, their leaders had staid\ntheir hands. It was better for all their purposes that he should\nrush to death of his own accord than that they should have any\nostensible share in the business. No further opposition,\ntherefore, being offered to his progress he easily undid the\ngates, which were only slightly barricaded on the outside, and\nhaving cleared the porch at the risk of instant suffocation to\nhimself, he now stood calling upon Nellie, and vainly endeavoring\nto discover her in the blinding atmosphere of smoke around him.\nShe was still where she had been from the beginning--at the foot\nof the altar, faint and half-dead with heat and fear. But the\nsound of his voice seemed to call her back to life, and, with a\ncry like a frightened child, she half-rose from her recumbent\nposture. Faint as was that cry, he heard it, and catching a\nglimpse of her white face, rushed toward her. In another moment\nhe had her in his arms, wrapped carefully in his heavy cloak, and\nshouting to all to follow and keep close, he rushed behind the\naltar.\n\nHalf an hour before this had been the hottest and most dangerous\nposition in the church, but O'More had well calculated his\nchances. The real danger now was from the roof, which, having\nbeen burning for some time, might fall at any moment. Below, the\nfire, having rapidly exhausted the light material upon which it\nhad fed its fury, was gradually dying out, and boldly scattering\nthe fagots upon either side as he moved on, Roger made his way\ngood to the only spot in the building from whence escape was\npossible. Here the floor sank considerably below the general\nsurface, and dashing down a heap of brushwood which still lay\nsmouldering near, he lay bare an aperture effected in the wall\nitself, and going right through it to the cliffs beyond.\n\nThrough this he passed at once, carrying Nellie as easily as if\nshe had been a baby, and landing her safely on the other side.\nThe people saw, and with a wild cry of hope rushed forward. Even\nas they did so the roof began to totter. They knew it, and\nmaddened by the near approach of death, pressed one upon another,\nblocking up the way and destroying every chance of safety by\ntheir wild efforts to attain it.\n\n{464}\n\nIn the midst of this confusion, a shower as of red-hot fire\npoured down from the yielding rafters. Then came another cry (oh!\nso different from the last)--a cry of grief and terror\nmingled--then a crashing sound and a heavy fall--and then a\nsilence more terrible even than that cry of terror--a ghastly,\ndeath-like silence, only broken by the hissing and crackling of\nthe flames above, and the deep sough of the sea below--and all\nwas over.\n\n\n  To Be Continued.\n\n-------\n\n      Translated From The French Of M. Vitet.\n\n      Science And Faith.\n\n\n     Meditations On The Essence Of The Christian Religion,\n     By M. Guizot.\n\n\n     Conclusion.\n\n\n    III.\n\nThe way is found. Man has the gift of believing not only the\nthings he sees and knows by his own intellect, but also those he\ndoes not see and which he learns through tradition. He admits, he\naffirms with confidence the facts which are asserted by others,\nwhen the witnesses seem competent and reliable, even in cases\nwhere he cannot verify their truth or submit them to a rigid\ncriticism. Thus in the authority of witnesses we have that which\nconstitutes faith; faith properly so called, which is the belief\nin the divine truths, as well as purely human faith, which is\nconfidence in the knowledge of another. Both require the same act\nof intelligence; but, if it concerns the affairs of this world,\nthe authority of the witness is easily established, for he has\nonly to prove his competence and his veracity; while for\nsuperhuman things it is necessary that he himself should be\nsuperhuman, that he should prove it to us, that we should feel by\nthe way he speaks that he knows and has dwelt in the heaven of\nwhich he is speaking, and that he has descended from it. If he is\nonly a man, he is without a claim upon us. Manifest signs of his\nmission and authority are necessary; such signs must be unusual\nand incomprehensible; they must command respect and force\nconviction; they must be miraculous facts entirely beyond mere\nhuman power.\n\nSuch is the supreme and necessary condition for every solution of\nthese natural problems, or, what amounts to the same, for any\ngreat and true religion. The appearance of a being eminently\ndivine is necessary, who will show the character of his mission\nand his right to claim obedience by miracles. Miracles and\nreligion are, then, two correlative terms, two _inseparable_\nexpressions. Do not try to preserve one and get rid of the other;\nthe attempt will fail. If you could effect this divorce, both\nwould disappear. Religion without miracles is only a human\ndoctrine; it is simply philosophy, which has no right to\npenetrate the mysteries of the infinite, and which can only speak\nin hypotheses, without force and without authority.\n\nThere is no way, then, to help it: miracles must be admitted.\nThis is the great stumbling-block.\n\nIt is said: \"That would be allowed when the world was young, and\nwhen man himself, ignorant and a novice, had not demonstrated for\nso many centuries the stability of nature's laws!\n{465}\nThen he could suppose that there was some hidden power, which at\ncertain times and for certain ends played with these laws and\nsuspended them at will; but to-day, in this advanced age, wise as\nwe are, how can we be expected to bend our enlightened reason to\nthese uncertainties? how can we give science these injurious\ncontradictions?\"\n\nYes, you believe yourselves to be extremely learned. You think\nthat you thoroughly understand the laws of nature, because from\ntime to time you have wrested some of her secrets from her; and\nthese being always more or less marvellous, you immediately\nconclude that she has spoken her last word! Strange assumption!\nLook behind, and you are right, you have accomplished an immense\ndistance. Look ahead, and the end is as far as in the days of\nyour fathers, the distance to be overcome remains always the\nsame, you have not advanced a single step. Far from adding to\nyour presumption, the progress of your knowledge should rather\nmake you feel more keenly your ignorance. The more conquests you\nmake, the more your radical impotence is shown. Yet you presume\nto say that the laws of this world allow or do not allow this or\nthat, as if you completely understood them, while at every moment\nnew and unexpected facts, which are granted by yourselves, defeat\nyour calculations, mock your predictions, and derogate from laws\nwhich you proclaim absolute and eternal!\n\nNo one doubts that a general and permanent order reigns in this\nworld; but that this order is inexorably determined in its\ntrifling details, that nothing can alter it, that it will remain\nthe same for ever, you cannot say any more than can we; or\nrather, you, as well as we, are living witnesses that an\nunbending mechanism does not govern all things here below.\n\nIndeed, what do you do, you, a feeble atom, an imperceptible\ncreature, when you forbid the Sovereign Master the great ordainer\nof things, the least deviation, the slightest infraction, of the\nlaws he has made? Do you not violate these laws so far as you are\nable every day, every hour, and in every way? The plant that the\nnatural order would cause to bloom in summer, you cover with\nflowers in winter; you change the flavor and the form of the\nfruit, and the color of the flowers; you bend the twigs and\nbranches, and make them grow against their nature. And it is not\nonly over vegetation and inanimate objects that you exercise your\ncaprices. How many living beings have you transformed, and\ncompletely altered their natural mode of life! What unexpected\nmissions and what strange destinies has your fancy made them\nundergo!\n\nIt may be said that these are only little miracles; but after\nall, how do the greatest ones differ from them? They are both\ninfractions upon the apparent order of nature. Is the real order\nsubverted by this? Is the relation of cause and effect broken\nbecause our gardeners derive and propagate from a graft new and\ninnumerable varieties? No; and since this is true, there can be\nno good reason for refusing to admit a series of deviations above\nthese of every-day experience. The miraculous cures, the\nwonderful transitions from extreme feebleness to health, and the\nintuitive power of a saint, which enables him to read the very\nthoughts of men, can all be effected without compromising or\nmenacing the universal order. Everything depends upon the degree\nof power you grant the Author of these acts, to him who, holding\nall things in his hand, can make the exception as easily as the\nrule.\n\n{466}\n\nThere is but one way to deny absolutely the possibility of\nmiracles, which has been in all times by instinct and by nature\naffirmed by the human race, and that is to suppress God and\nprofess atheism, either atheism simply in its gross crudity, or\nthat more delicate and better disguised form which finds favor in\nour times, and which honors God by pronouncing his name, but\ngives him no other care than the servile protection and the dull\nsupervision of the worlds he has created, but which he does not\ngovern. If this is the way in which God must be considered, if\nfatalism is the law of the world, let us speak no more of\nmiracles or of the supernatural; for this is already decided, and\nthere can be no discussion about it. If, on the contrary,\nentering into yourselves, you feel that you are intelligent and\nfree, ask yourself, Where did I get these wonderful gifts,\nliberty and intelligence? Do you get them from yourself? Are they\nborn in you and only for you? Do you possess them completely? Do\nthey not emanate from a higher, more perfect, and more abundant\nsource, in a word, from God himself? Then, if God, if the\nOmnipotent, is also the sovereign intelligence and the sovereign\nfreedom, how do you dare to forbid him to mingle with affairs\nhere below, to follow with attention the beings he has created,\nto watch over their destiny, and to declare his wishes to them by\nstriking manifestations of his power? He can most certainly do\nthis, for he is free and all-powerful. With the idea of God thus\npresented to the mind, a complete and living God, the question is\ncompletely transformed. And it must be acknowledged that we have\nno longer to demonstrate the possibility of miracles: it is for\nour opponents to prove their impossibility.\n\nBut the great critics of to-day, at least those who have the most\nability, have carefully refrained from attempting this task. They\nattack supernatural facts in a different way, not as being\nimpossible in themselves, but as lacking proof: in the place of\nopenly denying them, they try to weaken the authority of those\nwho attest them. What testimony would then be destroyed by them?\nLet it be noted that in the historical statement of natural\nfacts, even those which are extraordinary and more or less\nuncertain, the testimony of men, sustained and strengthened by\nconstant tradition, is allowed to be sufficient; and, indeed, to\nwhat, in most cases, would our historical knowledge amount, if\nthis sort of proof were not admissible? But for supernatural\nfacts they are far less accommodating. Many other guarantees are\ndemanded. They require ocular proof, which must be made in a\nproper way and duly announced by them to be certain. This is the\ncondition upon which they offer to yield; without it, there is to\nbe no belief. Whence it would follow, that, whenever the Divinity\nproposed to do anything beyond the ordinary laws of nature, it\nwould be bound to give these opponents notice, so that they could\nproduce their witnesses. The work would then proceed in their\npresence, and, when the miracle was accomplished, they would\nimmediately begin their statement. Perhaps our readers may think\nthat we are trying to excite a laugh at their expense, or, at\nleast, that we are exaggerating. Such is not the case; we are\nonly echoing their own words, and we could quote from the very\npage where this system is set forth as the sole method of\nestablishing the truth of miracles. However, it is useless to\ndwell upon this way of asking for impossible proofs and\nproclaiming a readiness to believe, but placing one's belief upon\nunheard-of conditions. This is only a subterfuge, an attempt to\nevade what they dare not solve, and an effort to destroy in\npractice that which they seem theoretically to concede.\n\n{467}\n\nThere are others more frank, less diplomatic, and perhaps also\nless learned, who call things by their right name, and who loudly\ndeclare a new dogma as the great principle of reformed criticism,\nand this is the complete denial of supernatural facts. The\nmanner, the air, and the lofty disdain with which they look down\nupon those simple souls, who are credulous enough to believe that\nthe Almighty is also intelligent and free, should be seen. They\nannounce that all intercourse between them and us is broken, that\nwe have nothing to do with their books; they do not care for our\npraise or for our censure, since they do not write for us. One is\nalmost tempted to repay their disdain with interest; but there is\nsomething better to be done. We have just shown that man, with\nhis limited power and liberty, can modify the laws of nature. Let\nus see, now, if God in his infinite sphere has not the same\npower, and if there is not some well-known and striking example\nof it.\n\nThere is one instance which both in time and by its evidence is\nthe most convincing of all. It is not one of those facts which we\nhave learned by narration or by testimony, whether written or\ntraditional. All narratives can be contested and every witness\ncan be suspected; but here the fact is its own witness, it is\nclear and irrefutable. It is the history of our first parents, of\nthe commencement of the human race; for our race has had a\ncommencement, of this there can be no question. No sophist would\ndare to say of man, as they have said of the universe, that he\nhas existed from all eternity. On this point science confirms\ntradition, and determines by certain signs the _\u00e9poque_ when\nthis earth became habitable. Upon a certain day, then, man was\nborn; and he was born, as it is hardly necessary for us to say,\nin an entirely different manner from that in which one is born\nto-day. He was the first of his kind: he was without father or\nmother. The laws of nature, on this occasion at least, did not\nhave their effect. A superior power, working in his own way, has\naccomplished something beyond these laws, and in a more simple\nand prompt manner, and the world has seen an event take place\nwhich is evidently supernatural.\n\nThis is the reason why some _savants_ have taken so much\npains to find a plausible way to explain scientifically, as a\nnatural fact, this birth of the first man. Some would persuade us\nthat this enigma is explained by the transformation of species--\na singular way of avoiding a miracle, only to fall into a\nchimera. Indeed, if anything is proved at all and becomes more\ncertain as the world grows older, it is that the preservation of\nspecies is an essential principle of all living beings. You may\ntry, but you cannot succeed in infringing upon this law. The\ncrossings between closely allied species, and the varieties\nproduced by them, are smitten after a certain time with\nsterility. Are not these impotent attempts, these phantoms of\nquickly disappearing creations, the manifest sign that the\ncreation of a really new species is forbidden to man? Yet would\nthey try to convince us that in the earliest ages, in times of\nignorance, these kinds of transformations were accomplished\nwithout any effort; while to-day, notwithstanding the perfection\nof instruments and of methods, notwithstanding the aid of every\nsort that we draw from science, they are radically impossible!\nTry, then, to make a man. But, we are answered, this is a matter\nof time. It may be so. But only begin, let us see you at work,\nand you can have as much time as you please.\n{468}\nTake thousands of centuries, and yet you can never transform the\nmost intelligent baboon into a man, even of the most ignorant and\ndegraded type.\n\nThis dream having disappeared, another is invented. The absurdity\nof the transformation of species is admitted, and another theory\nis adopted, that of spontaneous generation. The intention is to\nestablish that man can be born either with or without parents;\nthat nature is induced by various circumstances to choose one of\nthese two ways, and that one is not miraculous more than the\nother. It is well known what vigorous demonstrations and what\nirrefutable evidence science brings against this theory; yet, in\nspite of its absurdity, it has been often reproduced and\nconsidered worthy of refutation. But supposing that doubt was yet\npossible, and that we could believe in the birth of little\nbeings, without a germ, without a Creator; now could this mode of\nproduction aid us in solving the question of the birth of the\nfirst man? What is the highest pretension of the defenders of\nspontaneous generation? In what state would they put man in the\nworld? As an embryo, a foetus, or as one newly born? For no one\nis permitted to believe in the sudden birth of an adult, in\npossession of a body, of physical power, and of mental faculties.\nYet this is exactly the way in which the new inhabitant of the\nearth must have been created. He must have been born a man, or\nelse he could not have protected himself, he could not have found\nfood to prolong his life, and he could not have perpetuated his\nrace as the father of the human family. If he had been born in\nthe state of infancy, without a mother to protect and nourish\nhim, he would have perished in a single day of cold or hunger. If\nthis theory, then, had been able to answer the tests to which it\nhas succumbed, it would yet be of no service in clearing up the\nquestion we are discussing. The only way to solve it\nsatisfactorily is to admit frankly that it must have been\nsomething superior and unknown to the laws of nature. In order to\nexplain the appearance of the first man upon this earth, the man\nof Genesis is necessary, made by the hand of the Creator.\n\nThis is not a _jeu d'esprit_, an artifice, or a paradox. It\nis the undeniable truth. It must be admitted by every one who\nwill reflect. Every sound mind, which is in good faith and which\ncarefully considers this question, is invincibly compelled to\nsolve it in the way that it is solved in the book of Genesis.\nThere may be doubts about the complete exactness of certain words\nand details; but the principal fact, the supernatural fact, the\nintervention of a Creator, reason must accept as the best and\nmost sensible explanation, or rather as the only possible\nexplanation of that other necessary fact, the birth of an\nadolescent or an adult man.\n\nHere, then, we have a miracle well and duly proved. If this were\nthe only one, it would be sufficient to justify belief in the\nsupernatural, to destroy every system of absolute fatalism, to\ndemonstrate the freedom of the Divinity, and to assert his true\nposition. But it may be well for us to say, if since the\nexistence of the human race it had received no proof of the care\nof its Creator other than this miraculous act in which it was\ncreated, if no intelligence, no help, or no light had come from\nabove, what would it know now of the mysteries of its destiny, of\nall these great problems which beset it and occupy its attention?\nThe creation of man does not give us the reason why he was\ncreated.\n{469}\nThis is not one of those miracles from which the light bursts\nforth to flood the world. It is a manifestation of divine power:\nit does not teach us the divine will. We shall see another fact,\non the contrary, which, though not less mysterious, will speak\nfar more clearly. This did not happen amid the fleeting shadows\nof chaos upon the scarcely hardened earth; but in a completely\ncivilized world, and at a historical period which can be fully\ninvestigated, this new miracle took place. The clouds will\ndisappear, and the broad day will gladden all hearts. Blessed\nLight! Long promised and awaited, the complement of man's\ncreation, or, rather, a true and new creation, bringing to\nhumanity, with love and heavenly pardon, the solution of every\nquestion, the answer to every doubt!\n\nDuring the long series of centuries which separates these two\ngreat mysteries, these two great supernatural facts, the creation\nand the redemption of man, the human race, guided by its own\nlight, has not for a moment ceased to search after divine truths\nand the secret of its destiny. But it has sought ignorantly, it\nhas groped in the dark, and it has wandered astray. In every part\nof the world the people solved the enigma in their own fashion,\neach making its own idol. It is a sad, an incoherent spectacle;\nand of all these curious and imperfect forms of worship, which\nsometimes become impure and disgusting, there is not one which\ngives a complete and satisfactory answer to the moral problems\nwith which one is harassed. Their pretended answers really answer\nnothing, and are but a collection of errors and contradictions.\n\nHas man been created for such ends as these? Has not his Creator,\nin forming him with his hands, in teaching him by an intimate\ncommunication the use of his faculties, made him to see, to love,\nand to follow the truth? Yes; and this explains the instinctive\ngleams of truth that are found in every portion of the race; but\nman has received liberty at the same time that he received\nintelligence, and it is this supreme gift which assimilates him\nto his Author, and imposes, together with the honor of\npersonality, the burden of responsibility. He was tried, he had\nthe power to choose, and he chose the bad; he has failed, he has\nfallen. Clearly the fault was followed by the greatest disorder\nand distress, and the offended Father withdrew his grace from the\ndisobedient son. They are separated: the erring one, because he\nfears his Judge; the Judge, from his horror of the sin; but the\nfather lies hid beneath the judge. Will the exile, then, be\neternal? No; for the promise is made to the very ones whose fault\nis punished, and the time of mercy is announced in advance, even\nat the moment of chastisement.\n\nEvery tie is not yet broken between the Creator and this\nunfaithful race. A single bond is maintained, a handful of worthy\nservants preserve the benefit of his paternal intercourse. Who\ncan doubt this? For several thousand years the entire human race,\nin all places and in every zone, bows before the works of nature,\ndeifies them, and adores them. How, then, can it be explained\nthat one little group of men, and only one, remained faithful to\nthe idea of a single God? It may be answered that this is\nsomething peculiar to one race; that it embraces more people than\nis generally supposed; that it is true of all the Semitic tribes\nas well as of the Hebrews. A truly impartial and exceedingly\nlearned philology, recently published, affirms the contrary. It\nis demonstrated that the Jews alone were monotheists.\n{470}\nReason certainly cannot forbid us to believe that this unique and\nisolated fact was providential, since it was at least most\nextraordinary and marvellous. Thus, while the ancient alliance\nbetween man and his Creator continued in a single part of the\nglobe, a part scarcely perceptible in the immense human family,\nwhile the divine truth, as yet veiled and incomplete, though\nwithout any impure mixture, is revealed as in confidence, and, so\nto speak, _privately_ to the modest settlement chosen for\nthe designs of God, all the rest of the world is abandoned to\nchance and wanders at random in religious matters.\n\nWhy, then, only in religious matters? Because it was in this that\nthe fault took place. Man has foolishly wished to make himself\nequal to God in the knowledge of the divine, of the infinite, of\nthose mysteries which no mind can fathom without God's\nassistance. It is another thing in regard to the knowledge of the\nfinite, to purely human science. God is not jealous of this. What\ndoes he say in exiling and chastising the rebel? Work, that is to\nsay, use not only your arms, but your mind; become skilful,\npowerful, ingenious; make masterpieces; become Homer, Pindar,\nAEschylus, or Phidias, Ictinus, or Plato. I allow you to do all,\nsave attaining to divine things without my aid. There thou wilt\nstumble, until I send thee the help I have promised to show thee\nthe way. Thy reason, thy science, and even thy good sense will\nnot prevent thee from becoming an idolater.\n\nIndeed, is it not remarkable that religion in the world of\nantiquity should be so inferior to the other branches of human\nunderstanding? Think of the arts, literature, philosophy;\nhumanity cannot excel them. They were at the summit of\ncivilization. All that youth and experience combined could bring\nforth of the perfect and the beautiful, you see here. These first\nattempts are the works of a master, and will live to the latest\nages, always inimitable. But return for a moment, consider the\nvarious religions, question the priests. What an astonishing\ndisparity! You would believe yourself to be among uncultivated\npeople. Never were such dissimilar productions seen to spring\nfrom the same evil at the same time and in the same society. On\none side, reason, prudence, justice, and the love of truth; on\nthe other, a degrading excess of falsehood and credulity. It is\ntrue that, here and there, under these puerile fables, great\ntruths shine forth; these are the remnants of the primitive\nalliance between God and his creature; but they are only\nscattered, and are lost in a torrent of errors. The great fault,\nthe infirmity of these ancient religions, was not the symbolism\nwhich surrounded them, but their essential obscurity and\nsterility. These were not capable of saying a single clear and\ndefinite word in regard to the problems of our destiny. Far from\nmaking them clear to the great mass of men, they seemed rather to\ntry to conceal them under a thick cloud of enigmas and\nsuperstitions.\n\nThis was, however, the only moral culture that the human race,\nevidently punished and separated from God, received for thousands\nof years. In the place of his priests it had philosophical sects,\nschools, and books to tell man his duty. But how many profited by\nthis help? Who understood the best, the purest, and the greatest\nphilosophers? How far could their warnings reach? Outside the\nlimits of Athens, the words of Socrates himself could not\npenetrate to relieve a soul, to break a chain, or to make a\nvirtue take root. Do we say his words? Why, even his death, a\nwonderful death, the death of a just man, remained unfruitful and\nignored!\n\n{471}\n\nThe time became critical; pagan society was entering upon its\nlast phase and made its last effort; the empire was just born,\nand, although it may be said that it could boast, during its long\ncareer, of many days of repose and even of greatness, it was not\nwithout its revolting scenes; and one can say, without any\nexaggeration or partisan feeling, that from the reign of Tiberius\nit was shown by experience that all purely human means to elevate\nthe race were visibly at an end. Then it was that, not far from\nthe region where primitive traditions located the creation of\nman, under this sky of the Orient which witnessed the first\nmiracle, a second was to be accomplished. A sweet, humble,\nmodest, and at the same time sovereign voice speaks to the people\nof Judea in language before unknown; speaks words of peace, of\nlove, of sacrifice, and of merciful pardon. Whence does this\nvoice come? Who is this man who says to the unhappy, \"Come to me,\nI will relieve you, I will carry your burdens with you\"? He\ntouches the sick with his hand, and they are cured; he gives\nspeech to the mute; he makes the blind see and the deaf hear. As\nyet there is nothing excepting these things; but this man knows\nthe enigma of this world completely; he knows the real end of\nlife and the true means of attaining it. All these natural\nproblems, the vexation of human reason, he resolves, he explains\nwithout an effort and without hesitation. He tells us of the\ninvisible world; he has not imagined it, his eyes have seen it,\nand he speaks of it as a witness who had but lately left it. What\nhe tells us is unassuming, intelligible to every one, to women,\nto children, as well as to the learned. How does he come by this\nmarvellous knowledge? Who were his masters and what were his\nlessons? In his early childhood, before lessons and masters, he\nknew already more than the synagogue. Studies he never made. He\nworked with his hands, gaining his daily bread. Do not seek for\nhis master upon this earth: his Master is in the highest of the\nheavens.\n\nIs not this the witness of whom we have spoken above, the\nsuperhuman, the necessary witness for the solution of natural\nproblems and the establishment of true religious dogmas? To say\nthat such a man is more than a man, that he is a being apart from\nand superior to humanity, is not saying enough. We must learn\nwhat he really is. Let us open the candid narratives which\npreserve the story of his public mission, of his preaching though\nJudea; open the gospels, where the least incident of his acts,\nhis words, his works, his sufferings, and his bitter agony are\nwritten. Let us see what he says of himself. Does he declare\nhimself simply a prophet? Does he believe himself to be only\ninspired? No; he calls himself the Son of God, not as every other\nman, remembering Adam, could have been able to say it. No; he\nmeant the Son of God in the exact and literal interpretation of\nthe word, son born directly of the father, the son begotten of\nthe same substance.\n\nTry to force the meaning and distort the texts to make them say\nless than this, but you cannot succeed. The texts are plain, they\nare numerous, and without ambiguity. There are only two ways in\nwhich the divinity of this man can be denied: either his own\ntestimony must be attacked, if the gospels are admitted to be\ntrue; or the gospels themselves must be rejected.\n\n{472}\n\nIn order to attack his own evidence, it must be supposed that, by\na lack of sagacity, he in good faith formed a wrong judgment\nabout his own origin, or perhaps better, by a deceitful\nintention, he knowingly attributed to himself a false character.\nThis being, whose incomparable intelligence forces you to place\nhim above humanity, this is he who is not capable of discerning\nhis father. And on the other side, this inimitable moralist, this\nchaste and beautiful model of all virtues, this is he whom you\nsuspect of a disgraceful artifice. There is no middle course:\neither this mortal must be the Son of God, as he has declared, or\nyou must put him in the last rank of humanity, among the innocent\ndupes or the cunning charlatans.\n\nOr, on the contrary, do you wish to attack the gospels? Nothing\nis less difficult, if you remain at the surface. Arm yourself\nwith irony, provoke the smile, treat everything in a superficial\nmanner, and you will certainly gain the sympathy of the scoffers.\nBut if you wish to investigate the things, and to take, in the\nname of science, an impartial view, you will be compelled to\nacknowledge that most of the facts in the gospels are\nhistorically established; that they are neither myths nor\nlegends; that the place, the time, and the persons are absolutely\nput beyond all doubt. What right, then, has any one to refuse\ncredence to this series of facts, where another series, which is\nadmitted, is sustained by no better witnesses, nor more direct\nproofs, nor any other superiority, except a pretended probability\nwhich is determined by each for himself? Nothing can be more\narbitrary and less scientific than this way of making a choice,\ndeciding that this evangelist should be implicitly believed when\nhe is mentioning such a speech, but that, when he tells us what\nhe saw himself, he is no longer trustworthy; and that this one,\non the contrary, falsifies the discourses that he reports, but\nthat he announces certain facts with the certitude of an ocular\nwitness. All this is only pure caprice. But it is certain that\nthe gospels, however closely they may be examined, bear the\ncriticism successfully, and ever remain imperishable. What book\nof Herodotus or of Titus Livius carries such an intrinsic\nevidence of good faith and veracity as the recitals of St.\nMatthew or of St. John? Are you not charmed with these two\napostles, who frankly tell us what they have seen with their eyes\nand heard with their ears? If you, who were not there and who saw\nnothing of these things, believe that you can give them a lesson,\nand tell them, in virtue of your scientific laws, how all these\nthings happened without their understanding them, and by what\nsubterfuges their adorable Master deceived them, it will not be\nonly the orthodox and faithful who will resent and controvert\nyour boldness--voices that you dread more, from the midst of\nyour own ranks, will openly proclaim your falsehoods. [Footnote\n101]\n\n    [Footnote 101: \"The human soul, as some one has said, is\n    great enough to enclose every contrast. There is room in it\n    for a Mohammed or a Cromwell, for fanaticism together with\n    duplicity, for sincerity and hypocrisy. It remains for us to\n    ascertain if this analogy should be extended to the Founder\n    of Christianity. _I do not hesitate to deny it_. His\n    character, when impartially considered, opposes every\n    supposition of this kind. There is in the simplicity of\n    Jesus, in his artlessness, in his candor, in the religious\n    feeling which possessed him so completely, in the absence of\n    all mere personal designs, of every egotistic end, and of all\n    cunning; in a word, there is in all that we know concerning\n    him something which entirely repels the historical\n    comparisons by which M. R\u00e9nan has allowed himself to be\n    governed.\"--M. Edmond Scherer, _M\u00e9langes d'Histoire\n    R\u00e9ligieuse_, pp. 93, 94.]\n\nAfter all, suppose they were deceived, that the hero of this\ngreat drama was only a skilful impostor, what do you really gain\nby it? The miracles cannot be thrown aside. On the contrary, you\nhave one miracle more, and one which is more difficult than all\nthe others to explain. It is necessary to account for this most\nwonderful fact, that cannot be suppressed by any critic, the\nestablishment of Christianity in the Roman Empire.\n{473}\nTake every sentence of the gospels, accept these supernatural\nfacts without reservation, the cures, the exorcisms, the elements\nstilled, the laws of nature violated or suspended: all these\nthings are not too much, rather they had hardly enough to make us\nunderstand the triumphant progress of such a doctrine, in such a\ntime, and among such a people. Nothing less than miracles could\ntransform the world in this manner, changing all the opinions\ncommonly received, completely altering the moral and social state\nof the people, and not only giving them purer and more\nenlightened views, but truths which were entirely unknown to\nthem. If, then, you tell the truth, if this stupendous revolution\nrests upon a comedy, if we must consider the partial miracles\nfalse which surround and explain the principal miracle, which\nprecede and seem to prepare and open the way for the great\nmiracle, what will be the result? You have not destroyed, and\ncannot destroy, the principal miracle: it has become still more\nmiraculous.\n\n\n    IV.\n\nLet us not lose sight of our argument. We were seeking a\npractical and popular way to solve the great problems of our\ndestiny, and we have proven that human science alone is unequal\nto this task. We have seen that there is only one way for man to\nattain this end, that satisfactory solutions can only be derived\nfrom faith, that wonderful gift which under the authority of a\nsuperhuman witness makes us believe with certitude things which\nneither the eyes of the body nor the eyes of the mind could\nimmediately comprehend. Has the witness which lies at the\nfoundation of Christian convictions the wished-for authority? In\nother words, is it truly divine? We believe that we have\nestablished it, and the most hasty reading of a single page of\nthe Bible will demonstrate it far more clearly than we have done.\nSee also the admirable harmony of the Christian system, and the\nresponses, as clear as they are sublime, it gives to questions so\nlong unanswerable. It is by its capacity to penetrate mysteries\nto read the invisible, to explain the obscure, not less than by\nits miraculous victory, that Christianity demonstrates both the\ntrue character of its origin and the sincerity of its divine\nFounder.\n\nWe remember on this subject some moving sentences that we will be\npermitted to quote. They are from an author who recently received\nan eloquent tribute of regrets and praises, and who, for the past\ntwenty years, has been remembered with grief by all the friends\nof sound philosophy. In a well-known lecture, when considering\nthese same problems of human destiny, M. Jouffroy spoke thus:\n\n  \"There is a little book that is taught to children, and upon\n  which they are questioned in the church. Read this little book,\n  which is the catechism. You will find in it a solution of all\n  the questions I have asked--of all, without an exception. Ask a\n  Christian the origin of the human race, what is its destiny,\n  and how it can attain it, and he can answer you. Ask that poor\n  child, who has scarcely thought of life and its duties, why he\n  is here below, what will become of him after death, and he will\n  make a sublime answer which he may not fully comprehend, but\n  which is not the less admirable. Ask him how the world was\n  created and for what end; why God has put animals and plants\n  upon it; how the world was peopled, if by one family or by\n  several; why men speak different languages, why they suffer,\n  why they combat, and how all these things will end; and he\n  knows it all.\n{474}\n  Origin of the world, origin of man, questions about the\n  different races, destiny of man in this life and in the other,\n  relation of man to God, duties of man toward his fellow-men,\n  rights of man over creation, he is ignorant of none of these\n  things; and as he becomes matured, he will not hesitate to take\n  advantage of his natural and political rights, for he knows the\n  rights of the people, for these come, or, as it were, flow of\n  themselves, from Christianity. This is what I call a great\n  religion. I recognize by this sign that it leaves none of the\n  questions which interest humanity without an answer.\" [Footnote\n  102]\n\n    [Footnote 102: _M\u00e9langes Philosophiques_,\n    par M. Th. Jouffroy. Vol. i. 1833, p. 470.]\n\nWe love to read again these words of a master and a friend, who\nin his youth was nourished with Christian truths, and who,\nperhaps, would have tasted them again if the trials of life had\nbeen prolonged for him. Without doubt, it is necessary to avoid\nindorsing opinions which are no longer our own sentiments; but\ncertainly it can be permitted to preserve a faithful and complete\nremembrance of their spirit. Even at the time when M. Jouffroy\ndoubted, when he left his pen and told us with assurance how\nChristian dogmas would die, there would have been but very little\nnecessary to teach him to his cost how they perpetuate\nthemselves! Faith has its evil days; its ranks seem decimated and\nits army dissolved, but it can never perish. In order to replace\ndeserters, to recruit its strength unceasingly, has it not the\nsorrows and miseries of this world, the need of prayer, and the\nthirst of hope?\n\nLet us leave this sweet and profound thinker whose brilliant\ncareer we love to trace; let us return to that great and firm\nsoul who now engages our attention, and to whom we are attached\nby so many friendly ties and remembrances. Without having\nfollowed him step by step, we have not lost sight of him. We have\ntaken a hasty glance at his work in trying to express its spirit.\nWe must now return to each of these meditations in detail. What\nthings have escaped us! What brilliant passages, what keen\nobservations, what profound thoughts! At most, we have only taken\naccount of that part of the book where the limits of science, the\nbelief in the supernatural, and especially the marvellous harmony\nbetween Christian dogmas and religious problems, that are innate\nto man, are treated with so much wisdom and authority. That which\nM. Jouffroy, in the remarks we have quoted, indicates in a single\nglance, M. Guizot establishes with convincing arguments by\ncomparing each dogma with the natural problem to which it\ncorresponds. No one has yet so accurately explained the\nharmonious relation of these questions and these answers. There\nare two _morceaux_ which demand particular attention: they\nare the two _meditations_ on the revelation and inspiration\nof the holy books. There are here ideas and distinctions of rare\nsagacity which point out what justly belongs to human ignorance,\nwithout allowing the reality of inspiration of the Bible to\nsuffer the slightest suspicion. But the chief triumph of this\nwork, that which gives it at once its most charming color and its\nsweetest perfume, are the last two meditations, _God according\nto the Bible, Jesus Christ according to the Gospels_.\n\n{475}\n\nThese two pictures are in as different styles as the subjects\nthey contrast. Nothing could be bolder, more striking, more truly\nBiblical, than the portrait of the God of the Hebrews; of that\nGod \"who has no biography, no personal events,\" to whom nothing\nhappens, with whom nothing changes, always and invariably the\nsame, immutable in the midst of diversity and of universal\nmovement. \"I am he who is.\" He has nothing else to say of\nhimself; it is his definition, his history. No one can know more\nof him, even as no one can see him. And if he were visible, what\na misfortune! His glance is death. Between him and man what an\nabyss!\n\nIt is a long distance to traverse between such a God and the God\nof the New Testament--from Jehovah to Jesus Christ. What novelty,\nwhat a transformation! The solitary God goes out from his unity;\nhe completes everything, yet remains himself; the provoked God\nlays aside his anger, he is affected, he is pacified, he becomes\ngentle, he gives man his love, he loves him enough to redeem his\nfault with his Son's blood, that is, with his own blood. It is\nthis victim, this Son, obedient even unto death, that M. Guizot\nendeavors to paint for us. Sublime portrait, attempted many\ntimes, but always in vain! Shall we say that he has succeeded in\nthis impossible task? No; but he has made a most happy effort. He\nmakes us pass successively before his divine model, by showing\nthe attitudes, if we may be allowed the expression, which enable\nus to see the most touching aspects of this incomparable figure.\nSometimes he places him amid his disciples only, that chosen and\nwell-loved flock; sometimes in the Jewish crowd in the Temple, at\nthe foot of the mountain, or on the border of the lake; sometimes\namong the fishermen or the sedate matrons; sometimes with artless\nchildren. In each of these pictures, he gathers, he brings\ntogether, he animates by reuniting them, the scattered\ncharacteristics of Jesus Christ. His sober and guarded style,\npowerful in its reasoning, brilliant in its contests, seems to be\nenriched with new chords by the contact with so much sympathy and\ntender love. It is not only the impassioned eloquence, but it is\na kind of emotion, more sweet and more penetrating, that you feel\nwhile reading his thoroughly Christian pages.\n\nWe understand the happy effect that this book has already\nproduced upon certain souls. Its influence, however, cannot\ndescend to the masses. Its tone, its style, its thoughts, have\nnot aspired to popular success; but from the middling classes and\nthe higher circles of society, how many drifting souls there are\nto whom this unexpected guide will lend a timely aid! Such a\nChristian as he is must work this kind of cure. He is not the man\nof the workmen; he has neither gown nor cassock. It is a\nspontaneous tribute to the faith, and more than this, for it\ndeclares that he too has known and vanquished the anxieties of\ndoubt. Every one, then, can do as he has done. No one fears to\nfollow the steps of a man who occupies such a position in the\nempire of thought, who has given such proofs of liberty of spirit\nand of deep wisdom. It is not a slight rebuke to certain\nintelligent but careless Catholics to see such an example of\nsubmission and faith come from a Protestant.\n\nThere is yet a greater and more general service that these\n_Meditations_ seem to have fulfilled. During the eight or\nten months since they were published, the tone of antichristian\npolemics has been much depressed. One would have expected a\nmanifestation of rage, but there has been nothing of the kind.\n{476}\nThe most vehement critics are reserved, and their attacks have\nprincipally consisted in silence. Hence a sort of momentary lull.\nMany causes, without doubt, contributed in advance to this\nresult, if it were only the excess of the attack and the\nimpertinence of certain assailants; but the book, or to speak\nmore properly, the action of M. Guizot, has, in our opinion, its\nown good part in this work. So clear and vigorous a profession of\nfaith could not be lightly attacked. In order to answer a man who\nfrankly calls himself a Christian, it would be necessary to have\nresolved and to declare openly that one is antichristian; but\nthose who are, no longer care to acknowledge it. It is well known\nthat our day is pleased with half-tints; it has a taste for\nshadows, and is always ready to strike its flag when it sees an\nopponent's colors. Christianity itself gathers some profit from\nthe little noise that is made about these _Meditations_. It\nis not the least reward of their author. May he continue in the\nsame tone, compelling his adversaries to persevere in their\nsilence. He will embarrass them more and more, while he will\nalways add fresh courage and power to those who are sustaining\nthe good cause.\n\n--------\n\n          Saint Mary Magdalen.\n\n      From The Latin Of Petrarch.\n\n\nThe following lines were written by the great Italian poet,\nPetrarch, on the occasion of a visit to Sainte-Baume, near\nMarseilles, where tradition points out the tomb of Saint Mary\nMagdalen. He inscribed them on the grotto, in which she is said\nto have passed the last thirty years of her life.\n\n\n  Dulcis amica Dei, lacrymis inflectere nostris,\n  Atque meas attende preces, nostraeque saluti\n  Consule: namque potes. Neque enim tibi tangere frustra\n  Permissum, gemituque pedes perfundere sacros,\n  Et nitidis siccare comis, ferre oscula plantis,\n  Inque caput Domini pretiosos spargere odores.\n  Nec tibi congressus primos a morte resurgens\n  Et voces audire suas et membra videre,\n  Immortale decus lumenque habitura per aevum,\n  Nequicquam dedit aetherei rex Christus Olympi.\n  Viderat ille cruci haerentem, nee dira paventem\n  Judaicae tormenta manus, turbaeque furentis\n  Jurgia et insultus, aequantes verbera linguas;\n  Sed maestam intrepidamque simul, digitisque cruentos\n  Tractantem clavos, implentem vulnera fletu,\n  Pectora tundentem violentis candida pugnis,\n  Vellentem flavos manibus sine more capillos.\n  Viderat haec, inquam, dum pectora fida suorura\n  Diffugerent pellente metu. Memor ergo revisit\n\n{477}\n\n  Te primam ante alios; tibi se pri\u00f9s obtulit uni.\n  Te quoque, digressus terris ad astra reversus,\n  Bis tria lustra, cibi nunqu\u00e0m mortalis egentem\n  Rupe sub h\u00e2c aluit, tarn longo tempore solis\n  Divinis contenta epulis et rore salubri\n  Haec domus antra tibi stillantibus humida saxis,\n  Horrifico tenebrosa situ, tecta aurea regum,\n  Delicias omnes ac ditia vicerat arva.\n  H\u00ecc inclusa libens, longis vestita capillis,\n  Veste carens ali\u00e2, ter denos passa decembres\n  Diceris, h\u00ecc non fracta gelu nec victa pavore.\n  Namque famem, frigus, durum quoque saxa cubile\n  Dulcia fecit amor spesque alto pectore fixa.\n  H\u00ecc hominum non visa oculis, stipata catervis\n  Angelicis, septemque die subvecta per horas,\n  Coelestes audire choros alterna canentes\n  Carmina, corporeo de carcere digna fuisti.\n\n\n        Translation.\n\n  Sweet friend of God! my tears attend,\n  Hark to me suppliant and defend--\n  O thou, all-potent to befriend!\n\n  Not vain that care thou didst accord--\n  Thy hands, uplifted o'er thy Lord,\n  Upon his head sweet odors poured,\n\n  And touched his feet with unguents rare--\n  The kiss of love imprinted there--\n  And wiped them with thy beauteous hair.\n\n  Not vain, when he in majesty\n  Rose up from death, 'twas given to thee\n  The first to meet, to hear, to see.\n\n  This glory did the Lord divine,\n  The Christ august, to thee assign,\n  Made this unending splendor thine.\n\n  Unto his cross he saw thee cling,\n  Unawed by threat and buffeting--\n  The taunts the furious rabble fling;\n\n  For him he saw thee lashed with scorn,\n  Yet clasping, faithful and forlorn,\n  Those feet with nails now pierced and torn.\n\n{478}\n\n  He watched thy tear-drenched face below--\n  Thy bosom stricken in thy woe--\n  Thy long fair hair's dishevelled flow.\n\n  All this he saw, while from his side\n  His other loved ones scattered wide,\n  And left alone their Crucified.\n\n  'Twas therefore, mindful of those sighs,\n  He, deigning from the tomb to rise,\n  Sought his first welcome from thine eyes.\n\n  And heavenward when from earth he sped,\n  Through thrice ten years for thee here spread\n  A feast by angels ministered.\n\n  This rugged cave obscure and lone,\n  Black rock-dews dripping down the stone.\n  For thee a regal palace shone.\n\n  No fields with harvest wealth besprent\n  Accord such manna as was sent;\n  Thy needs did heavenly gifts content.\n\n  Here through December's frost and sleet.\n  Thy long hair, falling to thy feet.\n  Enrobed thee in a robe complete.\n\n  No fear appalled; love made thee bold;\n  Love sweetened sufferings manifold.\n  The rock, the hunger, and the cold.\n\n  Here, hid from mortal eyes, to be\n  Cheered with celestial company.\n  Angelic bands encompassed thee.\n\n  And still a dweller in our sphere.\n  Seven hours each day rapt hence, thine ear\n  The alternate choirs of heaven could hear.\n\n       C. E. R\n\n-------\n\n{479}\n\n\n         Glimpses Of Tuscany.\n\n   Santa Maria Del Fiore--The Duomo.\n\n\n           I.\n\nWe are approaching Florence by rail from Pisa, a dismal, dripping\nFebruary morning. It is twelve years since I first saw that\nfamous Duomo of Santa Maria del Fiore. I came suddenly upon it,\nas I was trying to find my way alone to the opera at the Pergola,\nthe first night I got to Florence. I shall never forget the\nimpression it made on me--an honest, original impression, for I\nhad never read or heard of the Piazza and its wonders. I only\nknew Giotto by his \"O.\" Orgagna, Arnolfo, Brunelleschi, were\nnames utterly unknown. But the beauty and immensity of that\nmighty square, asleep in the starlight, overwhelmed me. It was\nlike a step, unawares, from time into eternity. No Pergola that\nnight for me. I crept back to the hotel, bewildered and awed into\nsomething like earnestness; for the Lord seemed enthroned in that\nconsecrated place, and I was afraid of him as he sat there,\nstern, conscious, omnipotent.\n\nBut I was younger then; disposed to go into raptures over\neverything artistic, especially Italian art. The decade between\nthirty and forty diminishes one's enthusiasm dreadfully. I am\nalmost afraid to meet my old favorite now, lest the spell of a\nfine remembrance should be broken for ever. But the train is\nrushing on, the road curves, and there's the same Duomo, looking\nas if Our Lady of Flowers herself had settled down on the city,\nwith Giotto's campanile, like an archangel, standing guard beside\nher. There she sits in her gray mantle, grayer through the mist\nand snow, queen of all the landscape--grander, lighter, lovelier\nthan ever.\n\nHere we are at the station, and now driving past the baptistery;\nbut, far or near, that cupola ever full in view like a guardian\npresence. You do not wonder here, as before Saint Peter's, what\nhas become of the cupola; you are not obliged to fall back a\nleague to see what is nearly overhead. Nave, transept, and\ntribune go swelling up, with buttress and demi-cupola diminishing\nas they ascend, and all converging into one enormous drum from\nwhich springs the central dome. Dante could see it from his chair\nin its very shadow. Arnolfo and Brunelleschi may see it from\ntheir seats of marble scarce twenty yards from the\nfoundation-stone. Angelo may see it from his home in Santa Croce.\nThe masons of Fiesole can see it from their hills, the peasants\nof San Casciano from their vineyards; and, far down the Arno, the\nboatmen from Pisa look up to it as they plod wearily along.\n\nI am domesticated in Florence; the slow Tuscan spring is passing\ninto summer; and, from being simply a joy, this great cathedral\nhas become a study. Arnolfo, son of Lapo, or Cambio, was the\ngreat stone-poet who traced that ground-plan, itself an epic. He\nwas commissioned by those wonderful republicans to construct a\nchurch, as worthy as man could make it of the glory of God and\nthe dignity of the city of Florence.\n{480}\nThe inclination of Arnolfo's genius was toward the Gothic; but he\nwas a many-sided and myriad-minded man. His walls of Florence\nsuggest the Egyptian, his court of the Bargello the Saracenic,\nhis Palazzo Vecchio a perfectly new idea. He has all the\nversatility of Shakespeare. Arnolfo's first conception of Santa\nMaria del Fiore may still be seen in fresco, copied from the last\nwooden model, in the Spanish Cloister of Santa Maria Novella. Up\nto the first cornice, the cathedral, as it now stands, is almost\nas purely Gothic as the campanile; and, by reference to the\nfresco, you will perceive that Arnolfo's original idea was to\ncarry this Gothic treatment up to the very cross that crowns the\nlantern. For instance, the lantern in the fresco is without\neither ball or scroll, the clerestory buttressed, and with\npointed instead of circular lights, the windows of the cupola\npointed. Yet, as it is certain that Arnolfo lived to finish the\nclerestory, and to unite (_serrare_) the smaller cupolas and\ntribunes, it is clear these variations in his plan, these\ndepartures from the pointed, these approximations to the round,\nwere deliberately made by Arnolfo himself, or by his direction.\nAs the work advanced, he felt that something more must be\nconceded to the coming cupola. It was not enough to have it\noctagonal instead of spherical, and enrich its eight marble ribs\nwith Gothic tracery; the antagonism between the two styles must\nbe met and softened from the start. See how gradually this is\ndone, and at what an early stage these concessions begin. In the\nfresco, the blind arches, both over the lower tribunal windows\nand just under the lower tribunal cornice, are slightly pointed;\nin the building itself they are round; the niches above the\ncornice, also, are pointed in the picture and round-topped in the\nstone. It is more than probable that these concessions were\ndictated by the greater prominence which the cupola was assuming\nin Arnolfo's new vision of his temple. Now is it impossible, that\nhe might have nearly anticipated the exact plan of the heir of\nhis inspiration and partner of his glory? The tendency is that\nway. But, with the completion of the clerestory and the\nunification of the smaller cupolas, Arnolfo departs, and, after\nan interval of a century and a quarter, Brunelleschi enters.\n\nThere they are, seated side by side in marble, close to the stone\nthat marks where Dante, too, sat gazing at their Duomo. Arnolfo\nlooks more like a dreamer than a doer, although he was both; in\nSer Brunelleschi's face there is more of the mathematician than\nthe poet. He could never have traced that ground-plan, never have\ndreamed that shining archangel called the campanile; but he did\nwhat neither the pupil of Cimabue nor the son of Cambio could\nperhaps have managed as well, he built that matchless cupola.\nBrunelleschi had his one great dream, the solution of a vast and\nnovel architectural difficulty. What Arnolfo had hinted became\nhis grand ideal. He nursed his dream for years at Rome, communing\nwith the spirit of classic art; at last he told his dream in\nFlorence, and with infinite difficulty got leave to act it out.\nSince that noble _carte blanche_ to Arnolfo, Florence had\ndeclined; she was no longer up to the proud standard of that\nearlier day. The superintendents are slippery and slow in\nengaging Filippo; and Filippo himself must _finesse_ more\nthan a little to secure the engagement.\n{481}\nThere is this difference, to be sure, that the Duomo was the\nculmination of Arnolfo's professional career and but the\nbeginning of his successor's; that the latter, like all gallant\nadventurers, had to win his spurs before he could be fully\ntrusted. Still, the two inseparable elements of self and gain are\nmore conspicuous here than in the purer Christian ages, whose\narchitects disdained or forbore to register their names; whose\nworks preserve no personal memorial of their masters; \"so that,\"\nsays Vasari, \"I cannot but marvel at the simplicity and\nindifference to glory exhibited by the men of that period.\" There\nis, unfortunately, no such simplicity to marvel at now.\n\nAs early as 1407, Filippo submitted an opinion to the\nsuperintendents of the works of Santa Maria del Fiore, and to the\nsyndics of the guild of wool-workers, (powerful gentlemen in\nthose days,) that the edifice above the roof must be constructed,\nnot after the design of Arnolfo; but that a frieze, thirty feet\nhigh, must be erected with a large window in each of its sides.\nThis suggestion, together with the additional thirty feet for the\ngallery, comprised the single, sublime conception to which the\nDuomo owes its crowning beauty; the rest of the task is chiefly\nmechanical. But such immense mechanics require immense genius.\nFilippo had supplied the idea, but there was no one found wise\nenough to execute it. The wardens and syndics were much\nperplexed; and Filippo, after laughing at them in his sleeve,\nreturned to Rome. He had hardly gone before they wrote him to\nreturn. He came; and after patiently listening to the long array\nof difficulties which mediocrity always opposes to the\ninspiration of genius, admitted that the most enormous dome of\nancient or modern times must present certain difficulties in its\nerection, like other great enterprises; that he was confounded no\nless by the breadth than by the height of the edifice; that if\nthe tribune could be vaulted in a circular form, one might pursue\nthe method adopted by the Romans in erecting the Pantheon; but\nthat following up the eight sides of the building to a\nconvergence, thus dove-tailing, and, so to speak, enchaining the\nstones, would be a most difficult and novel undertaking.\n\"Yet\"--and this touch is worthy of Arnolfo's age or any\nother--\"yet, remembering that this is a temple consecrated to God\nand the Virgin, I confidently trust that, for a work executed in\ntheir honor, they will not fail to infuse knowledge where it is\nnow wanting, and bestow strength, wisdom, and genius on him who\nshall be the author of such a project.\" Nothing can shake\nFilippo's joyous trust in himself; he acts as if he carries a\ndivine commission in his pocket to finish what Arnolfo began, and\ncan therefore afford to laugh at all human appointments or\ninterference. With amazing confidence and magnanimity, he\nconcludes his interview with their worships by exhorting them to\nassemble, on a fixed day within a year, as many architects as\nthey can get together; not Tuscans and Italians only, but\nGermans, French, and all other nations, \"to the end that the work\nmay be commenced and intrusted to him who shall give the best\nevidence of capacity.\" The syndics and wardens liked Filippo's\nadvice, and would also have liked him to prepare a model for\ntheir edification. But with all his piety and self-reliance, Ser\nBrunelleschi was a Florentine like their worships, and therefore\nkeen enough to keep his model to himself. It then suddenly\noccurred to these grave gentlemen that money might be an object\nto Filippo, as it occasionally is to other men; and so they voted\nhim a sum, not stated by Vasari, but not large enough to justify\nhis remaining in Florence. So back to Rome once more marches the\nSer Brunelleschi.\n\n{482}\n\nMeanwhile that noble city of Florence has ordered her merchants\nresident abroad to send her at any cost the best foreign masters.\nIn the year 1420, these best foreign masters, and best Italian\nmasters besides, and the syndics and superintendents, and a\nselect number of distinguished citizens, and little Filippo\nhimself, just returned from Rome, are all assembled in the hall\nof the wardens of Santa Maria del Fiore. After listening to a\nhundred absurd plans, Brunelleschi unfolds his own at full\nlength. Whereupon the assembled syndics, superintendents, and\ncitizens, instead of being at all edified by his remarks,\nproceeded to call him a simpleton, an ass, a madman, and bade him\ndiscourse of something else. Which he, instead of doing, stuck to\nhis point, and finally lost his temper and flew in their faces.\nWhereupon they called him a fool and a babbler; and considering\nhim absolutely mad, arose against him as one man, and\nincontinently turned him out of doors by the head and heels.\nImagine the rage of Arnolfo the Goth, after such treatment; or\nAngelo the mighty, stalking down the Via Romana; or Dante,\nwandering ghost-like into eternal exile! The indomitable,\npractical Filippo did none of these things, but prudently shut\nhimself up at home lest people in the streets should call out,\n\"See where goes that fool!\" \"It was not the fault of these men,\"\nsays the sympathetic Vasari, \"that Filippo did not break in\npieces the models, set fire to the designs, and in one half-hour\ndestroy all the labors so long endured, and ruin the hopes of so\nmany years.\" But Filippo was less a poet, enamoured of an inward\nvision of beauty, than an architect determined to solve an\narchitectural problem. Plainly enough, since Arnolfo had set the\nexample in the clerestory, the windows of the cupola were also to\nbe circular instead of pointed. His inventive faculties were\ntherefore restricted to the organization of that vast dream, to\nthe determination of the ascending curves and the conception of\nthe lantern. It was not the offspring of his soul, but of his\nmind, that Filippo had offered the syndics and superintendents;\nand the inventor of new combinations and possibilities of matter\nis apt to possess a more elastic temperament than the creator of\nnew forms of beauty. Instead of fretting himself to death or\ncultivating the princely revenge of silence, Filippo, strong in\nhis mission and calculating on the proverbial caprice of his\nnative Florence, began to experiment on individuals instead of\nassemblies; so successfully, too, that another session was soon\nconvened. Profiting by discomfiture, Filippo modified his\ntactics. He salutes the superintendents as \"_magnificent_\nsignors and wardens,\" and condescends to be more explicit about\nhis still hidden model. He even goes so far as to prove the\ndome-within-a-dome, which had so enraged their excellencies, a\npossibility. He spoke with such emphasis and confidence, that \"he\nhad all the appearance of having vaulted ten such cupolas.\" In a\nword, they surrendered at discretion; and, rather in despair than\nhope, made him principal master of the works. The man of talents\nwas victorious where a mere man of genius would have been badly\nbeaten. But--in these artistic complications there is always a\nbut--Lorenzo Ghiberti, just famous for his doors of Paradise, was\na favorite in Florence; so Florence resolved to associate Lorenzo\nwith Filippo. This was a bitter pill to Ser Brunelleschi, but he\nswallowed it; and for two years they worked together at the\ntwelve braccia to which their labors were limited by the wardens.\n{483}\nBut--there was also a 'but' on the right side--when the closing\nin of the cupola toward the top commenced, and the masons and\nother masters were wailing in expectation of directions as to the\nmanner in which the chains were to be applied and the\nscaffoldings erected, it chanced on one fine morning that Filippo\ndid not appear at the works. On inquiry, it turned out that he\nhad tied up his head, called for hot plates and towels, and gone\nto bed complaining bitterly. An attack of pleurisy. Most\ninopportunely; for at this most critical moment in the enterprise\nthe whole burthen fell on Lorenzo. Lorenzo was besieged by\npractical questions; Lorenzo was persecuted with a thousand\ninterrogatories; Lorenzo waded completely out of his depth into a\nsea of troubles; the masons and stone-cutters came to a stand,\nand finally the work stood still. At this juncture, the syndics\nand wardens resolved to pay the sick man a visit. They condoled\nwith him in his illness and also lamented the disorder which had\nattacked the building. \"Is not Lorenzo there?\" asked the\nsufferer. \"He will not do anything without you,\" replied the\nwardens. \"_But I could do well enough without him_,\"\nmurmured the invalid. The wardens withdrew, and sent Filippo a\nprescription in the shape of an announcement of their intention\nto remove Lorenzo. Filippo instantly recovered, but only to find\nhis rival still in place and power. Whereupon he made one more\nprayer to their worships, namely, to divide the labor as they\ndivided the salary, and give each his own separate sphere of\naction. This was granted: the chain-work assigned to Lorenzo, the\nscaffolding to Filippo. The scaffolding proved a miracle of\nsuccess, the chain-work a monument of failure. The wardens, and\nsyndics, and superintendents, and influential citizens, fairly\ndriven to the wall, made Filippo chief superintendent of the\nwhole fabric _for life_, commanding that nothing should be\ndone in the work save by his direction. How much richer the world\nwould now be in every department of art, had half its men of\ngenius but possessed a tithe of Brunelleschi's elasticity and\ndetermination.\n\nLeft to himself, Filippo worked with so much zeal and minute\nattention, that not a stone was placed in the building which he\nhad not examined. The very bricks, fresh from the oven, are said\nto have been set apart with his own hands. So conscientious were\nthe builders of those days when art was supreme and religion a\npractical inspiration. The energy and resources of this model\narchitect are inexhaustible. Nothing escapes him. Outlets and\napertures are provided, both in security against the force of the\nwinds, and against the vapors and vibrations of the earth.\nWine-shops and eating-houses are opened in the cupola. High over\nFlorence, Filippo is undisputed lord and master of a small town\nof his own.\n\nAnd so, for twenty-six years, they wrought under his eyes at this\narchitectural miracle. He lived to see the lantern carried to the\nheight of several braccia: it was not finished till fifteen years\nafter his death. He left plans for the gallery, which were either\nlost, stolen, or destroyed. That great, broad belt of dingy brick\nand mortar clamoring to earth and heaven for completion, ruins\nthe effect of the dome and gives the whole edifice a shabby\nappearance. Only one of the eight sides is finished.\n{484}\nThis was done in Carrara marble by Baccio d'Agnolo, and would\nhave been carried all around the dome but for the interference of\nMichael Angelo, then omnipotent in Italy, who denounced it as a\nmere cage for crickets; adding that he himself would show Baccio\nwhat he _ought_ to do. The old art-dictator made a model\naccordingly, which, after long debate, was rejected. So our Lady\nof Flowers still lacks her girdle. It is much to be regretted,\nsince Michael could suggest nothing better, that he did not hold\nhis peace. The present model may not be faultless, but it is\ninfinitely better than nothing; and no one else has suggested\nanything as good. It was condemned, not as defective in itself,\nbut unequal to the magnificence of the building; and, also,\nbecause it seemed to violate some secret purpose of\nBrunelleschi's in cutting off, as it did, the line of stones\nwhich he had left projecting. Be this as it may, Filippo's\npurpose has never been divined and never can be; all the plans of\nthe great masters are lost; and there seems to be small use in\ncontinuing the interdict of a much over-estimated authority till\ndoomsday. That cestus of alternate head and garland just under\nthe colonnade is abominable, but it is difficult to see how the\npresent design could otherwise be improved. It harmonizes with\nall the windows, and niches, and arches in the tribune; it\nrelieves the blankness of the perforations, and is in sympathy\nboth with the windows of the lantern and the upper window of the\ncampanile. It is the sub-dominant without which the blended\nGothic and classic is a discord. Arnolfo might have done it\nbetter, but no one else. It is a poem which Baccio was as well\nqualified to trace as any of the rest of them.\n\nApart from his glorious consummation of the Duomo, I do not like\nBrunelleschi. He did more than any other man to repel the Gothic\ninfluences, which, under Arnolfo and others, were penetrating\nTuscany; he insured the triumph of the round arch over the\npointed, and paved the way to the monstrosities of the\nRenaissance. But his cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore is the\nsupreme miracle of architecture. It exceeds the cupola of the\nVatican, both in height and circumference, by eight feet; and\nalthough supported by eight ribs only, which renders it lighter\nthan that of Saint Peter's, which has sixteen flanked buttresses,\nis nevertheless more solid and firm. Unlike the Roman dome, it\nhas stood unassisted and unstrengthened from the first; so firmly\ngrounded by the forethought of Arnolfo, so closely knit by the\nenergies of Filippo, that it has not sunk or swerved an inch in\nfour centuries. The noblest speech that Buonarotti ever made was,\nthat he would not copy, but could not surpass it; the finest\ncompliment ever paid by one man of genius to another was his\ndying wish to be buried where he might arise, not in sight of his\nown Pantheon in the air, but in full view of the vaulted tribune\nof Santa Maria del Fiore. Another name, however, is associated\nwith the growth of the Duomo--a name not inferior to either\nArnolfo or Filippo. Just beside the vast cathedral is the\nwondrous bell-tower Giotto reared--his solitary, or only\nconspicuous architectural feat. Before Giotto's time, the modern\npainters copied nature about as closely as most actors and\norators now do; that is, their men and women bore only a weak,\nconventional resemblance to humanity. The son of Bondone\ninaugurated the naturalistic movement which culminated in Da\nVinci and Raphael; unquestionably a most honorable distinction.\nBut what can all he ever painted, judged as a living fact, amount\nto when weighed against the startling splendor of this divine\ncampanile?\n{485}\nI have seen something of Giotto, far from all, but enough to know\nthat, save as undeveloped germs and hints, his pictures are\nlittle more than crudities belonging to the infancy of art,\namazing at his time, but not more than curious at ours. But this\ncampanile, into which he suddenly ascended without an effort, is\nthe transfiguration of architecture--the product of an art at its\nbest and highest. Architecture never had advanced, never has\nadvanced a step beyond it. It might be added, never can advance;\nfor beyond a certain recognized point in the realization of\nbeauty, human genius is not permitted to push its way. Vasari\ndevotes thirty pages to the consideration of Giotto's pictures,\nand but one to the campanile. Yet these pictures are mouldering\nin convents or shrouded in chapels, or buried in dim galleries,\nscattered far and wide over the world; and, save over some\nambitious student or patient virtuoso, they no longer exist as a\nspell or a power. But this lofty campanile is a perpetual\ninfluence; an influence as indestructible as the Iliad--a joy as\nunceasing as the joy of sunrise--the joy of a work that is\nperfection of its kind. So fair, so frail, and yet so firm! It\ndoes not need the glass case suggested by imperial condescension.\nIt knows how to take the lightning and the storm. It knows how to\nbear the weight and thunder of its mellow bells. Its beautiful\nhead is at home in the skies, and seems to belong to heaven as\nmuch as the flowers belong to earth.\n\nGiotto's plan would have crowned it with a spire of a hundred\nfeet; but, whether for true artistic considerations, or because\nit was Gothic, or because it was too expensive, succeeding\narchitects have always advised its omission.\n\nBesides its own independent loveliness, this bell-tower exercises\nan important influence over the group to which it belongs, not\nonly by the development of form, but also by the subtler\nqualification of style. But for the pure Gothic of Giotto, the\npredominance of the round in the tribunes and cupola would\noverwhelm Arnolfo's pointed witchery beneath the clerestory. As\nit is, the supremacy of the classic at one end of the stately\npile is balanced by the ascendency of the Gothic at the other.\nHigh up in air the pious rivalry between the two great styles is\ncontinued, each lifting its choicest offering to the very\nfootstool of the Padre Eterno, each doing its best in honor of\nour Lady of Flowers.\n\nThe facade of Santa Maria is wanting, like her girdle. Giotto is\nsaid to have finished two thirds of it, subsequently torn down\n_to be restored in a more modern style!_ The fresco in the\ncloister of San Marco gives only part of it, and I could make but\nlittle of that. As I remember the fresco of Arnolfo's facade, it\nwas meant to be composed of statues, niches, and\npillars--something as deep and rich as the fa\u00e7ade at Pisa.\nWhoever may finish it, let us trust that the shallow mosaic of\nSanta Croce will be avoided. The baptistery completes this\nmemorable group; faded, unattractive without, sombre and majestic\nwithin.\n\nThe interior of Santa Maria is a disappointment. Glorious stained\nglass, splendid arches, but none of the light, the joy, the\nshining paradise of Saint Peter's. If we may believe Vasari, the\ninterior, like the exterior was to have been crusted with\nFlorentine mosaic, even to the minutest corners of the edifice.\nBut the days are dead when such a deed was practicable.\n{486}\nInstead of colored marbles, we have a pale olive overspreading\nall the edifice; instead of the mosaic for which Filippo had\nprovided iron supports, the lack-lustre frescoes of Vasari and\nhis successors, which Florence ought to have summarily\nwhitewashed, as suggested in Lasca's madrigal. Fortunately, these\nfrescoes are the only pictures. Pictures in large churches are\ndistracting and insignificant; and moreover, you can rarely more\nthan half see them, try your best. Least of all, has a picture\nany business in a Gothic church. For my own part I would as soon\nsee the pyramid of Cheops hung with pictures as the Duomo. In a\nchurch, you want all the superhuman you can get--nothing human\nbut human souls. Angels and dragons and effigies are more in\nkeeping there than the best statues; those ghostly groups and\nfaces in the old stained glass look better than if they were a\nthousand times more natural. The old mosaics harmonize because\nthey are not only typical, but imperishable as the structure\nitself. The decisive objection to a picture in a church is its\napparent fragility.\n\nThe outer robes of our Lady of Flowers are dull with the dust and\nwear of five centuries. See how those new bits of marble which\nthe workmen are inserting, green, white, and red, flash and\nsparkle in the sun! What a celestial vision it must have been\nwhen all that world of mosaic was fresh and stainless! But even\nas she is, faded and unfinished, what an invaluable possession!\nWhat would Florence be without it? It is a central magnet that\nholds together her present, past, and future; that unites all her\nchildren in one vast family, making her, in the truest sense of\nthe word, a community. It stands before her everlastingly, a\nmemorial of her youthful wealth and power; a monument of present\ngreatness, a protest against decrepitude to come. It binds her\nfast to her renown, her honor, and her faith; it is the solemn,\nvisible bond between her and God. The Duomo belongs not only to\nFlorence, but to all the hills and valleys around, to the villas\nof Morello, to the cloisters of Fiesole, to the huts on the\nApennines. Every peasant within sight of its cupola, within sound\nof its campanile, has a share in its daily benediction. For four\ncenturies, the generations that people that fair amphitheatre\nhave found it the most unchanging feature in their landscape. It\nis as much the portion of their lives as the stars, their river,\nor their own vineyards. In the first blush of every morning, it\nrises before the sun; and when the stars and moon are shining,\nthe lantern of Santa Maria del Fiore takes its place amongst them\nas part of the pageantry of the skies.\n\n----------\n\n{487}\n\n   The Condition and Prospects of Catholics in England.\n\n     By An English Catholic.\n\n\nSurrounded as we are on all sides by apostles of progress, ever\nready to taunt and ridicule those who linger in the shadows of\nthe past, it would be distressing indeed to Catholics in general,\nand especially to English Catholics, if they could with justice\nbe reproached as stationary or retrograde. Happily they are of\nall men least open to the charge. They advance on a double line.\nThey share in the common march of society; they adopt every\nlatest improvement; they fully accept and reciprocate the\nblessings of civilization; but their religion also, which is in\nitself progress, increases and multiplies throughout the globe,\nand particularly in the British empire. It has derived strength\nfrom the world's social and political changes; it is inspired\nmore than ever with the breath of freedom; and the very means\nwhich accelerate science and commerce supply it with wings and\ncoat it with mail. It not only advances on a double line, but it\nhas likewise a twofold nature and a duplex power. This wonderful\nreligion is both old and new; it unites the weight and authority\nof age with the freshness and vigor of youth. To the English it\nis both ancient and modern. It _was_ the venerable faith of\ntheir ancestors, and it is, by a gracious revolution in the moral\nworld, the old religion revived, with all the charms of\nnovelty--a second spring revisiting the long desolate and wintry\nland. It comes back to us with all its time-honored appliances;\nwith its sacred symbols and solemn rites; its orders,\ncongregations, and retreats; its colleges, institutions, poor\nschools, homes, orphanages, almshouses, hospitals, and\nlibraries--but it comes, moreover, with means and advantages\nproportioned to its difficulties, and such as in old times it\ncould not boast. It has now in its hands the mighty machinery of\nthe press, with the Scriptures, the Missal and Church Offices in\nthe vulgar tongue. It flourishes amid liberal institutions, and\nacquires no little vigor from free discussion, persuading where\nonce it ruled. It affiliates to itself all physical truths, all\ndiscoveries in science, as affording fresh evidence of the power\nand wisdom of God. It engages in historical research with\nimpartiality formerly unknown, relying on documentary proofs, and\nscrutinizing all that is legendary. It joyfully accepts and\nutilizes the steamship, the railroad, and the telegraph. It finds\nin them fresh instruments of good, new links to knit nations\ntogether in a common faith, swift convoys of Christian missions,\nand electric tongues of flame to spread the gospel of Christ.\n\nDuring the last forty years the Catholic _renaissance_ in\nEngland has been rapid beyond all that could have been expected\nor was even hoped. It is not to the emancipation act of 1829, to\nthe increase of the episcopate in 1840, nor to the creation of\nthe hierarchy in 1850, that this surprising growth is mainly to\nbe ascribed.\n{488}\nThe removal of political disabilities gave Catholics in England,\nno doubt, a respectability and courage which they had not before;\nbut they would still have continued, on the whole, a despised and\nscattered remnant--mere \"pebbles and _detritus_\" as Newman\nsays, [Footnote 103] \"of the great deluge\"--if there had not\narisen in the very heart of the Established Church a little band\nof learned and pious men, who, strong in genius and in prayer,\nvaliantly defended many distinctively Catholic doctrines, and\nended by professing openly or virtually their adhesion to our\nentire system of faith and morals. This it was which caused\nEnglish Catholics, when they emerged, as it were, from the\ncatacombs, [Footnote 104] to lift up their heads, to challenge a\nnew investigation of the grounds of their belief, and to submit\nthem confidently to every test that history, Scripture, reason,\nand experience could apply. The Tractarian movement infused fresh\nblood into the church's veins, and it has, during a period of\nthirty years, swollen our waters with a confluent stream.\n\n    [Footnote 103: _Sermons on Various Occasions_, p. 232.]\n\n    [Footnote 104: Card. Wiseman's _Address to the Congress of\n    Malines_, p. 9.]\n\nThe tide thus set in a right direction does not cease to flow,\nand it is fed by sources external to ourselves. Scarcely a week\npasses but some persons knock at the gates of the church for\nadmittance, who have learned the elements of Catholicism from\nalien teachers. Several high-church periodicals, widely\ncirculated, such as the _Union Review_ and the _Church\nNews_, lay down, with extraordinary boldness and precision,\ndoctrines which the so-called reformers labored to explode.\nRumors are ever afloat of important conversions about to take\nplace, and thus Catholics in England are constantly encouraged,\nwhile Anglicans are proportionally unsettled and alarmed. The\nEstablishment is dying by the hands of its own pastors. Three\nhundred of them have quitted its pale, forfeited their position\nin society, forsaken a thousand comforts, prospects, and\nendearments, to follow the church in the wilderness and the\npillar of fire. The largest-minded and the largest-hearted man\nAnglicanism ever produced, has long since taken his seat among\nthe doctors in the true temple, and one whom Anglicans esteemed\nfor his piety from boyhood upward, is now the primate of the\nEnglish Catholic Church, and regarded among its bishops as\n_facile princeps_ for learning and ability, both as a\nspeaker and writer. The talents which were employed in promoting\nschism are thus turned into a healthier channel; and a multitude\nof able and ingenious converts in every literary guise operate\nbeneficially on the public mind. The loud demand for unity of\ndoctrine, a fixed standard of belief and morals, authority in\nmatters of faith, primitive antiquity, asceticism, symbols,\nsacraments, and aesthetics, is being supplied. Catholic\nmissionaries are covering the face of the land, and they are\nwelcomed wherever they pitch their tent. Thirsting souls, weary\nof broken cisterns, gather round them, and ask eagerly for living\nwater from deeper wells. Abbeys are raised on ancient sites;\nconvent-walls crown the hills; church-bells tinkle in secluded\nvales; and in the towns and cities, fanes richly adorned and well\nserved invite with open doors the docile to be taught and the\npenitent to be shriven. The genius of the two Pugins, the father\nand the son, has revived the love of mediaeval architecture; and\nthe new churches vie with each other in majestic structure and\nornate detail. The winter is now past, the rain is over and gone.\n{489}\nThe flowers have appeared in our land; the voice of the turtle is\nheard. The fig-tree hath put forth her green figs; the vines in\nflower yield their sweet smell. [Footnote 105]\n\n    [Footnote 105: Canticles, ii, 11-13.]\n\nWhat a contrast within forty years! then the heavenly dove flying\nover England scarcely found where her foot might rest. The waters\nwere abroad on the whole land, and she returned into the ark. In\n1830 only 434 priests ministered through the entire country; and\nthese were attached, for the most part, to obscure chapels in low\nquarters of the town, or to gloomy, old-fashioned houses in the\ncountry. Four hundred and ten unsightly buildings were then\ncalled churches; and England (which in the olden time, before the\nReformation, owned 56 convents of the Dominican order alone\n[Footnote 106]) could not at that date claim a single religious\nhouse consisting of men. Sixteen scanty communities of nuns there\nwere, who sighed and prayed in secret, being but the skirts of\nthe garment of the Lamb's Bride. A change has come over the\nscene; and how great that change is, the following table will in\nsome degree show:\n\n                             In 1854. 1864. 1867.\n  Catholic clergy in England     922  1267  1438\n  Catholic clergy in Scotland.   134   178   201\n  Churches, chapels,\n    and stations in England      678   907  1082\n  Churches, chapels,\n    and stations in Scotland     134   191   201\n  Communities of men in England   17    56    67\n  Convents in England.            84   173   210\n  Convents in Scotland.            0    13    17 [Footnote 107]\n\n    [Footnote 106: _Fr. Palmer's Life of Cardinal Howard._\n    Introd. 41-58.]\n\n    [Footnote 107: _Statesman's Year-Book for 1867_, p. 238.\n    _Catholic Directory_, p. 267.]\n\nIn the Diocese of Westminster alone there are more than twice as\nmany religious communities of women as there were in the whole\nkingdom (Ireland excluded) forty years ago. The population, it is\ntrue, multiplies rapidly and in an ever increasing ratio, but the\nspread of Catholicism does far more than keep pace with this\nadvance. It outstrips it in a striking degree, and gives\ncontinual promise of further increase. The distance between\nchurches lessens; the means of grace are more copiously supplied;\nthe discipline of the church is more fully carried out; the\nprejudices of our foes are partly dispelled; their attacks become\nless violent; the press is more civil; the state more\nconciliating. In many localities, such as Bayswater,\nNotting-Hill, Kensington, Brompton, and Hammersmith, in the West\nof London, the number of Catholic churches, convents, and\ncharitable institutions is greater than would be found over an\nequal area in many countries where the church is supreme. The\nnumber of persons attached to the congregation of the Oratory in\nBrompton exceeds 8000, and upwards of 13,000 attend the services\nof St. George's Cathedral in Southwark. The English\n\"Reformation,\" happily, did only half its work, and the tap-roots\nof Catholicism have never been thoroughly eradicated from the\npopular mind. New suckers are ever springing up, and persistent\nculture soon obtains its reward.\n\nThe vast metropolis is not all included in one diocese. The\nArchbishop of Westminster and the Bishop of Southwark both reside\nin London, and divide the pastoral care of the great city between\nthem. One hundred and sixty priests, secular, regular, and\nunattached, minister under Dr. Grant, while 221, including\nOratorians and Oblates of St. Charles Borromeo, serve under the\nprimate. The average attendance of children at the poor schools\nof the Diocese of Westminster was, in the year 1857-8, 8648; and\nnine years later, in 1866-7, it amounted to 12,056.\n{490}\nThis increase sufficiently proves that great efforts are made to\ninstruct the Catholic poor children in London. Many of them,\nespecially those of Irish extraction, pass their days in rags,\nfilth, and beggary, living like little \"Arabs,\" as they are\nfamiliarly called. In 1866 it was estimated that from 7000 to\n12,000 Catholic children were thus wandering through the streets\nof the capital; but the exertions of Cardinal Wiseman and\nArchbishop Manning have produced the happiest results, and\ndiminished the evils which want of funds and the difficulties of\nthe case leave for the present without adequate remedy. It is\ncertain that the poor children of Catholics have in the English\nbishops most able and tender-hearted advocates, and that numerous\nmonastic bodies of men and women are ready to second their\nefforts with devotion truly heroic. It is on the lambs of the\nflock that the hopes of Catholic England depend, and just in\nproportion as they are educated or uneducated, will they be\nornaments or disgraces to the religion they profess. Nothing but\nsuperstition and vice can be built on ignorance; and the clergy\nin England are everywhere earnest in promoting the culture of the\nmind. It is almost as vain to teach religion without secular\nknowledge, as it would be presumptuous and profane to impart\nsecular knowledge without religion. Nature and grace alike ordain\nthat they should go together, and on this principle the Poor\nSchool Committee, or Council of Catholic Education, invariably\nacts.\n\nThere is in England, at the present moment, a strong tendency to\ncompulsory education. The leading thinkers of the day incline to\nthis plan, and press on the legislature the expediency of\nproviding a state system of education, of which all the poor,\nCatholics as well as Protestants, should avail themselves. The\nsecular instruction would, in this case, be common to all the\nchildren, while the religious instruction would be in the hands\nof the ministers of the several religions which the parents might\nprofess. The Catholic bishops and clergy look with fear and\nsuspicion on such a project, believing it impossible safely to\nseparate secular and religious instruction. They are of opinion\nthat the system would work badly, and prove a failure; that\nnon-Catholic teachers would insensibly instil false doctrine and\nwrong views into the pupils' minds, and that the denominational\nsystem, which provides separate schools for each section of\nprofessing Christians, is the best, and, indeed, the only good\none for Catholic interests. They point to Ireland, where the\n\"national\" education is regarded as a national grievance. They\nbid you remark how, in that valley of tears, both Catholics and\nProtestants separate their children if they can. They prove to\nyou that, in national schools with Presbyterian masters,\nthousands of Catholic children are taught the Protestant religion\nfrom the lips of Protestant teachers. [Footnote 108] They\ncomplain that while the English receive from the state important\nhelp toward denominational education, to the Irish all such help\nis persistently refused.\n\n    [Footnote 108: Archb. Manning's _Letter to Earl Grey_,\n    1868, p. 22.]\n\nIt remains to be seen how far their remonstrances will be\nattended to, and how far the national education in Great Britain\ncan be made to harmonize with Catholic. Happily, there is no\ndisposition on the part of the state to force on any portion of\nthe people a measure obnoxious to them; and the scheme of\nnational education introduced into Ireland under the auspices of\nthe Catholic and Protestant Archbishops of Dublin, (Drs. Murray\nand Whately,) having proved abortive, it is the less likely that\nCatholics in England will be obliged to accept any conditions to\nwhich they may be decidedly adverse.\n\n{491}\n\nThere is, however, great difficulty in adjusting state\nconcessions to Catholic wants and demands. It is almost\nimpossible for Protestant rulers to understand our feelings, and\nthey often run counter to them, even when they are trying to\nsatisfy them with the best intentions. Thus, for instance, though\nthe government has thrown open the Universities of Oxford and\nCambridge to Catholics, allowing them to matriculate and proceed\nto the degree of Bachelor of Arts, difficulties have recently\nbeen raised by ecclesiastical authority respecting their availing\nthemselves of this opening. The Catholic bishops, in fact, have\nrecommended parents and guardians not to send their sons and\nwards to Oxford and Cambridge; and though their advice does not\namount to a prohibition, it has, nevertheless, a deterrent\neffect. Catholic noblemen and gentlemen of large property have,\nat present, no other means of giving their sons an education\nsuited to their rank, and such as will form their minds and\nmanners for parliamentary and diplomatic service, except by\nsending them to these universities, where science is, so far as\nthey are concerned, entirely divorced from religion, and their\npersonal faith is in great danger of being compromised. The\nCatholic colleges at Oscott, Ushaw, Stonyhurst, and the like,\nthough admirable for ordinary purposes, do not meet these\nexceptional cases. They have not, they do not, and they cannot\nproduce men equal to the times--men who carefully get up\nsubjects, read much and study deeply, write and speak in public\nwith authority, and leave deep \"footprints on the sands of time.\"\n[Footnote 109] Such laborious and efficient servants of their\ncountry are not likely to be formed by any _r\u00e9gime_ less\nstrict and comprehensive than that of our universities; and the\nconsequence is that, at this moment, there are about a dozen\nCatholic young men studying at Oxford (not to mention Cambridge)\nin spite of episcopal discouragement.\n\n    [Footnote 109: _Dublin Review_, October, 1867, p. 398.]\n\nThe principle of mixed education being absolutely condemned by\nthe church, the want of a Catholic university in England is felt\nmore and more. But it can only be the result of time, since the\ncost of endowments and professorships, not to speak of buildings,\nwould, as yet, be out of proportion to the number of Catholics in\nEngland and the means they possess. The matter, however, is now\nunder consideration at Rome, and it is expected that means will\nbe devised shortly to meet the existing want. Before the\nReformation, sixty-six universities covered Europe, and most of\nthem sprang from small beginnings, and were built amid\ndifficulties quite as great as any we shall have to encounter.\n[Footnote 110]\n\n    [Footnote 110: See _Christian Schools and Scholars_,\n    vol. ii. chap. i. and ii.]\n\nIn the mean time, the government of Mr. D'Israeli favors, to a\ncertain extent, the denominational system, and proposes [Footnote\n111] to charter the Dublin Catholic University, to endow it from\nthe public treasury, and to grant it the right of conferring\ndegrees.\n\n    [Footnote 111: March, 1868.]\n\nThis plan, if carried into effect, will materially aid the Irish\nportion of the church, but will not supply the want of university\neducation which is felt in England. Already the benefits\nresulting from the state endowment of Maynooth College for\npriests are clearly manifest, and the present race of\necclesiastics in Ireland differs entirely, in several important\nparticulars, from that of the past generation.\n{492}\nThey are less Galilean than they were when educated in France,\nless disposed to accept of state pensions, improved in manners\nand appearance, more priestly, and perhaps more firmly attached\nto the Holy See. The old-fashioned \"hedge-priest\" has\ndisappeared, and if one of our bishops now dines at the Castle in\nDublin, he has not, as was sometimes the case in days of yore, to\nborrow a pair of episcopal small-clothes for the occasion.\n\nThe system of mixed education has not taken root in Ireland,\nthough backed by all the influence of the state. The following\ntable will prove that neither Catholics nor Protestants there\napprove it, and that, though they sometimes submit to it as a\nkind of necessity, they avail themselves of it as little as\npossible. The table exhibits the entire number of schools in\nIreland under the control of the National Board, and it ought to\nbe remembered that in these it is not allowable to teach the\nCatholic religion, to use Catholic emblems, to talk of the holy\nfather, use the sign of the cross, or set up a crucifix or an\nimage of Our Lady. [Footnote 112] The schools are, in fact,\nsecular, so far as Catholic children are concerned, and their\nreligious instruction is left to the zeal and labor of their own\npastors.\n\n  [Footnote 112: Speech of Card. Cullen.]\n\n                                      Catholic    Protestant\n                                      Children.   Children.\n  Schools.\n  2,454 with Catholic teachers.         373,756      none\n  2,483 with Catholic teachers.         321,641     24,381\n  1,106 with Protestant teachers only.   29,722    114,726\n    184 with Protestant teachers only.    none.     18,702\n    131 with mixed teachers.             13,690     13,305 [Footnote 113]\n\n    [Footnote 113: _Report of National Board of Education_,\n    1866. _Report of Meeting of Clergy of Dublin_, 18th Dec.\n    1867, p. 14.]\n\nIn England, grants are made from time to time by the Privy\nCouncil of the Queen toward defraying the expenses of Catholic\npoor-schools, for it is only in a hobbling way that public\nopinion in this country moves toward religious and political\nequality. The oppression of minorities by majorities has been in\nvogue so many centuries, that the Houses of Parliament can with\ndifficulty be induced to administer even-handed justice to all.\nThe Poor-School Committee, composed entirely of Catholic noblemen\nand gentlemen, conducts the affairs of Catholic poor-schools with\nthe concurrence of the bishops and clergy. The schools which are\nsubsidized by government are subject also to government\ninspection. But this causes no inconvenience, because the\ninspectors are Catholics, approved by the bishops, and\ncomfortably salaried by the state.\n\nThe reformatory schools are most useful and interesting\ninstitutions. They date from 1854, when a law was passed to the\neffect that juvenile offenders should, after a few weeks of\nimprisonment, complete their term of punishment in a reformatory\napproved by the secretary of state for the Home Department. By\nthe exertions of Cardinal Wiseman and others, reformatories were\nestablished for Catholic children, in order that they might be\nkept separate from those of other religions, and be duly\ninstructed by Brothers of Mercy, or other pious and charitable\npersons, under the direction of a priest. Reformatory schools\nhave been followed by schools of industry, to which magistrates\nsend vagrant children, found by the police in the streets without\nshelter or home. These schools also are recognized by the\nsecretary of state, and the members of the Conferences of St.\nVincent of Paul watch over the children's interests and provide,\nas far as may be, for their welfare.\n\n{493}\n\nAllied to these are such schools as St. Vincent's Home for\ndestitute boys, at Hammersmith, [Footnote 114] where eighty poor\nboys are boarded, clothed, and educated for four shillings a week\neach, with thirty shillings on entrance for outfit, etc. The\nCatholics of England do not wait till they become a rich and\npowerful body before they engage in extensive works of charity.\nOn the contrary, the number of their charitable institutions is\nimmense, considered in proportion to their means.\n\n    [Footnote 114: Now removed to Fulham.]\n\nDuring the Crimean war the want of Catholic chaplains in the army\nwas felt painfully. Soldiers and sailors are, of all men, most\ncareless about their souls, and Catholic soldiers were doubly\nabandoned in the hour of sickness and death, having no minister\nbut a Protestant one to attend them, while in his ministrations\nthey had no faith. A few volunteer chaplains were therefore\nallowed to accompany the troops, and this has led to their being\nregularly appointed, and to such chaplains being placed on an\nequality with the Protestant in rank, salary, and retiring\npensions. Vessels, also, are moored in the great harbors and\nprepared for Catholic worship. A chaplain is specially appointed\nto the service of such ships, and to provide for the Catholic\nsailors' spiritual wants. The spirit of the Irish tar is no\nlonger vexed with the thought that he must live, fight, and\nperhaps die for a government which abhors his religion, and\ndeprives him of its consolations. The captains of men of war in\nthe neighborhood of the floating churches just spoken of, are\nobliged to see that the Catholic seamen attend Mass, and are not\nnow, as formerly, compelled to assist at the Church of England\nprayers. The field of labor of Catholic army chaplains gradually\nextends; besides being attached to many home stations, such as\nAldershot, Chatham, Portsea, Woolwich, etc., they are found in\nforeign stations also, such as Bermuda, Halifax, Mauritius,\nNew-Zealand, St. Helena, and Malta. The Catholic chaplains, it\nmay be added, live on the best terms with the officers and with\nthe Protestant clergymen in the same barracks. \"We never\ninterfere with each other,\" said one of the former a few days\nsince to the writer; \"indeed, for my part, I would not think of\ntrying to convert the Protestants; I would rather spend all my\ntime in striving to convert the Catholics. I am sure that, out of\nevery hundred of our own men, there are eighty that need to be\nconverted.\"\n\nThe prisons and union work-houses also, which used to be the\nscenes of so much injustice toward Catholic prisoners, paupers,\nand children, [Footnote 115] have now assumed a more liberal and\nChristian aspect.\n\n    [Footnote 115: _The Workhouse Question. Lamp_, Aug. 19,\n    1865.]\n\nChaplains are appointed to the larger houses of correction to\nminister to Catholic inmates, and Catholic children in the\nworkhouses enjoy the benefits of instruction in the religion of\ntheir parents. There is in the _Catholic Directory_, which\nappears annually, a list of the charitable institutions in each\ndiocese, and nothing can be more cheering and hopeful than the\nview it presents. Thus, in the _Directory_ for 1866, we find\nin the Diocese of Westminster alone 3 Almhouses; 1 Asylum for\nAged Poor; 1 Home for Aged Females; 1 Hospital served by Sisters\nof Mercy; 1 House of Mercy for Servants out of Place; 1 Night\nRefuge; 1 St. Vincent of Paul's Shoe-Black Brigade; 2 Refuges for\nPenitents; 1 Reformatory School for Boys; 7 Industrial Schools\nfor Boys, and 11 for Girls.\n{494}\nThe impression made on society by these admirable institutions is\nvery great. They receive much countenance and support from\nnon-Catholics; they instruct and console the ignorant and\nafflicted members of our own body; they call forth an abundance\nof self-denying labor and charity on the part of our own people,\nand tend more powerfully than any arguments to propagate the\nancient faith. They prove that our religion emanates from a God\nof love, that we are not mere political schemers nor\nsuperstitious devotees, but sober-minded, practical Christians,\nbattling with sin, and relieving misery in every shape. The\nEnglish public is peculiarly alive to the services of Sisters\ndevoted to works of Charity. You cannot walk through the streets\nnow, or travel by railway, without meeting them, and everywhere\nthey are respected. Their costume provokes no ridicule, their\nyouth and good looks (if such they have) are secure from insult.\nTheir crucifix and beads are badges of which all know the import,\nand involuntary blessings attend their steps. They are, in their\nway, the apostles of England. Their devotion to the sick and\nwounded in the Crimea won for them the favor even of their foes.\nFew will refuse them alms when they ask it for the poor. They are\ntypes of self-sacrifice, daughters of consolation, angel\nvisitants. They impersonate the Gospel. Many of them come from\nabroad, from France, Italy, and Belgium, impelled by an\ninvincible desire for the conversion of England. Their looks\nbespeak their mission no less than their garb. They are calm,\ncollected, gentle. Children yearn toward them with instinctive\nfondness, and vice itself is shamed by their silent purity. The\nnames of their several orders tell plainly on what their hearts\nare fixed. They belong to the \"Good Shepherd;\" they are the\n\"Faithful Companions of Jesus;\" they are handmaids of the \"Holy\nChild Jesus,\" of \"Notre Dame de Sion,\" of \"Jesus in the Temple,\"\nof \"Marie Reparatrice.\" They are \"Sisters of Mercy,\" of\n\"Providence,\" of \"the Poor,\" of \"Nazareth,\" of \"Penance,\" of the\n\"Holy Family,\" of \"St. Joseph,\" of \"St. Paul,\" of \"the Cross.\"\nThey address themselves to the heart rather than to the\nunderstanding, but they are not on that account less powerful\ninstruments in the work of social improvement. They have broken\ndown many of the barriers which prejudice had raised against the\nCatholic religion, and helped more than any logical triumph to\nsubdue the hostility and soften the language of the press.\n\nThat mighty engine is, on the whole, an auxiliary to the Catholic\ncause in England. If it promulgates many falsehoods respecting\nus, it is almost always ready to publish their confutation also.\nIt reproduces our primate's pastorals and all other documents of\npublic interest that emanate from our bishops. It helps us, in\nthe main, in the battle we are fighting for the attainment of\nequal political privileges, and employs the pens of many Catholic\nwriters. No respectable periodical taboos a contributor because\nhe is a Catholic, nor excludes him from its staff if his writing\nbe up to the required mark, and his conduct in reference to\ncontroversial matters be discreet. Many non-Catholic journals are\nedited or sub-edited by Catholics, and this accounts in part for\nthe altered tone of the press toward us of late.\n\n{495}\n\nOur own literature has recently been marked by fewer\ncontroversial books and pamphlets than it was some twenty years\nago. Then, every convert of distinction, when admitted into the\nchurch, thought it incumbent on him to publish those reasons\nwhich had influenced him most powerfully in so momentous a\nchange. The library tables in Catholic families were covered by\nthe writings of Wiseman, Newman, Faber, Renouf, Lewis, Dodsworth,\nNorthcote, Allies, Ward, and Thompson. Each presented his plea\nfor Catholicism from a different point of view, and each added\nsomething to the aggregate of arguments derived from Scripture\nand antiquity. The controversy is now taking another turn. The\nchurch's historical ground is less violently contested, and she\nis drawing from her inexhaustible armory weapons to meet subtler\nfoes. She faces the sceptic; she probes liberalism with\nIthnriel's spear; she establishes from the very nature of things\nthe necessity of an infallible standard of faith and morals. She\ndraws up her line of arguments with a more compact front and\nextended wings. She appears at the same time more unbending and\nmore liberal. She recognizes more freely and joyfully than ever\nthe workings of the Holy Spirit in communions external to her\npale, while she insists with extraordinary earnestness on her\nexclusive possession of the entire and incorrupt deposit of the\nfaith. Such was the purport of a remarkable letter addressed to\nthe Rev. Dr. Pusey by Dr. Manning, now Archbishop of Westminster,\nin 1864. Never were orthodoxy and liberality more happily united\nthan in this pamphlet. Never did a Catholic prelate and divine\nmake larger admissions without sacrificing a particle of Catholic\ntheology. It is marked by the charity of an apostle and the\naccuracy of a logician. The same remarks apply to the\narchbishop's work on _England ana Christendom_. \"We will\nventure to say that there is no one Roman Catholic writer of\neminence in the world who has spoken more emphatically than\nhe--we doubt if there is one who has spoken with equal\nemphasis--on the piety and salvability of persons external to the\nvisible church.\" [Footnote 116]\n\n    [Footnote 116: _Dublin Review_, July, 1867, p. 110]\n\nThe life of Catholicism in England is evinced by its numerous\nassociations. In every place where it has taken root, Catholics\nenrol themselves in societies, confraternities, or institutes for\nsocial, intellectual, and religious purposes. In no diocese do\nthese flourish more than in that of Westminster. The Archbishop\npersonally promotes social intercourse by throwing open his\ndrawing-rooms every Tuesday evening, during the London season, to\nsuch gentlemen as may think proper to attend his receptions.\nThere, may be met, from time to time, prelates from distant\ncountries, ambassadors, members of parliament, noblemen, heads of\ncolleges, artists, men of science, converts, and old Catholics,\nwith now and then a non-Catholic guest, whom curiosity, respect\nfor the primate, or yearning toward a calumniated church, draws\ninto company to which he is little used. The Stafford Club is\nanother centre of union, comprising about 300 members, and\nincluding among them a large part of the titled and moneyed\nCatholics of England, Wales, and Scotland. The archbishops and\nbishops of England and Ireland are _ex-officio_ honorary\nmembers, and they frequently avail themselves of the privilege. A\nmiddle class club has lately been opened in the city under the\nprimate's patronage, and at this lectures are delivered, to\nwhich, as well as to all other advantages, non-Catholic members\nare admissible.\n{496}\nThe only condition required of such members is, that they shall\nobserve the rules of courtesy, and abstain (together with\nCatholic members) from unbecoming controversy on religious and\npolitical questions. Lecturing is not so popular a form of\ninstruction in England as in the United States, yet it is much\nmore generally in vogue than it was, and it is destined, we\nbelieve, to exert a wide influence hereafter in propagating anew\nthe Catholic faith through the British empire.\n\nWhat we need and hope for is the reaction of Catholic Ireland on\nCatholic England. Centuries of cruel misgovernment have retarded\nthe civilization of that unhappy country, and the loss which it\nsustains is not its only, but also ours. In knowledge, education,\nmanners, commerce, industry, liberty, in all that constitutes\nnational maturity, it is behind England. Reading, lecturing,\nmental activity, in Ireland are all in the back ground; and\nconsequently the church, which there keeps alive the faith in the\nheart of a peasant and small farmer population, does not act\nindirectly on English Catholic society with that force which\nwould belong to it under more favorable circumstances. \"The\ncenturies which have ripened England and Scotland with flower and\nfruit, have swept over Ireland in withering and desolation;\"\n[Footnote 117] she has therefore little to give us, much to\nreceive from us. If England had been bountiful to her, she would,\nin return, have been bountiful to England. If we had shared with\nIreland our material prosperity, she would now be imparting to us\nmore spiritual blessings, communication between the two churches\nwould be more brisk, and their relations would be marked by more\ncomplete unity of feeling and purpose.\n\n  [Footnote 117: Archbishop Manning's Letter to Earl Grey. p. 17.]\n\nThe time is probably drawing near when this healthy and\nreciprocal action of the Irish and English Catholic Church will\nbe fully restored. If England is to retain Ireland at all as a\npart of the empire, it must be by establishing equal laws,\nrepealing all penal enactments against Catholics and their\nreligion, resolving the national system of education into\ndenominational schools, disestablishing and disendowing the\nProtestant Church, and placing on Irish landlords such\nrestrictions in the tenure of land as will secure the tenant from\nmisery and hopeless serfdom. She must stanch the bleeding wounds\nof emigration, and wipe away the tears of ages. Then, and then\nonly, can we hope to see Ireland a prosperous nation, her people\nthrifty and happy, her civilization raised to a level with other\nChristian countries of Europe, and her church putting forth all\nits native might to console and instruct its own congregations,\nand to aid in the work of recovering England to the faith of the\nApostles. Political and social degradation, such as that which\nafflicts Ireland, is incompatible with a free and flourishing\nchurch, with a high moral tone, religious zeal, and exemplary\nlives on the part of its victims. Cottiers, and \"tenants at will\"\nof absentee landlords, having no security that their outlay is\ntheir own, and that they will ever reap the advantage of it;\nbarely earning their potatoes and buttermilk by the sweat of\ntheir brow, and looking wistfully across the Atlantic to the\ncomparative wealth and luxury enjoyed by five millions of their\nfellow-countrymen in America; liable at any moment to be evicted\nfor political motives, or that their rent may be raised; galled\nand maddened by the remembrance of 50,000 evictions in one year;\n[Footnote 118] such persons, we say, deprived of the protection\nof the law, must be more than human if they do not in many\ninstances prove themselves lawless. But the day of redress is at\nhand, we trust. May the day of retribution be averted!\n\n    [Footnote 118: 1849. _Butt's Land Tenure in Ireland_, p.\n    34.]\n\n{497}\n\nIt is, perhaps, matter for regret that English Catholics have now\nno political leader. Since the voice of Daniel O'Connell was\nhushed by death, no representative of their interests in\nparliament has appeared gifted with genius and eloquence of a\ncommanding order. Mr. Pope Hennessy has been excluded from the\nHouse of Commons by his Irish constituents in consequence of his\nconservative principles, which are not popular among them, and\nhas accepted the governorship of Labuan. His talents are thus\nalmost lost to the Catholic cause; and though there are more than\nthirty Catholic members in the Commons, their influence is not\nwhat it should be. It is neutralized by the many Irish Protestant\nmembers who represent landed interests; and valuable as are the\nservices of Mr. Maguire, Mr. Monsell, Mr. Blake, and Major\nO'Reilly, it is to Protestant rather than to Catholic champions\nthat we look now for advocacy of Irish tenant claims, and the\nredress of Irish wrongs. In the House of Lords we are most feebly\nrepresented. Out of twenty-six Catholic peers, seventeen only\nhave seats, and none of these are distinguished as debaters.\n[Footnote 119]\n\n    [Footnote 119: See _Lord Mahon's Hist. of England_, vol.\n    i. p. 16.]\n\nIn the time of Charles II. the Catholic peerage was more numerous\nthan it is now in proportion to the commoners. Long after that\nperiod, also, the lords and gentry held a higher position than\nwas in harmony with the scanty number of their poorer\nco-religionists. Indeed, we have not yet recovered the blow which\nwas inflicted on us by the expulsion of the peers [Footnote 120]\nunder the rule of a sovereign who was even then a Catholic by\nconviction, and avowed himself such on the bed of death. But\nthough the heads of old Catholic families in England do not, as a\nrule, shine as public characters, they have a title to respect\nwhich none others can claim. They represent those who suffered a\nlong period of banishment for conscience' sake, treasuring in\ntheir hearts a faith more precious than courtly splendor. For\nthis they were outcasts and pariahs, bowed beneath invidious\ndisabilities and penal laws, deprived of all the material\nadvantages which spring from good education, brilliant careers,\nand fine prospects. Despair of this world had become a part of\ntheir inheritance, and it is no wonder that their successors to\nthis day are somewhat rustic and unskilled in the ways of\ncabinets and courts.\n\n  [Footnote 120: _Flanagan's English and Irish History_, p.\n  665.]\n\nThe Catholic revival, in short, in England--a revival of whose\nreality and strength we daily see the proofs--is not to be\nascribed to external causes. No zealous autocrat, no lordly\noligarchy, no foreign invasion, no laws, no concordats, have\nbrought it about. Everything was against it, and everything seems\nnow to favor it. Penal statutes, as decided and almost as deadly\nas those of the Caesars, forbade it; the Revolution of 1688\nexcluded from the throne any sovereign professing it; George III.\nfought against it as stoutly and more successfully than he did\nagainst the American Colonies; Pitt succumbed in his efforts to\nobtain for it some measure of justice; Fox abandoned its cause\npolitically as hopeless; [Footnote 121] and the Grenville\ncabinet, with all the talents, was dismissed, because it planned\na trifling concession to Catholic officers in the army and navy.\n\n    [Footnote 121: Pellew. _Life of Lord Sidmouth_, ii. 435.\n    _Jesse's George III_. iii. 476.]\n\n{498}\n\nGeorge IV., like his father, frowned on Catholic emancipation,\nand yielded to it only under the pressure of a threatened\nrebellion. But though political privileges were granted to\nCatholics, it was deemed impossible that their dark, decrepit\nsuperstition should ever regain its footing in England. The book\nof common prayer witnessed against it; the preface to the\nProtestant Scriptures called its head antichrist; a thousand and\nten thousand pulpits thundered against it Sunday after Sunday;\ndissenters scorned and trampled on it as the worn-out garments of\nthe Babylonish harlot; millions of tracts and volumes pointed out\nits supposed errors, and cart-loads and ship-loads of Bibles were\ndispersed through the land as antidotes to its poison. Yet it\nspread. It triumphed over obloquy. It appealed in its defence to\nthat very Bible which was believed to condemn it. It courted\ninquiry. It asserted its own divinity. It baffled the law, bent\nthe will of kings and parliaments, scattered the arguments of its\nenemies like chaff, and advanced steadily as the tide, sapping\nevery dam, and levelling every breakwater that opposed its flow.\nIn the bosom of the adverse church it found advocates, and in\nalmost every family it made converts. New concessions are made to\nit in every session of parliament; higher and higher offices in\nthe state and in the magistracy are entrusted to its members; the\npaltry restrictions which yet remain in force will soon be swept\naway, and having once obtained social and political equality, we\nhave not the remotest doubt that it will obtain, also,\nsuperiority approaching as near to supremacy as will be\nconsistent with the liberty of every other portion of society.\n\nThere is an increasing disposition among sectarians in England to\nmake common cause with Catholics on a variety of grounds. One of\nthese grounds has already been mentioned. They would willingly\nsee national education everywhere made purely denominational, and\nmany of those among them who are strongly attached to their own\nparticular form of belief would concur with the Catholic primate\nin asking that the schools endowed by the state may, in each\nplace, be given over to the majority, whether Catholic, Anglican,\nPresbyterian, or Dissenting, and that schools required by the\nminority may be supported on the voluntary system. [Footnote 122]\nThere is, however, a difficulty in this proposal which would give\nrise to endless jangling. In some places there is no majority,\nreligious persuasions are equally divided. In others the majority\nis small and fluctuating. What is the majority this month may be\nthe minority in the next. How could their rival claims to\nendowment be adjusted in such cases?\n\n    [Footnote 122: Letter to Earl Grey, p. 20.]\n\nBut again, there is a growing disposition among religious men of\nall denominations to make common cause with the Catholic Church\nin her warfare against infidelity and social crime, particularly\ndrunkenness. Their ministers now are constantly coming in contact\nwith our priests, sitting with them on committees, and speaking\nside by side with them on platforms on subjects affecting the\ngeneral weal. They are beginning to recognize the great fact that\nour war with infidelity is not of yesterday, that we have from\nage to age maintained the fundamental truths of revelation in the\nface of a world of scoffers, and that if the banner of the cross\ncould fall from our hands, it would lie in the dust.\n{499}\nRitualists imitate our solemn rites; sedate churchmen have a\nfriendly feeling toward us because we hold the apostolic\nsuccession; Biblical scholars in all sects defer to us as the\nmediaeval guardians and copyists of the Bible; Low-Churchmen\nendorse our doctrines of grace; Dissenters hold out to us \"the\nright hand of fellowship,\" because we also are non-conformists as\nregards the Established Church; and even Quakers [Footnote 123]\nsee in us some hopeful features when they hear us declare that we\nare affiliated in spirit to all who desire to know and obey the\ntruth, and who err only through invincible ignorance.\n\n    [Footnote 123: See speech of Mr. Bright in the House of\n    Commons, March 13th, 1868.]\n\nAs time goes on, they will give us more credit for spiritual\nacumen. They will see how justly we have estimated the claims of\neach successive pretender to religious inspiration and knowledge\nof divine mysteries. They will ratify our decision on the\n_isms_ of this as of former centuries. They will admit, for\nexample, that we have divined the true nature of animal\nmagnetism, with all those extraordinary phenomena which perplex\nso many minds in England and elsewhere. To some persons these\nmanifestations appear wholly impostures, to others they seem real\nand useful, and to others again, indifferent, absurd, and\nunworthy of attention. The church, on the contrary, after sifting\nthe evidence adduced concerning them, pronounces them real in\nmany instances, useless, unlawful, and Satanic. Theologians like\nPerrone and Ballerini have devoted long attention to them, and\nlaid bare their wickedness in its most deadly aspects. Under a\nmask of mingled absurdity and terror, they reveal just so much of\nthe invisible world as may deceive and ruin souls. They are\nhorrible mimicries of the angelic and spiritual economy of the\nchurch. In all these phases of mesmerism, somnambulism,\nclairvoyance, table-turning, table-rapping, and evocation of\nspirits, they testify to the truth of divine revelation in\nrespect to the spiritual world. So far they are of some\nadvantage, for the evil one is always rendering involuntary\nhomage to the Gospel which he seeks to pervert. But in exchange\nfor this, they draw deluded multitudes away from the true and\nlawful way of holding communion with the dead, piercing the\nmysteries of the world unseen, obtaining divine guidance, mental\nillumination, cure of bodily infirmities, signal answers to\nprayer, visions, ecstasies, and knowledge of future events. From\nnone of these things are the faithful debarred in the church, but\nin spiritism, or demon-worship, they are attracted to them in\nways which are generally fatal to their morals and their faith.\nWe have heard from an intimate ally of Mr. Home, now a convert to\nthe Catholic Church, that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred\nthose who put themselves in communication with spirits by means\nof table-speaking, lose their belief in the Christian religion\nand adopt a loose mode of life. The political grievances of which\nEnglish and Irish Catholics have still to complain, are of old\nnot of recent origin. They belong to a system now virtually\nexploded, and if our statute-book were a _tabula rasa_ they\ncould not be written in it again. There is full proof of this in\nthe fact that Great Britain legislates for her colonies more\njustly than for Ireland, or even for England. In Sydney and\nMelbourne, in Australia, there are Catholic colleges endowed by\nthe government, and in Canada there is an endowed Catholic\nUniversity. Yet Ireland, with 4,500,000 Catholics, has hitherto\nasked in vain for the like favors.\n{500}\nThe colonies, moreover, are not burdened with a Protestant\nestablishment, but lie open to the exertions of Catholic and\nProtestant missionaries alike, who receive from the state equal\nencouragement and occasional subsidies. The consequence is, that\nin almost every colonial dependency of Great Britain the true\nchurch is in full activity, and gives ample proof of her divine\nmission. The following table of our episcopate will show how wide\nis the field of action afforded to it by the tolerant system\nwhich England has pursued of late years. If she had not at the\nReformation fallen from the faith, there would not perhaps at\nthis moment be an idol temple in the world. If she should ever\nreturn as a nation to the fold of Christ, her mighty influence\nmay, with the help of other Christian people, suffice to break in\npieces every fetish and exorcise the races possessed by demons.\nThe figures here given are of the year 1867; and it may be\nobserved that in all the twenty vicariates of India, Burma, and\nSiam there was an increase of the Catholic population over the\npreceding year, with the exception only of those which are under\nthe Portuguese Archbishop of Goa. In his province there was a\nsmall decrease. [Footnote 124]\n\n  [Footnote 124: _Catholic Directory_ 1868, p. 19 to 26.]\n\n\n                  Archbishops   Bishops   Vicars Apostolic\n\n  England               1          12          ...\n\n  Ireland               4          24          ...\n\n  Scotland            ...         ...            3\n\n  Malta     |\n  Gozo      |         ...           2            1\n  Gibraltar |\n\n  Quebec           |\n  Halifax          |\n  Oregon           |\n  British Columbia |    2          17            2\n  Harbor Grace     |\n  St. John's,      |\n    Newfoundland   |\n\n  West-Indies           1           1            2\n\n  Africa               ...          1            4\n\n  India, Burma,        ...        ...           20\n\n  Australia             1          10          ...\n\n  New Zealand          ...          2          ...\n\n  Total                 9          69           32\n\nFrom this it appears that there are now no Catholics in the\nBritish empire invested with the episcopal office. The number is\nlittle short of that of the Anglican Bishops, with all the power\nand influence of the state, and a vast Protestant population to\ngive effect to their exertions. Yet, poor and comparatively\nunaided as our bishops are, the results of their labors in the\ncolonies and among the heathen far exceed anything which rival\nmissionaries can boast. As to the Russian clergy, their torpor in\nregard to idolatrous nations has often been commented on, and\nthey are strictly forbidden by imperial edicts to endeavor to\nmake converts among them. [Footnote 125] It is therefore with\nProtestant missionaries only that we have to vie, and these,\nthrough their disunion, lose, in great measure, the fruits of\ntheir zeal. The two millions sterling _per annum_, which\ntheir societies in the British isles alone expend, [Footnote 126]\ndo not enable them to make head against the rapid extension of\nthe Catholic faith. In China, India, Ceylon, the Antipodes,\nOceanica, Africa, the Levant, Syria, Armenia, and America, they\nhave signally failed in converting the heathen, and in rivalling\nthe happy results of Catholic missions. [Footnote 127]\n\n    [Footnote 125: Wagner's _Travels in Persia_, vol. il.\n    204.]\n\n    [Footnote 126: _The Times_, April 19, 1860]\n\n    [Footnote 127: Marshall's _Christian. Missions_, vol. i.\n    9-15.]\n\nEvery Catholic nation is a vast missionary society, and if\nEngland had been such to this day, her Indian possessions would\nbe basking in the full light of the gospel. But, alas! how\nawfully has she betrayed her trust. The speeches of Burke, the\nlives of Clive and Hastings, bear witness against her. Rapine and\ncruelty marked the earlier stages of her Indian government.\n{501}\nDuring long years she left the Indians to their idols, and then\nrecruited her treasury by a tax laid upon them, and commanded her\ntroops to pay homage to the demons of the land. Her efforts for\ntheir conversion, if they can be called hers, are feeble and\nunsystematic, while Catholic missions in every part of British\nIndia are steadily conducted on a uniform plan. Eleven years ago\nthere were about a million Catholics in the wide territory, and\nthe spirit which guided S. Fran\u00e7ois Xavier, Robert de' Nobili,\nJohn de Bretto, and Laynez, prospered the work of their hands.\nSince that time the Madras Catholic Directories show that\nconstant progress has been made. In some dioceses from 500 to\n1000 souls are reclaimed annually from Hindooism, Mohammedanism,\nand Armenian sects. The lives of the converts are often most\nedifying, and though much ignorance and superstition has to be\nweeded out of them, they show forth on the whole the glory of Him\nwho has called them out of darkness into marvellous light.\nRegistries of adult baptisms being kept at each of the stations,\nit is easy to ascertain the progress made. In 1859, 2614 adults\nin the province of Madura were received into the church, and the\nnative college of Negapatam, frequented by young men of high\ncaste only, had produced seven priests, eight theological\nstudents, a large number of catechists and school-masters, with\nseveral government officers. The Jesuit fathers had founded five\norphanages and three hospitals, beside convents of Carmelite and\nFranciscan nuns, where Hindoo women, under the constraining\ninfluence of divine grace, led devout and austere lives.\n[Footnote 128] It has hitherto been the policy of our rulers to\navoid interfering with the religion of the natives, [Footnote\n129] but the time, we may hope, is at hand when more righteous\nand merciful principles will prevail in the councils of state.\n\n\n\nBy promoting schism, England delays the conversion of the\nheathen. Friends and foes alike testify to the inefficacy of\nEnglish Protestant missions. They can destroy faith, but never\ninspire it; and those who desire to read the true records of the\ntriumph of the cross in heathen lands, and especially in the\ndominions of Great Britain, must seek them, not in the\npublications of London Missionary Societies, but in the Annals of\nthe Propagation of the Faith, and the writings of Mr. Marshall\nand Father Strickland. [Footnote 130]\n\n    [Footnote 128: _Mission de Madurt_, par L. Saint Cyr,\n    S.J. (1859.)]\n\n    [Footnote 129: Marshall's _Christian Missions_, vol. i.\n    412-419.]\n\n    [Footnote 130: _Catholic Missions in Southern India_ to\n    1865.]\n\nThe present Earl Grey, though an Anglican, once said to a\ngentleman from whom we heard it, that he wished, for his part,\nthat Catholic bishops only were supported in the colonies by the\nEnglish government; for that they alone, in his opinion, were\nactuated by pure motives and self-sacrificing zeal. Earl Grey\ndoes not stand alone in his truly liberal sentiments. Indeed, it\nis wonderful how generous and enlightened many of our statesmen\nhave become suddenly, since the Fenians have threatened their\nEnglish homes. Impossible as it is for us to defend their\nconspiracy, it seems to bear out the assertion that no people\never obtained their rights by mere remonstrance and petition. The\ninjustice of maintaining a Protestant establishment in Catholic\nIreland now flashes upon our rulers like light from heaven,\nthough they have been told of it before a thousand times. Now\nthey are as eager for its destruction as they were for its\nsupport. Now they see the matter as all Europe, all the civilized\nworld except themselves, saw ft long\nago.\n{502}\nNow they quote with approval the question proposed by Sir Robert\nPeel: \"This missionary church of yours, with all that wealth and\npower could do for her, can she in two hundred years show a\nbalance of two hundred converts?\" Now they endorse the opinion of\nGoldwin Smith, that \"No Roman Catholic mission has ever done so\nmuch for Roman Catholicism in any nation as the Protestant\nestablishment has done for it in Ireland.\" [Footnote 131] It has,\nto use Mr. Bright's words, \"made Roman Catholicism in Ireland not\nonly a faith, but absolutely a patriotism.\" It has made the Irish\n\"more intensely Roman than the members of their church are found\nto be in almost any other kingdom in Europe.\" [Footnote 132]\n\"Don't talk to me of its being a church!\" exclaimed Burke. \"It is\na wholesale robbery.\" \"It is an anomaly of so gross a kind,\" said\nLord Brougham, just thirty years ago, \"that it outrages every\nprinciple of common sense. ... It cannot be upheld unless the\ntide of knowledge should turn back.\" \"Irish Toryism,\" wrote John\nSterling, in 1842, \"is the downright proclamation of brutal\ninjustice, and that in the name of God and the Bible!\" All this\nEnglish statesmen, who long obstinately resisted truth and\njustice, now see and acknowledge from a conviction too prompt to\nhave been inspired by anything but fear. Terror has been known to\nturn the hair gray in a night, and to fill the mind with wisdom\nin a day. In saying this, however, we do not mean to express any\napproval of Fenianism, knowing it, as we do, to be a detestable\nconspiracy, secret, unlawful, and condemned by the church.\n\n    [Footnote 131: Letter in _Morning Star_, March 30,\n    1868.]\n\n    [Footnote 132: Speech in the House of Commons, March 31.]\n\nThe disestablishment of the Irish Protestant Church will directly\naffect the condition of the Catholics in England. It will place\ntheir Irish brethren on a social level with Protestants, and thus\nadd to the respectability of the entire body of Catholics in the\nthree kingdoms. It will diminish the number and influence of\nthose Irish Protestant clergymen who cross the channel year by\nyear to declaim on the platforms of our halls and assemblies\nagainst the supposed corruption of the Church of Rome. It will\nremove ten thousand heart-burnings from the people of Ireland,\nand enable them, though differing in religion in some districts,\nto live together in peace and harmony. It will increase\nself-respect in both sections of the community--in the\nProtestant, because they will no longer be grasping oppressors;\nin the Catholic, because they will no longer be fleeced and\noppressed. The relative merits of their creeds will then have to\nbe discussed on even ground, and no weapons but those of the\nsanctuary will avail in the fight. The voluntary system by which\ntheir ministers will be supported will throw them entirely upon\ntheir moral resources, and every adscititious aid in propagating\ntheir belief will be happily rescinded. The settlement of the\nIrish Church question will soon be followed by legal improvement\nin the condition of tenants as regards their landlords; and thus\nthe two crying evils of our Irish administration being redressed,\nspeculation will be encouraged, commerce will thrive, fortunes\nwill be made, emigration will be arrested, and emigrants\nrecalled. The church of Catholics will share in the general\nprosperity, and chapels now little better than mud hovels will be\nrazed to the ground to make room for buildings stately and fair\nas the collegiate churches of Windsor, Middleham, and Brecon, in\nthe olden time, or as the Priory of Stone, the Orphanage of\nNorwood, and the College of St. Cuthbert, near Durham, at the\npresent day.\n\n{503}\n\nThere is at this moment a concurrence of events favorable to the\nCatholic religion in the British empire, such as never was seen\nbefore since the Reformation. No fires of Smithfield, no renegade\nqueen like Elizabeth, no Spanish Armada, no Gunpowder Plot, no\nPuritan ascendency, no despotic house of Stuart, no Pretender, no\nTitus Oates, no French or other foreign invasion, no Lord George\nGordon, no rebellion like that of Robert Emmett and Lord Edward\nFitzgerald, is looming in the distance, marring the prospect, and\nnearing us to turn hope into despair. Even Fenian outbreaks are,\nwe believe, anticipated and virtually undone. Every sun that\nshines is ripening the harvest, and were it not that the enemy is\nmore busy than ever in sowing tares, we might expect that within\na century the whole, or at least the larger part, of the\npopulation of the three kingdoms would be included in the domain\nof the church.\n\nWhat we have most to dread is the spread of unbelief in its\nsubtlest and most engaging form. It comes among us with stealthy\ntread, and with the smile of hypocrisy on its face. It professes\nrespect for the Christian religion, but with homage on its lips\ncarries contempt in its heart. It regards all religions as\nsuperstitious, and the Christian as the best among bad ones. It\npervades every branch of our non-Catholic literature, and offers\nfruit slightly poisoned to every lip. It combats dogma and the\nsupernatural in every shape, appeals in all things to the senses,\nsets up humanity as its idol, and studiously confounds the\ndistinction between right and wrong. It maintains the authority\nof Scripture, provided all that is supernatural and miraculous be\neliminated. It reveres Jesus Christ when placed by the side of\n\"the mild and honest Aurelius, Cakya Mouni, [Footnote 133] and\nthe sweet and humble Spinoza.\" [Footnote 134] It cites as\nexamples of men \"most filled with the spirit of God,\" Moses,\nChrist, Mohammed, Vincent of Paul, and _Voltaire_. [Footnote\n135] It inscribes the name of Christ on volutes in tapestried\ndrawing-rooms, [Footnote 136] together with those of Socrates,\nColumbus, Luther, and Washington. It affirms that \"_we can\nnever be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a\nfalse opinion,_\" [Footnote 137] and that \"no one can be a\ngreat thinker who does not recognize that, as a thinker, it is\n_his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions\nit may lead._\" [Footnote 137 (sic)] It approves of \"hearty\ngood-will evinced toward all persistence of endeavor, whether the\nobject of that persistence be _good or evil_ according to\nmoral or religious standards,\" and it is drawn strongly into\nsympathy with such poets as Robert Browning in their \"keen love\nfor humanity as such, a love which is displayed toward\n_weakness and evil_ as much as toward strength and goodness,\nprovided only the attribute be human.\" [Footnote 138] Such\nsympathy with all that is human it accounts \"divine.\" It\nworships, in short, the creature more than the Creator; it feels\nno need of grace, and still less of atonement. It relapses,\nconsciously or unconsciously, into the frozen zone where Comte\nreigns supreme master of a system of icy negatives called\nphilosophy--negatives the more specious because veiled under the\nterm positivism--where all but facts attested by the senses must\nbe renounced, and all final causes, all supernatural\nintervention, scattered to the wind. [Footnote 139]\n\n    [Footnote 133: The fourth Buddha.]\n\n    [Footnote 134: Renan. _Vie de Jesus_]\n\n    [Footnote 135: _Autobiography of Garibaldi_. Edited by\n    Alexandre Dumas.]\n\n    [Footnote 136: In Victor Hugo's House in Guernsey. See his\n    _William Shakespeare_, p. 568.]\n\n    [Footnote 137: John Stuart Mill on _Liberty_, p. 19.]\n\n    [Footnote 138: John T. Nettleship's _Essays on Robert\n    Browning_. Preface.]\n\n    [Footnote 139: _Cours de Philosophie Positive_, 1839.\n    _Politique Positiviste_, 1851-4.]\n\n{504}\n\nToward this the Protestant mind in England is daily tending with\nincreasing proneness, that portion only excepted which looks\nupward toward Catholic ritual and dogma. Its presence is more and\nmore apparent among educated men, in Parliament, the\nuniversities, the learned professions, the reviews and journals\nof the day. It is an enemy that meets us in every walk, and is\nmore difficult to grapple with than any definite form of error.\nIt objects not merely to this or that part of our Creed, as\nLutheran s and Calvinists did on their first appearing, but it\nmeets us _in limine_ with doubts which pagans would have\nbeen ashamed to profess. Even writers on the whole Christian,\nlike Samuel Taylor Coleridge, have aided in forming it; but\nNeology, Strauss, Comte, Mill, Carlyle, Sterling, Hugo, have\nbrought it in like a flood. Mazzini propounds it openly in\n_Macmillan's Magazine_, while the _Saturday Review_ and\nthe _Pall Mall Gazette_ adapt it weekly and daily to the\npalate of the million. Not that the free-thinkers are agreed\ntogether; they often jeer at each other. \"Singular what gospels\nmen will believe,\" cries Carlyle, [Footnote 140] \"even gospels\naccording to Jean Jacques.\" But _this_ is the language of\neach, \"Adieu, O church; thy road is that way, mine is this. ...\nWhat we are going _to_ is abundantly obscure; but what all\nmen are going _from_ is very plain.\" [Footnote 141]\n\n    [Footnote 140: Thomas Carlyle's _French Revolution_, ii.\n    70.]\n\n    [Footnote 141: Carlyle's _Life of Sterling_, p. 286.]\n\nThese, then, are the two great antagonists, the Catholic Church\nand Infidelity in its last and most popular shape of Positivism.\nPeople in England are choosing their sides, and drawing nearer\nand nearer to one or the other of these champions. Minor\ndifferences are merging into the broad features which distinguish\nthe two. To the positivism of Comte there stands opposed the\npositivism of the Church. She alone speaks positively,\nauthoritatively, uniformly, and permanently, respecting the\ninvisible world, the First Cause, the revelation of God in\nChrist, in the Gospel, the Scriptures, and the Church. She bears\nwitness at the same time of God and of herself, and even those\nwho cannot accept her testimony admit that of all the enemies of\ninfidelity her presence is the most imposing, and her language\nthe most unwavering and distinct. None can accuse her of\nhostility to science, for the Holy See in this, as in all past\nages, has repeatedly declared with what favor it looks on really\nscientific labors. \"It is _impudently_ bruited abroad,\"\nwrote Pius IX. to M. Mahon de Monaghan, [Footnote 142] \"that the\nCatholic religion and the Roman pontificate are adverse to\ncivilization and progress, and therefore to the happiness which\nmay thence be expected.\" \"Rome,\" says the _Dublin Review_,\n[Footnote 143] \"does not aim directly at material well-being; she\ndoes not teach astronomy or dynamics; she propounds no system of\ninduction; she invents neither printing-press, steam-engines, nor\ntelegraphs; but she so raises man above the brute, curbs his\npassions, improves his understanding, instils into him principles\nof duty and a sense of responsibility, so hallows his ambition\nand kindles his desire for the good of his kind and the progress\nof humanity, that, under her influence, he acquires insensibly an\naptitude for the successful pursuit even of physical science,\nsuch as no other teacher could impart.\n\n    [Footnote 142: See _Rome et la Civilisation_. Paris,\n    1863.]\n\n    [Footnote 143: April, 1866, pp. 299, 301.]\n\n{505}\n\n.... It is manifest to all whose thoughts reach below the surface\nof things, that the services which Lord Bacon rendered to\nphilosophy, and Newton to science, were indirectly due to the\nCatholic Church.\"\n\nIf the Catholic Church is ever to be rebuilt among us in anything\nlike its ancient power and splendor, it must be raised on a broad\nbasis. We do not mean that its real foundations admit of change\nor extension. They are the same from age to age. But they must,\nto meet the wants of the age, be made to appear as comprehensive\nas they really are. Happily, tolerant maxims now prevail in\nreligion, and liberal views in politics. The divine right of\nhereditary kings is exploded, and persecution is no longer held\nup as a sacred duty. The Catholic Church, rightly understood, is\nthe most liberal of all institutions. It is the source and\nsecurity of true freedom, and it is only when perverted that it\ncan serve the cause of despotism. It has everything to gain from\nliberty, and everything to lose by adopting tyrannical\nprinciples. Its best friends in England are those who labor to\ndevelop and exhibit its alliance with all that is true in science\nand good in mankind, and who rely more upon its heavenly powers\nof persuasion than on any excommunications and anathemas, who\nconciliate to the utmost without compromise, and relax rules\nwithout ever breaking or warping them. Anti-catholic writers have\nlabored hard to prove that our religion is the enemy of progress,\nand it is therefore our duty and interest to show by word and\ndeed how utterly false their assertions on this subject are. It\nwill be a greater triumph for the church to have demonstrated her\nsuperior philosophy after fair discussion, than it would have\nbeen to suppress that discussion or to shirk it. We have really\nnothing to fear. Catholicism lies at the root of all sciences,\nand it alone makes progress possible.\n\nSuch are the views of the wisest and best of those English\nCatholics who work in the literary hive. They heartily adopt the\nwords of M. Cochin, in his speech at Malines. \"Christianity is\nthe father of all progress, of all discoveries.\" \"Every science\nis one of God's arguments, and every progress one of God's\ninstruments.\" Modern science is but an offshoot of the Gospel, a\nresult of the Incarnation. It redeems our bodies from a thousand\ndisabilities and discomforts, as the Cross has redeemed our\nsouls. The discovery of America, the art of printing, the\ntelescope, the microscope, the clock, the mariner's needle, the\nsteam-engine, superseding the slaves who were once the machinery\nof the world, gas, telegraphic wires, what are they but minor\ngospels and temporary redemptions for the toiling and weary sons\nof men? The Church views such improvements with delight, and sees\nin them the means, when rightly employed, of restoring the broken\nalliance between earthly and heavenly blessings. Is this what you\ncall material progress? No, no; it is all moral improvement. You\nmight as well call the press a material improvement as the\nrailroad and the telegraph. As the one brings thought into\nimmortal life, so the others redeem man from the sorrows of\nintervening distance. The Church affiliates them gladly to\nherself, and traces a moral advance in every material gain, a\ndevelopment of redemption by Christ in the progress of\nagriculture, improved machinery, in chloroform, in short-hand,\nlithography, photography, the respirator, and ever implement and\nutensil which makes labor less irksome and pain less poignant.\n\n{506}\n\nIn the science of political economy especially, English Catholics\nare anxious to rectify prevalent mistakes, and place that\ndelightful study on its proper basis. The writings of Ricardo and\nAdam Smith, of McCulloch, Senior, and Mill, have familiarized\npersons' minds with the subject, but they have failed to show how\nevery principle and statement of sound political economy rests on\nsome maxim of the Gospel or of the church.\n\nThe Utilitarian doctrines of Jeremy Bentham were as bald and\nselfish as those of Malthus on Population were immoral and\nabsurd. Self-restraint and self renunciation are the soul of\nthrift, the source of wealth, the element of labor, the\nmain-spring of exertion, the corner-stone of the social edifice,\nthe health of the community, the rectifying principle which keeps\nthe whole machinery of society in active and harmonious\noperation. It would make the rich poor in spirit, and the poor\ncomparatively rich. It would place a happy limit to the extremes\nof wealth and indigence. It is, or should be, the fundamental\nprinciple of the production and distribution of wealth. If duly\ncarried out, it would promote solidarity in all its branches to a\nwonderful extent, and secure liberty as the condition requisite\nfor the very existence of property and the only possible sphere\nof mutual exertion. M. Perin [Footnote 144] has shown with\nadmirable force and precision how Catholicism establishes\nself-renunciation as \"the corner-stone of all social relations,\"\nand guarantees \"the greatest freedom to man, and the greatest\nsecurity to property.\" The _Dublin Review_ [Footnote 145]\nalso has done good service in popularizing M. Perin's arguments\nand supplying an antidote to the defective teaching of John\nStuart Mill, and other non-Catholic political economists.\n\n    [Footnote 144: _De la Richesse dans les Soci\u00e9t\u00e9s\n    Chr\u00e9tiennes_.]\n\n    [Footnote 145: April, 1866. _Christian Political\n    Economy_.]\n\nThe Academia of the Catholic Religion, founded by Cardinal\nWiseman in 1861, continues to be productive of happy results. Its\nmain design was to exhibit, in the lectures delivered at its\nmeetings and published afterward, the alliance between sacred and\nsecular science. It is affiliated to the Academia in Rome, and\ntwo volumes of essays read before it have already appeared in\nprint. [Footnote 146] The rich and varied learning of Cardinal\nWiseman, the clear, incisive style of Dr. Manning, the minute\nmediaeval lore of Dr. Rock, the calm and affectionate tone of Mr.\nOakeley, the acumen and exhaustive faculties of Dr. Ward, render\nthese publications very attractive to Catholics who are fond of\nargumentative writing. They keep up active thought and\nspeculation in a highly influential circle, and are valuable\nlandmarks in the history of the Catholic revival in England. The\nmeetings of the Academia are held at the Archbishop's residence\nin York Place, London.\n\n    [Footnote 146: First Series, 1865. Second Series, 1868.\n    Longmans.]\n\nIt is a remarkable fact that at this moment [Footnote 147] there\nare two political parties in the state, each of which is bent on\nadvancing Catholic interests, though in different ways.\n\n    [Footnote 147: April, 1868.]\n\nMr. Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone, the heads respectively of the\nConservative and Liberal parties, are seeking to redress one of\nthe great evils of Ireland, the former by _levelling up_ and\nthe latter by _levelling down_. The government would, if it\nwere able, raise the Catholic church in Ireland to a footing with\nthe Establishment by endowing a Catholic University and the\nCatholic priesthood, while the opposition proposes simply the\ndisestablishment and disendowment of the Irish Protestant church.\n{507}\nIn both cases the result would be religious equality in Ireland,\nthough there can be no doubt that the plan suggested by the\nLiberals is the more rational and feasible one. It is the one,\nmoreover, which is sanctioned by the Cardinal Archbishop of\nDublin and by the Archbishop of Westminster. On Sunday, the 12th\nof April, the faithful in London signed a petition in favor of\nMr. Gladstone's resolutions by the Archbishop's express\nrecommendation. It is pleasant to see the Catholic Primate and\nthe future Prime Minister of England thus cooperating in the\ninterests of the Catholic religion, especially when we remember\nthat they are old friends and were at college together.\n\nThe Easter of 1868 has been marked by great increase of spiritual\nactivity in the churches of large towns. Numbers of Catholics who\nhad neglected the sacraments have been restored to the use of\nthem, and Protestants come Sunday after Sunday to hear the\nsermons delivered in our churches. [Footnote 148]\n\n    [Footnote 148: _Weekly Register_, April 11, 1868.]\n\nThe public mind is stirred on the subject of our religion, and\ncuriosity in very numerous instances ends in conversion. A recent\nclerical convert has placed \u00a35000 in the hands of a prelate for\nthe good of his diocese, and a whole community of Anglican\nSisters of Mercy have yielded to the direction of clergymen who\nare priests indeed. The Ritualist parsons are busy fraying the\nway for Roman missionaries. Their altars are draped in colors\naccording to the season, acolytes bend before them and serve,\nwater is mingled with their sacramental wine, lights are burning\nat their communions, the host is elevated, their robes are\ngorgeously embroidered, and dense clouds of incense mount before\ntheir shrines, as if they were dedicated to the God of unity\nunder the patronage of Catholic saints. Many of their flock are\ndeluded by this empty pomp, but many also are led by it to the\ntrue springs of faith and the observance of a better ceremonial.\nDuring the first half of the present century 260 religious houses\nand colleges have been raised in England to repair the loss of\n681 monasteries of men and women uprooted at the time of the\nReformation. If we continue and end the century with equal\nexertions--and it is probable we shall exceed rather than fall\nshort of them--we shall by that time have nearly as many\nreligious institutions as our forefathers could boast after the\nsway of the church in England had lasted 800 years under royal\nprotection.\n\n-------------\n\n{508}\n\n        Sketches Drawn From The Abb\u00e9 Lagrange's\n\tLife of St. Paula.\n\n        In Three Chapters.\n\n\n  Chapter II.\n\nGod had given great compensation to Paula in the rare natures of\nher children. The eldest, and perhaps the most gifted, Blesilla,\ncombined with delicate health an ardent soul, quick wit, and a\ncharming mind. Her penetration astonished even St. Jerome. She\nwas full of those characteristics that make one hope everything\nand fear everything. She was but fifteen when she lost her\nfather, and seventeen when St. Jerome first knew her, in the\nfirst bloom of her youth and beauty. She spoke Greek and Latin\nwith perfect purity, and the elegance of her language was\nremarkable, as well as the quickness of her intellect.\n\nPaula, full of anxiety for such a nature, sought to give her the\ncounterpoise of solid piety. But Blesilla, though capable of\nexalted virtues, was intoxicated by the splendors of the sphere\nin which she was born and educated. Like all young girls of her\nrank, she loved dress, luxury, and entertainments, and neither\nthe death of her father nor her mother's example had detached her\nheart from the world, neither did her early widowhood; for Paula\nhad given her in marriage to a young and rich patrician of the\nrace of Camillus, who died in a short time after, leaving\nBlesilla a widow and without children. But even this blow did not\nsuffice, and, after the usual time given to mourning, the worldly\nand frivolous tastes of the young widow again rose to the\nsurface. She passed many hours before her glass, busy in adorning\nherself, surrounded by her slaves occupied in dressing her hair\nand waiting on her, and entertainments of all sorts were her\ndelight.\n\nPaulina, the second daughter of Paula, was, as we have already\nsaid, a great contrast to her sister. Less brilliant, but not\nless agreeable, great good sense was her chief attribute, with\nsweetness of disposition. Less captivated by the world than\nBlesilla, she was more inclined to be pious. The equilibrium in\nher nature was excellent. But there was nothing in any way\nuncommon about her. She seemed born for the ordinary destiny of\nwoman. She was now sixteen, and Paula, with an instinct truly\nmaternal, felt that what she had to do for her child was to give\nher a protector worthy of her, in a husband of sound character\nand amiable disposition.\n\nBut the pearl of Paula's children was her third daughter,\nEustochium, who was sweetness and candor itself, and all\ninnocence and piety. Her distinguishing feature was her love for\nher mother, whom she never for a moment quitted. Marcella kept\nher with her for some time, and when the child returned to Paula,\nshe clung more than ever to her mother, like a young vine. Her\nonly wish was to follow in the footsteps of Paula and to be like\nher, and to consecrate herself also to the service of God with\nher young virginal heart. Soft and silent, but hiding under this\nveil of timidity a remarkable mind, Eustochium was formed for\nhigh purposes. She was not fourteen when St. Jerome came to Rome.\n\n{509}\n\nRufina was then only eleven or twelve years of age, and the time\nhad not yet come for anxiety about her. It was, however,\ndifferent with Toxotius, who was younger still, but had not\nreceived baptism, his father's family having assumed his\nguardianship; and they were pagans, which grieved Paula, who\nhoped to make her son a fervent Christian.\n\nSuch was the family of Paula. Her many duties to them had excited\nthe interest of the austere monk, who, together with Marcella,\nwished to do everything possible to aid Paula in her cares.\nBlesilla at once filled the mind of St. Jerome with the ardent\nwish to save her from the career of worldliness on which she\nseemed bent; but in vain did he try to bring her to grave\nthoughts. Paulina was easier to guide, for Providence aided the\npious efforts of her friends in the husband chosen for her by her\nmother, who was Pammachius, of whom St. Jerome has said that he\nwas \"the most Christian of the noble Romans, and the most noble\nof the Christians.\" He was also the old and tried friend of St.\nJerome, to whom this marriage gave great happiness, as well as to\nPaula and Marcella.\n\nAs for Eustochium, she continued to expand and bloom under the\ninfluence of her mother. In vain were the rich dresses of her\nsisters and their shining jewels spread out before her. Her taste\nfor religious life was becoming more and more decided every day.\nNotwithstanding her great youth, none of the maidens of the\nAventine surpassed her in prayer, or in following St. Jerome in\nhis laborious studies of the Scriptures. She had learnt Hebrew,\nand, like her mother, had inspired St. Jerome with singular\ndevotion and interest. The increasing vocation of Eustochium\naroused opposition in her father's family; for it was not\npossible that the progress of monastic tendencies among the\npatrician women should be allowed to take root without resistance\nin Rome, where opposition was made by law to anything like\ncelibacy for men, with open advocacy of matrimony and the honors\nof maternity for women.\n\nSt. Jerome undertook to modify these ideas with his powerful pen,\nand, in his answer to the attack of one named Helvidius, came off\nthe field completely victorious.\n\nIt was about this time, 384 A.D., that Blesilla fell ill of a\npernicious fever, which for a month threatened her life. This\nillness brought her wisdom. The following is the story of her\nconversion, from St. Jerome: \"During thirty days,\" he says, \"we\nsaw our Blesilla burning with a devouring fever. She lay almost\nbereft of life, panting under the struggle with death, and\ntrembling at the thought of the judgments of God. Where then was\nthe help of those who gave her worldly counsels? of those who\nprevented her from living for Christ? Could they save her from\ndeath? No. But our Lord himself, seeing that she was only carried\naway by the intoxication of youth and the errors of her century,\ncame to her, touched her hand, and cried out to her, as to\nLazarus, 'Arise, come forth and walk!' She understood this call,\nand she arose and knew that she owed the boon of life to him who\nhad given it back to her.\" She was then but twenty years of age,\nwhen she shone in her new-born beauty of holiness.\n{510}\nShe, who formerly passed long hours at her toilet, now sought\nonly to find God; and, instead of the ornaments in which she had\nliked to appear, she now covered her fair head with the veil most\nbecoming for a Christian woman. All the money that had been spent\nfor adorning herself now went to the poor. And this ardent soul,\nonce consecrated to God, gave itself up entirely, and, passing\nwith a great flight beyond ordinary natures, at once reached the\nsummit of human virtue and perfection.\n\nEustochium and Paula had not more ardor. Jerome was admirable in\nhis manner of seconding this generous enthusiasm. He now\ninstructed her in the Scriptures, and she studied first\nEcclesiastes, then the gospels, and Isaiah. She learned Hebrew to\nread the Psalms. Her energy was wonderful, for her steps still\ntottered from illness, and her delicate neck drooped under the\nweight of her young head. But the divine book was never out of\nher hands.\n\nHow shall we paint the joy of Paula at this change in her beloved\nchild! Her dearest wishes had been granted. This, too, was a\nfruitful conversion; others imitated such an example; and Paula's\nhouse soon became a sort of monastery, which Jerome would call\nthe _fireside church_. He gives a most beautiful description\nof Paula and her children at this period, when the blessing of\nGod was so visibly on her household. Her fervor increased. She\ndetermined on a complete sacrifice of her worldly goods, and, in\nthe words of St. Jerome, \"being already dead to the world, though\nstill living, she distributed all her fortune among her\nchildren,\" thereby entirely initiating herself into the holy\npoverty of Christ. Notwithstanding all the consolations God had\nsent her, she was still uneasy and dissatisfied; her life was not\nyet all that she sighed for. A great disgust toward Rome filled\nher mind, and the descriptions Epiphanius had given her of the\nEast rose up for ever in her, making her soul long for the\nmonastic life of the desert. The example of Melanie was then to\nincrease this longing, for Melanie had now been for some years\nrealizing her dreams in her convent on the Mount of Olives.\n\nThere was now nothing to prevent Paula from going. Blesilla, as\nwell as Eustochium, wished to follow their mother in her\npilgrimage, and many of their friends desired to join them. St.\nJerome, the veteran pilgrim, was to be their pilot to holy\nplaces. He had strengthened them all in the love of God and\nnourished them with the Holy Scriptures. His letters to\nEustochium at this time were exquisite. What could be more\ntouching than the friendship uniting the austere old monk and\nthis sweet young maiden? \"O my Eustochium! O my daughter! O my\nsister!\" he wrote to her, \"since my age and charity alike permit\nme to give you these names, if you are by birth the noblest of\nRoman virgins, I beseech you guard zealously your own heart and\nkeep it from evil. Imitate our Lord Jesus Christ, be obedient to\nyour parents, go out rarely, and honor the martyrs in the\nsolitude of your chamber. Read often and you will learn much. Let\nsleep surprise you with the holy book in your hands, and, if your\nhead drop down with fatigue, let it be on the sacred pages.\"\n\nEustochium was grateful to him for his wise counsels, and,\nwishing to express her appreciation of his letters to her, she\ngathered courage to send him a little offering of a basket of\ncherries, with several of those bracelets called _armillae_\nand some doves. The whole was accompanied by a sweet, girlish\nletter, full of affection. The cherries, she said, were a symbol\nof purity, to remind him of his letters; the bracelets were such\nas were given to reward brilliant deeds, and were to put him in\nmind of his own victories in controversy; and, lastly, the doves\nwere emblematic of his tenderness to her from her childhood.\n\n{511}\n\nSt. Jerome received with great kindness the little offerings of\nhis spiritual daughter, and thanked her for them in a letter full\nof affection, mingled with the grave counsels which ever flowed\nfrom his pen.\n\nThe time was approaching for the departure of Paula for the East.\nIt was in the autumn of 384 A.D., when Blesilla suddenly fell ill\nof the same fever which had once before laid her so low. The news\nof her illness filled her friends with consternation, for\nBlesilla was tenderly loved by them. She sank so rapidly that\nthere was soon no hope left of her recovery. This was but four\nmonths after her conversion, and God already judged her ready for\na better life, and called her to himself.\n\nShe was but twenty, and was going to die. Her mother, her\nsisters, her relations, her friends, Marcella and St. Jerome, all\ngathered around her death-bed in tears. Blesilla alone did not\nweep. Though the fever was consuming her, a ray of celestial\nlight illuminated her countenance with a beauty not of earth, and\ntransfigured her. Her only regret was, that her repentance had\nbeen so short. She turned to those who were around her: \"Oh! pray\nfor me,\" she cried, \"to our Lord Jesus Christ, to have mercy on\nmy soul, since I die before I have been able to accomplish what I\nhad in my heart to do for him.\" These were her last words; every\none present was moved to tears by them. Jerome eagerly offered\nconsolation. \"Trust in the Lord, dear Blesilla,\" said he; \"your\nsoul is as pure as the white robes you have worn since your\nconsecration to God, which though but recent was so generous and\ncomplete that it came not too late.\" These words filled her soul\nwith peace. And shortly afterward, to use the words of St.\nJerome, \"freeing herself from the pains of the body, this white\ndove flew off to heaven!\"\n\nHer obsequies were magnificent, followed by all the Roman nobles.\nSuch was the custom of the patricians. A peculiar interest and\nsympathy were felt in the fate of this brilliant young woman, as\nwell as universal compassion for the sorrow of her venerable\nmother. The long procession walked through the streets, followed\nby the coffin covered with a veil of gold. St. Jerome, though not\napproving of this display, dared not interfere to prevent it, as\nit seemed a sad consolation to Paula to see the honors paid to\nthe child so tenderly loved. She undertook to accompany Blesilla\nto her last resting-place; but her strength failed, and, having\ntaken but a few steps, she fainted away and was brought back to\nher house insensible.\n\nThe days that followed the funeral only increased her grief. She\nwas crushed by it. In vain did she try to submit to the divine\nwill, her heart failed her, and Jerome felt that he must make an\neffort to give her strength, or else she would succumb to the\npressure. The effort was great on his part, for Blesilla was his\nbeloved pupil, and this death annihilated all his own cherished\nhopes of her. He never found the courage to conclude a\ncommentary, begun expressly for her, on Ecclesiastes. But feeling\nit a duty to help Paula, he wrote to her a letter filled with\ntrue delicacy of feeling and Christian faith. He commenced by\nweeping with her over the lost Blesilla, for he said: \"While\nwishing to dry her mother's tears, am I not weeping myself?\"\n{512}\nHe continued this noble letter in these words, alike reproachful\nand sympathizing: \"When I reflect that you are a mother, I do not\nblame you for weeping; but when I reflect also that you are a\nChristian, then, O Paula! I wish that the Christian would console\nthe mother a little.\"\n\nHe reminded her of the children she had left, and with all the\nauthority of his holy office bid her take care lest, \"in loving\nher children so much, she did not love God enough.\" \"Listen,\" he\nsays, \"to Jesus, and trust in him: 'Your daughter is not dead,\nbut sleepeth.'\"\n\nThen Jerome would picture to Paula her daughter in all her\ncelestial glory. He would suppose Blesilla calling upon her\nmother in these words: \"If you have ever loved me, O my mother!\nif you have ever nourished me from your bosom, and trained my\nsoul with your words of wisdom and virtue, oh! I conjure you, do\nnot lament that I have such glory and happiness as is mine here!\nWhat prayers does Blesilla not now offer up for you to God!\" And\nSt. Jerome adds, \"She is praying for me also, for you know, O\nPaula! how devoted I was to her soul, and what I did not fear to\nbrave, that she might be saved.\"\n\nSt. Jerome's letter awoke new Christian strength and resignation\nin the broken spirit of Paula. The tears ceased to flow, but the\nwound bled inwardly and never healed. The void left by Blesilla\nin her mother's heart must ever make it desolate. Rome became\ninsupportable to her, and the pilgrimage to the East, so long\nthought of, seemed now the only thing that could interest her.\nAbout this time Pope Damasus died. He was a great loss to St.\nJerome, for his successor had not the same moral courage, and\ndared not sustain the old monk in advocating monastic life, which\nso enraged the patricians.\n\nFinally, worn out by persecution, and perhaps longing to return\nto that solitude he had never ceased to regret, Jerome determined\nto leave Rome. This was in the year 385 A.D. His friends were\nonly waiting for his signal to accompany him in numbers, and many\nwere the tears shed by his gentle pupils in Rome at his\ndeparture. His farewell letter to them all was addressed to the\nvenerable Asella, through whom he sent his last greetings to\nPaula, Eustochium, Albina, Marcella, Marcellina, and Felicity,\n\"his sisters in Jesus Christ.\" Many of these he was destined to\nsee no more. But the decision of Paula was irrevocable. She had\nno longer any earthly tie to detain her. Her son, moved by the\nexample of his mother and sisters, had received Christian\nbaptism, and was soon to marry a young Christian maiden, the\ncousin of Marcella. Rufina was to remain during her mother's\nabsence with her sister Paulina and Pammachius, and also with\nMarcella, her second mother.\n\nEustochium was to accompany her mother, as well as a large number\nof the pious community of the Aventine. They left Rome in the\nautumn of 385 A.D. Paula courageously bid farewell to her\nchildren, and the friends who had followed in troops to see her\nembark. Leaning on the arm of Eustochium, she was seen on the\ndeck of the vessel, her eyes averted, that her strength might not\nfail her as she witnessed the sorrow of her loved ones whom she\nwas leaving. For St. Jerome tells us, \"Paula loved her children\nmore than any other woman.\"\n\n{513}\n\nThe voyage was favorable, the vessel touching at many places of\nclassic interest. When they finally reached Salamines in the\nIsland of Cyprus, what was her joy on finding her venerable\nfriend, St. Epiphanius, waiting on the shore to receive her,\nhappy in being able to return the hospitality he had enjoyed\nunder her roof in Rome three years before.\n\nThe Island of Cyprus was filled with monasteries and convents\nfounded and protected by Epiphanius, which were a great\nattraction to Paula. Holy hymns were sung where Venus but lately\nhad reigned supreme; and the grave of the holy patriarch Hilarion\nstood near the ruins of the ancient temple of the heathen\ngoddess.\n\nAfter leaving Cyprus, Paula went to Antioch. There Jerome and the\npriests and monks who had accompanied him from Rome were awaiting\nher with Paulinus, the bishop. They wished to detain her; but\nsince her feet had touched land her ardor to reach Jerusalem had\nso increased that nothing could stop her. To follow the footsteps\nof Christ, to see where his precious blood was shed, then to\nvisit the anachorites of the desert, such was Paula's thought.\nEustochium and her companions shared this desire. No time was\nlost. A caravan was organized, Jerome and his friends on\ndromedaries, Paula and her suite on asses, and they began their\njourney together. The road from Antioch to Jerusalem was long and\nfatiguing for women so delicately bred. A journey in those days\nwas full of perils of which we now have no idea. But Paula was\nindefatigable, deterred by no dangers and complaining of no\ninconveniences, as she crossed the icy plains at this most trying\nseason of the year. St. Jerome tells of the cities that she saw,\nand of the emotions that she felt as her knowledge of Scripture\nand of holy books brought up recollections and associations\neither of Jewish or of Christian history wherever she went.\nBesides, Jerome was there, with his prodigious memory and\nknowledge, to throw light on every step.\n\nAs Paula approached Jerusalem, her soul was more deeply moved,\nthan it had yet been. The view of the landscape around the city\nwas desolate, even as early as the fourth century. She entered by\nthe Gate of Jaffa, also called the Gate of David and the Gate of\nthe Pilgrims. The proconsul of Palestine had sent an escort to\nmeet her, to receive her with honor; but with that sentiment\nwhich later made Godefroi de Bouillon refuse to wear a golden\ncrown where God had worn one of thorns, Paula refused to lodge in\nthe palace offered for her convenience, and she and her whole\nsuite staid at a modest dwelling not far from Calvary; then she\nstarted at once to visit the Holy Places. Who can describe her\nfeelings as she entered the church of the Holy Sepulchre? In the\nfourth century, the stone which closed the entrance to the tomb\nof our Lord was still to be seen by the faithful pilgrims. To-day\nit is covered by a monument of marble. As soon as Paula saw it,\nwith great emotion she embraced it; but when she entered into the\nsepulchre itself, and went up to the rock on which had laid the\nbody of our Lord, she could no longer restrain her tears, and,\nfalling on her knees, sobbed and wept abundantly. All Jerusalem\nsaw these tears, and were edified at the great piety of this\nnoble Roman lady, the daughter of the Scipios.\n\nSt. Jerome tells us that, while she was in Jerusalem, \"she would\nsee everything,\" and that \"she was only dragged away from one\nholy place that she might be taken to another.\"\n\n{514}\n\nAfter having visited Jerusalem, the pilgrims travelled all over\nthe Holy Land, commencing with Bethlehem and Judea, then visiting\nJericho and the Jordan, Samaria and Galilee as far as Nazareth,\nand finally, reorganizing the caravan, they set out for Egypt;\nnot, however, before paying a visit to Melanie, in her convent on\nthe Mount of Olives, whence they returned to Jerusalem.\n\nPaula would now have fixed herself at Bethlehem but for this\nlonging to visit the fathers of the desert. They started on this,\nthe longest and most fatiguing part of their journey, and were\nsixteen days in going from Jerusalem to Alexandria. This city was\nthe Athens of the East. In such an atmosphere of learning, there\nhad been great intellectual development among the Christians, and\nthe school of Christian philosophers of Alexandria was renowned\nthroughout the world. This was what detained Paula and\nEustochium, and particularly Jerome, some time at Alexandria,\nwhere they were received with great hospitality by the bishop,\nTheophilus. But even the most interesting studies could not make\nPaula forget the principal object of her voyage to Egypt, and her\ndesire to see and to know the ascetics, that wonderful class of\nmen, who voluntarily exiled themselves from the world and from\nall human ties, and astonished mankind by incredible austerities,\nand by consecrating their lives entirely to spiritual things and\nto a future existence. At this time the number of these\nanachorites had so multiplied, that it was said that in Egypt the\ndeserts had as many inhabitants as the cities. Monastic life was\nthen in all its glory. The great anachorites, Paul, Antony,\nHilarion, and Pacomius, were dead; but their disciples lived, as\ncelebrated as themselves. A great work of organization had been\naccomplished among them. The first men who came to the desert\nlived alone in caves or cells, each following his individual\ninspiration. Paul had lived forty years in a grotto, at the\nentrance of which was a spring and a palm-tree, drinking the\nwater of the spring and eating the fruit of the tree, being his\nonly nourishment. Antony's life had been more extraordinary\nstill. But when the number of the hermits increased, they felt\nthe necessity of community life being established, and the\ncenobites began to take the place of the anachorites, though\nthere remained many of the latter, dividing, as it were, the\nhermits into two kinds, the Anachorites and the Cenobites. Large\nconvents spread out along the banks of the Nile to the furthest\nextremity of Egypt.\n\nIt was not easy to visit these establishments. In going there,\nmany years before, Melanie and her companions had been lost for\nfive days, and their provisions being exhausted they had nearly\ndied of hunger and thirst in the desert. Crocodiles, basking in\nthe sun, had awaited with open jaws to devour them, and\nnumberless other dangers had beset them.\n\nBut this did not discourage Paula, and her route being happily\nchosen, she accomplished her journey safely to the mountain of\nNitria, where five thousand cenobites lived in fifty different\nconvents, under the rule of one abbot. The news of her coming had\npreceded her, and the Bishop of Heliopolis had come to welcome\nthe noble lady. He was surrounded by a great crowd of cenobites\nand anachorites. As soon as they perceived the caravan, they came\nforward singing hymns. Paula was soon surrounded. She declared\nherself most unworthy of the honors accorded her, and at the same\ntime glorified God, who worked such marvels in the desert. The\nbishop first conducted the pious band to the church situated on\nthe summit of the mountain, and there, with that hospitality for\nwhich the monks of the East were ever remarkable, the travellers\nwere given the best rooms attached to the convent and intended\nfor the use and convenience of strangers.\n{515}\nFresh water was brought to them to wash their feet, and linen to\ndry them, and the fruits of the desert to refresh their palates;\nafter which they were allowed to visit the convents and the\nhermits, whose life was very simple and very free, at the same\ntime holy and austere. Ambitious of reducing the body to\nservitude, and to penetrate the secrets of things divine, they\nunited action with contemplation. Their days were passed between\nwork and prayer. Some were to be seen digging the earth, cutting\ntrees, fishing in the Nile, or perhaps plaiting the mats on which\nthey were to die. Others were absorbed by the reading of, or\nmeditation on, the Holy Scriptures. The monasteries swarmed like\nbee-hives.\n\nAfter having witnessed the cenobitical life, Paula went to the\ndesert of cells to see the anachorite life, which there was\ncarried out in all its austerity and all its poetry. These monks\nhad no walls built by man, but had retired to the mountains as to\nthe most inaccessible asylums. Caverns and rocks were their\ndwellings, the earth their table, their food roots and wild\nplants, and water from the springs their refreshment. Their\nprayers were continual, and all the mountain hollows rang with\nGod's praises. These grottoes did not communicate with each\nother, and the isolation of the anachorites was complete. Once a\nweek, on Sunday only, they left their cells, and, dressed in\nrobes made of palm-leaves or of sheepskin, they went to the\nchurch of Nitria, where they saw one another, and also met the\ncenobites. Paula wished to know and listen to these pious men.\nShe therefore visited all the grottoes, one by one, talking\nalways of the things of God to their inmates.\n\nPaula's next visit was through a still more savage country to see\nthose called by St. Jerome \"the columns of the desert.\" She cared\nnot for dangers nor fatigue, so that she could contemplate such\nmen as _Macarius_--the disciple of Antony and Pacomius--a\nman so austere that he had astonished Pacomius himself, who had\nwatched him during the whole of one Lent plaiting mats in his\ncell, without speaking to any one, all absorbed in God, and only\neating once a week, on Sunday, a few raw vegetables. None could\nsurpass this great ascetic. He permitted the pilgrims to\npenetrate into his grotto, and delighted Paula with his holy\nconversation and instruction.\n\nJerome admired likewise the prodigies of this pure and austere\nlife; but more occupied than Paula with the doctrines he heard\ndiscussed, he had perceived that some of the monks were less\nenlightened than others. It seems, as it afterward was proved,\nthat the theories of Origen were already beginning to trouble the\ninhabitants of the desert.\n\nThere remained now, to complete Paula's insight into the life of\nthe hermits, but to visit the convents founded by Pacomius, which\nshe hesitated not to do. There were six thousand monks living in\nthem, governed by the venerable Serapion. Their rule divided each\nmonastery into a certain number of families. Their frugal lives\nenabled them to extend their charities far and wide. Their\nfasting and abstinence lasted all the year round, becoming only\nmore strict in Lent. Paula enjoyed their hospitality greatly,\nlearning much from Serapion that delighted her about this\nwell-organized monastic life which realized her ideal.\n\n{516}\n\nShe thought for a moment of establishing herself in the desert,\nand of requesting Serapion to admit her colony under the rule of\nPacomius; but the love of the Holy Places prevented her from\ncarrying out this plan. She said \"her resting-place was not in\nthese deserts, it was in Bethlehem.\" Already had she lingered too\nlong! She had now learned all that she wished to learn, enough\nfor her own guidance. She therefore embarked with her entire\ncaravan for Maioma, a sea-port of Gaza; and from there, without\nstopping on her way, she returned to Jerusalem, and thence to\nBethlehem, with as much rapidity, says St. Jerome, as if she had\nhad wings.\n\nHere the news awaited her of the death of her daughter Rufina.\nThe blow was terrible to Paula, but her mind was strengthened by\nall she had seen, and the voice of God reached her heart and\ncomforted her, and gave her stronger hope than she had ever had\nin reunion hereafter with her beloved children. She sought to\nmake herself worthy of immortality, and her faith and her good\nworks brought her consolation and peace. She resolved to found\ntwo monasteries: one for herself, Eustochium, and her friends\nfrom the Aventine; the other for Jerome and his followers. This\nwas done without delay, and they at once began the life which\nthey longed for--a life of labor, of study, and of prayer.\n\n\n    To Be Continued.\n\n-------------\n\n        To The Count De Montalembert,\n        With A Copy Of \"Inisfail.\" [Footnote 149]\n\n    [Footnote 149: From a forthcoming volume of Poems, by Aubrey\n    de Vere, now in press by the Catholic Publication Society.]\n\n\n  Your spirit walks in halls of light:\n    On earth you breathe its sunnier climes:\n  How can an Irish muse invite\n    Your fancy thus to sorrowing rhymes?\n\n  But you have fought the church's fight!\n    My country's cause and hers are one:\n  And every cause that rests on Right\n    Invokes Religion's bravest son.\n\n----------\n\n{517}\n\n      The Legend of Glastonbury.--A D. 62.\n\n\nDown in the pleasant west of England a river--the copious\nBrue--follows its course to Bridgewater Bay, between the\nSedgemoors and other rising grounds. Somersetshire farmers now\ndrive their ploughs and graze their cattle where I am going to\ndescribe water: thanks to those Benedictine monks whom they have\nso clean forgotten. But at Christmas-tide, some sixty years after\nthe first Christmas the world ever saw, there were no monks at\nGlastonbury; for the simple reason, there were no Christians\nthere. No one had banked out the waters of the Bristol Channel,\nand converted a brackish and unwholesome swamp into fine arable\nor pasture land. The Brue had it all its own way, to make\nislands, pools, and treacherous bogs with its unrestrained\nwaters; until it had got so far west as to struggle with the\nadvancing tide of the bay.\n\nGlastonbury has the holiest memories of any place in England; and\nthey date from the first moment when the faith was planted there.\nThe sacred name of our Lord was brought to this marshy district\nin a far-off heathen land by one of his own disciples, Saint\nJoseph of Arimathea.\n\nWho has not heard of the Glastonbury thorn? A history of Somerset\nwould be incomplete which did not mention its blossoming every\nChristmas that comes round. It was fair and fragrant for fifteen\nhundred winters, while all around was sapless and dead. People\ntry to account for this standing miracle by something peculiar in\nthe soil, as they would explain away the freedom of Ireland from\nsnakes and toads, or the healing virtues of St. Winifred's Well.\nThere were probably Sadducees in Jerusalem who thought the Pool\nof Bethesda was all nonsense, or a mere chalybeate. Anything you\nlike about the powers of nature, but nothing of the marvels of\ngrace. Chemistry to any extent, but of miracle not one jot.\nThorns blooming at Christmas? It is all a question of earth,\nsoil, stratum, and the lay of the ground, with those who are \"of\nthe earth, earthy.\"\n\nBut we are now on our way to Glastonbury as Christian pilgrims,\nstaff in hand. And it is very fit that we should regard the old\nthorn (or such suckers and cuttings of it as may be found) with\nreverence. For that thorn is a Christian tree, planted by\nChristian hands. More than this: it was planted by the hands\nwhose unutterable privilege it was to unfasten and take down from\nthe cross, and bear with adoring reverence to the tomb, the body\nof God, separated from his soul, united ever with his divinity.\n\nWe are accustomed, in our meditations on the passion, to\ncontemplate the emaciated, agonized form of our Lord stretched\nand racked upon the cross; or, after the _Consummatum est_,\nwhen eventide was come, laid stark and bloodless in the arms of\nthe Queen of martyrs, his most desolate Mother. Naturally we lose\nout of sight, by comparison, other agents and events in what\nfollowed his expiring cry. Yet look again. In the growing dusk of\nthat first Good Friday, at the foot of the cross, and in the\ngroup of five or six persons to whom the eternal Father seems to\ncommit the lifeless body of his Son, there is the saint of\nGlastonbury.\n{518}\nWith the dolorous Mother, and the beloved disciple, and the\nsaintly, penitent Magdalene, and the other holy women, and\nNicodemus, St. Joseph of Arimathea also bears his part.\n\nTo come back to Glastonbury; we must pass over some thirty years\nfrom that sacred paschal eve. Pentecost soon followed it, with\nits fiery tongues on the apostles' brows. They were illuminated\nand strengthened to preach the faith over the earth lying in\ndarkness. So they separated on this world-wide mission, each on\nthe path whereon the guidance of God's Spirit led him. \"Their\nsound went over all the earth, and their words unto the ends of\nthe whole world.\" St. Philip went into Phrygia, and, by some\naccounts, was martyred there. Others make him to have preached\nthe gospel in what is now France, and that St. Joseph was one of\nhis companions. A better supported tradition has it that St.\nJoseph, with St. Lazarus and his two holy sisters, Martha and\nMary, landed at Marseilles from Judea. Anyhow, here comes St.\nJoseph of Arimathea to Britain, with a faithful band of eleven\ndisciples. He has reached the distant region of tin-mines which\nthe old Phoenicians had discovered and worked in Cornwall,\nScilly, and, perhaps, the Mendip Hills. He is come not for\nprecious metals, but to bring the priceless word of life.\n\nSo, rather more than sixty years after the Incarnation, and while\nSaints Peter and Paul are still alive in Rome, though the day of\ntheir martyrdom draws near, we find ourselves on the brow of\nWeary-All Hill, a mile or so south-west of the spot where\nGlastonbury Abbey will be built.\n\nWeary-All Hill! the name it has been known by for generations\nback. But not a likely name to be given it by St. Joseph and his\neleven companions, as they stood on it for the first time,\neighteen centuries ago; as they looked on the marshy plain,\ndotted with islands, in and out of which the glassy stream is\nwinding. Weariness, at least lassitude of spirit, was unknown to\nthose apostolic men. Had they not come all this way to bring the\neverlasting gospel? Had not their feet been \"beautiful upon the\nmountains\" as they crossed them, bearing this message of heavenly\nlove?--mountains deep in snow, yawning with frightful clefts and\nprecipices, gloomy with impenetrable forests, to which this\nWeary-All is scarcely a mole-hill?\n\n\"At length, then,\" said St. Joseph, when the twelve had paused on\nthe brow of it to recover breath; for few of them were young, and\nit was rather a pull for a Somersetshire hill--\"at length we have\nreached the end of our pilgrimage.\"\n\nAs he spoke, he pointed with his long staff to the little group\nof islands already noticed. A cheery December sun lingered on the\nscene, and, though it was evening, still cast a gleam upon the\nwide-spread water. The Brue was winding along, noiseless and\nlimpid, sprinkled with its dark islets, as the shining coils of a\nsnake are variegated with the spots upon its skin. There was no\nice yet, though it was already the Christmas season. Perhaps the\nsea-water that mingled with the marsh from the Bristol Channel\nprevented its formation. The leafless thickets that fringed the\nslopes of West Sedgemoor, and clothed both islands and marshland\nin irregular clumps, allowed a more distinct view of the mirror\nof waters than when shaded with summer foliage. There was a kind\nof grave and sober animation over the whole scene.\n\n{519}\n\nA short distance further off, to the east, rose a solitary peaked\nhill, perhaps even _then_ called the Tor. It has several\nscarped lines, or passes, drawn around it, denoting that the\nRomans had fortified it as a stronghold, which they occupied from\ntime to time. Years after, a little chapel in honor of St.\nMichael the archangel will be built on its summit. Years later,\nagain, that little chapel will be enlarged into a stately church,\nthe tower of which still remains. And nearly fifteen centuries\nafter St. Joseph first stood on Weary-All, the last abbot of the\nstately Benedictine monastery, as Glastonbury had become, was\nmartyred there with two of his monks. His crime was, that he\nrendered to Caesar _only_ those things that were Caesar's,\nand refused to acknowledge the tyrant Henry VIII. as head of\nGod's church in England.\n\nNorthward of where we stand, at the distance of five miles and\nmore, the abrupt range of the Mendip Hills caught at that moment\nalmost the last beams of the declining sun, as it sank, fiery\nred, toward the western ocean.\n\n\"The end of our pilgrimage,\" said St. Joseph again, slowly, and\ngazed down on the peaceful spot. \"These are the islands of which\nthe heathen king spoke:--how are we to name him?\"\n\n\"Arviragus,\" answered one of his companions, nay, it was the\nsaint's own nephew, called Helaius.\n\n\"Permitting us to set up there a Christian altar, and to proclaim\nthe names and the praises of Jesus and Mary.\"\n\n\"May the kindness be returned a hundred-fold into his own bosom,\"\nejaculated Theotimus.\n\n\"Amen,\" answered St. Joseph fervently. And Joseph his son, and\nSimeon and Avitus, and the rest, responded.\n\nThen all knelt there on the brow of the hill; all but Hoel, their\npoor pagan guide to the spot. And with Christian psalms, and the\nGloria Patri, and invocations to the court of heaven to assist\nthem in their praises, they poured out thanksgivings to him who\nhad permitted their long wanderings to cease, and their\nmissionary life in this heathen land to begin.\n\nHoel stood near, leaning on his shepherd's crook. He guessed in\ngeneral what it was about; but he understood neither Hebrew nor\nGreek.\n\nHe is a true Briton of that date, is Hoel; and he might literally\nbe called \"true blue,\" for he is painted all over in blue\npatterns with the juice of the woad, like his northern cousins,\nthe Picts. His scanty garments are dyed the same hue with the\nsame plant, which yields its juice plentifully in this part of\nBritain.\n\nHe looks at the saint, and thinks he is inquiring the name of\nthat principal island in the group to which his staff points.\n\n\"Iniswytryn,\" cries Hoel, in explanation. \"You're Latin scholars,\ngentlemen; so I suppose you know what that means--_Glassy\nIsland_.\" [Footnote 150]\n\n    [Footnote 150: _Insula Vitrea_, the Roman and therefore\n    the British name (by a slight corruption) of what was\n    afterward called Glastonbury. _Glas_ is the Celtic word\n    for grayish blue, [Greek text] and enters into numerous local\n    names in Ireland, Wales, and the Highlands. Its affinity with\n    our word _glass_ is probably more than a coincidence of\n    sound, the ancient glass being mostly of the same neutral\n    tint. Others derive the name of the place from the\n    woad-plant, _glaisn_, which grows abundantly in this\n    watered district.]\n\nGlass, in those days, imported by the Romans into Britain, sorry\nstuff as the best of it would now be reckoned in the Birmingham\nor St. Helen's foundries, was thought a wonder of rarity and\nbeauty. So Glassy Island was a name equivalent to our calling\n_another_ island that we love very dearly the\n\n  \"First flower of the earth, and first gem of the sea.\"\n\n{520}\n\nHoel now spoke again in the same strange jargon as before,\ncomposed of British, or what we should call Welsh, and a little\nLatin. It was the dialect of those parts of Britain where the\nRomans had established their colonies and introduced their\ntongue. Be it noted, we are at this moment near the Roman\ncolonies of Uxella, or Bridgewater, Ad Aquas, or Wells, and\nIschalis, or Ilchester.\n\n\"So you are going to settle down there,\" remarked Hoel. \"Won't\nyou offer some sacrifice on first sighting the place?\"\n\n\"We have no means of sacrificing this evening, friend,\" answered\nSt. Joseph calmly, \"nor to-morrow morning, I fear, unless we\nobtain materials, which at present we lack.\"\n\n\"Means!--materials!\" said Hoel, musing with himself. \"Well, every\nnation, I take it, has its own customs. But I know those who\nwould not be long without providing the materials.\"\n\nSt. Joseph wished to ascertain what was passing in the man's\nmind. The zeal which urged St. Paul to become all things to all\nmen, that he might save all, burned in the holy missionary's\nbosom. It made him seek out all that might serve the purpose of\nhis coming. He had everything to learn: language, habits of\nthought, customs of social life, and the very observances of\nBritish heathenism.\n\n\"And how,\" he asked, \"would you offer a sacrifice, good friend,\nwhen you had nothing to offer it with?\"\n\n\"I? Nay, _I_ could not. What good would a sacrifice be from\na peasant like me?\"\n\n\"To pray is to make an offering, is it not?\"\n\n\"Yes; but I don't mean that. You know I mean something more; why,\nsomething really sacrificed--consumed, to make the gods\nfavorable. Have you no such sacrifice in your religion? Then it\ncan't be the true one, _I'm_ sure!\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" said St. Joseph, \"we have the one true and adorable\nSacrifice, of which all others are mere shadows, and some of them\nvery dark, distorted shadows. Every morning we offer to the true\nand living God that spotless Lamb who alone can take away sin, or\nbe a worthy thank-offering to his majesty and his mercy.\"\n\n\"A lamb?\" said Hoel, still musing; \"why, that's not to be had at\nthis season. But would nothing else do instead? For example, now,\nI've a nice--\"\n\n\"Do not concern yourself,\" answered St. Joseph, and smiled again,\nkindly. \"We shall be able to provide ourselves in a few days,\nwhen we have made acquaintance with the neighborhood. I suppose\nthey grow wine in these parts?\"\n\n\"Wine?\" repeated the peasant, opening his eyes. \"Oh! yes, to be\nsure.\" Then, after a pause: \"You're fond of wine, then, after\nall, like our own Druids? Well, I should hardly have thought--\"\n\nHelaius could hardly repress a smile at his mistake.\n\nHoel looked at him; then, as if he had hit on the cause of his\namusement, laughed his loud clownish laugh, too.\n\n\"Wine? Ah! the very best, if you can buy it of those gray-bearded\ngentlemen; and old mead, and metheglin; or cider from our apples\nhereabout. We grew a mortal sight of 'em.\" [Footnote 151]\n\n    [Footnote 151: Glastonbury was afterward called by the Saxons\n    _Avalon_, or the Island of Apples.]\n\nThen he broke out into singing, and a kind of war-dance, to\nplease his companions, as he deemed:\n\n  \"All under yon oaks, and the mistletoe sprouting.\n    When victims have bled in the circle of stones.\n   We drink down the sunset with sword-play and shouting,\n     And he that refuses, we'll raddle his bones:\n                                 His bones!\n   And he that refuses, we'll raddle his bones!\"\n\n{521}\n\nIt was difficult not to smile at his extravagant tones and\ngestures.\n\n\"Gently, gently,\" said St. Joseph to his companions, \"or we shall\nbe misleading him, and doing harm.\"\n\n\"Oh! never mind, ancient sir,\" remarked Hoel encouragingly,\nthough he had not understood what was said. \"All quite right--why\nshouldn't one? Only, it strikes me, you've no place to lay in a\nstock of it at present. Now, our Druids burrow out caves, 'tis\nthought, somewhere under their cromlechs--\"\n\n\"Listen!\" interrupted St. Joseph, laying his hand on the other's\narm. He looked into Hoel's face, and gained his attention in a\nmoment. \"Listen, while I say a thing to you. Bread and wine, the\nordinary food of man in our native land, have been appointed by\nhim whom we serve, as the materials of that true sacrifice which\nhe will accept. He requires, and will admit, no other. Animals\nwere sacrificed to him of old, before he appointed this new and\nbetter way; but now--\"\n\n\"You spoke of a lamb,\" interrupted the peasant, growing rather\nsulky, \"so I just took the liberty of informing you as we'd none\nat your service.\"\n\nIt was not the moment to pursue such high and mysterious truths\nwith him any further. But Hoel himself would not be let off, nor\nwould he let off St. Joseph. Something seemed to be working in\nhis mind.\n\n\"A lamb is a lamb,\" persisted he doggedly, though he seemed to\nmean no disrespect; \"and a sacrifice is a sacrifice; and bread is\nbread, I hope; and wine, I'm sure, is wine.\"\n\n\"All things are what they have been created by God,\" answered St.\nJoseph very gently, \"until it is his holy will and pleasure to\nchange them in any way, or even to change them into other\nthings.\"\n\nHoel looked at him, but said nothing. His look, though, meant\ninquiry, and this St. Joseph perceived.\n\n\"Is not a tree changed into something very different from what it\nwas before,\" he went on, \"when the warm air of spring breathes\nupon it, and the sap rises into it, and it puts forth green buds,\nand they swell, and burst, and afterward come leaves and fruit?\"\n\n\"True,\" answered he; and then was silent, thinking.\n\n\"Did you ever see one of the trees down yonder blossom at this\nseason?\"\n\nFor all answer, Hoel laughed, and pointed to the leafless boughs\non the island, and the shores around them.\n\n\"Could the gods whom you worship cause them to do so?\"\n\n\"Not one of 'em all,\" answered he, with a somewhat scornful\ngesture.\n\n\"Then, _who_ makes winter pass and spring return; the bud\nburst forth, and the fruit ripen?\"\n\nA pause. The poor pagan was not prepared to answer.\n\n\"Now,\" continued St. Joseph, \"my God, the one living and true,\nnot only has appointed the laws by which seasons come round with\ntheir produce, and the sun rises and sets. He sometimes,\nmoreover, changes these things, according to his own all-perfect\nwill, so that the sun stays motionless in the heavens above, and\nthe tree blooms in mid-winter on the earth below.\"\n\nHoel mused, and mused again, while his eyes wandered from the\nspeaker to the rest, in whose looks he read confirmation of the\nwords. Then he turned to take a sweep over the wintry scene that\nlay beneath and around. Woods and thickets skirting the slopes of\nSedgemoor, the osiers lining the banks of the Brue, the few\napple-trees that were even then on Iniswytryn--all without sign\nof a leaf.\n\n{522}\n\nHe bent his eyes to the ground, knit his brows, seemed determined\nto hear no more, and to believe nothing of what he _had_\nheard.\n\nStill the gentle, persuasive voice of the saint sounded in his\nears:\n\n\"What is that, friend, you have in your hand?\"\n\n\"My shepherd's crook,\" was the brief and surly answer.\n\n\"And see, my pilgrim-staff, that has aided my steps so far. Yours\nwas cut from a British sapling, out of your moist soil, I dare\nsay, no longer ago than last autumn. Mine, under a burning sky,\nlong years since, in Judea, a land you never heard of. It came\nfrom a thorn-brake that had furnished thorns for a crown of which\nyou know nothing. Which of these two staves would bud the\nquickest, if they were planted side by side?\"\n\nHoel looked up, pleased to find something he understood. \"Mine\nwould, of course,\" he grinned out. \"'Tis a right slip of\nmountain-ash, and would have leaves next spring, if I struck it\ninto the ground.\"\n\n\"And what if mine now budded before you could count ten?\"\n\n\"You jest with me where I see no jest,\" exclaimed the countryman,\ndisposed now to be angry, \"or you speak as one of the unwise.\"\n\n\"There is no jest here,\" answered St. Joseph with unruffled look.\nYou say truly. By no power of mine could the seasons alter, or\nthe effects of them. My Master has said: 'All the days of the\nearth, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter,\nnight and day, shall not cease!' But what if his power and his\nwill unite to make some wonderful change in all this?\"\n\n\"His power is great in the summer,\" answered Hoel, casting a look\nat the declining sun; \"but in the winter time he seems further\noff, or feebler. He cannot melt the ice, nor draw up the dew, nor\nwarm my fingers while I stand watching my sheep.\"\n\nIt was plain he was speaking of his deity, then sinking in the\nwest, lower every moment.\n\n\"Ah!\" said Avitus, \"is it even such darkness as this into which\nthe land is plunged? Would we had pushed on sooner from Gaul!\"\n\n\"Courage, brother,\" whispered Simeon in answer. \"There has been\nno time lost, Man can do but little, except pray and obey. If he\ndoes these well, he does good all around him. What says the holy\ntext? 'Well done, good and faithful servant; because thou hast\nbeen _faithful in a little_.'\"\n\nMeanwhile St. Joseph had been in silent prayer. By some\ninspiration he felt moved to ask for power to work the first\nmiracle ever wrought in Britain. Our Lord had promised: \"These\nsigns shall follow them that believe. In my name they shall cast\nout devils, they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up\nserpents, and if they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not\nhurt them: they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall\nrecover.\" \"Amen, amen, I say to you, he that believeth in me, the\nworks that I do, he shall do also; and greater than these shall\nhe do, because I go to the Father. And whatsoever you shall ask\nthe Father in my name, that will I do; that the Father may be\nglorified in the Son.\"\n\nAnd even while St. Joseph prayed, it seemed as if witnesses of\nthe miracle, and disciples of the truth, were being given him;\nfor, stealing up the ascent from various directions, knots of the\nwild Britons, in threes and fours, converged on the summit of\nWeary-All Hill.\n{523}\nI do not suspect Hoel of treachery, or that he had meant to lead\nthe foreigners into a snare. It is likely the rude inhabitants\nhad perceived them from afar as they stood there, their forms\ntraced on the hill-top against the red sunset sky. But these\nnew-comers seemed to have no friendly intention. Most of them\nheld in their hands the rude weapons of ancient British warfare.\nThe bare arms of some were stained blue with the juice of the\nwoad; others were tattooed; they had the wild and savage look we\nhave seen in prints of the Sandwich Islanders. So, with\nthreatening aspect and gestures, on they came, brandishing their\nlances and _celts_, or bronze hatchets, and beginning a sort\nof war-cry.\n\nYes; the moment was come, and the sovereignty of the true Lord\nboth over nature and grace was to be manifested in one and the\nsame moment.\n\nSt. Joseph told his companions how strongly the thought had come\ninto his mind. It had, indeed, guided much that he had already\nsaid to Hoel. As by one impulse, they all knelt again, and\nbesought our Lord to remember now his promise; so that the soul\nthat had remained impervious to his word might see his work.\n\nSt. Joseph then approached the peasant, who by this time was\nsurrounded by his countrymen. In a mild voice, yet with an\nauthority not to be resisted, he said:\n\n\"Plant your staff here, upright in the ground.\"\n\nHoel was startled, looked at him, then slowly obeyed.\n\nThe multitude still gathered, their gestures more threatening\nevery moment.\n\n\"Call now, if you will, on your gods, that the staff may bud and\nblossom.\"\n\nThe peasant turned by a kind of instinct to the setting sun;\nclouds were mantling round it; its form was veiled; nothing seen\nbut a dull and rusty stain of sunset fast paling into twilight.\nHoel shook his head.\n\n\"You will not call on it to hear, to help you?\"\n\nHe was answered by a gesture which implied that the power of\nHoel's god was set for that night.\n\nThen St. Joseph, with another ejaculation of prayer, struck his\nthorny staff into the ground beside the other. He made over it\nthe sign of the cross, saying:\n\n\"By the grace of him who for us men hung on the tree on Calvary,\nwearing the thorny crown, I bid thee be as thou wert wont to be\nin the bloom of spring!\"\n\nThere was still light enough to see how, here and there on the\nlength of the staff, the shrivelled rind began to swell and to\nbreak, how the green buds shot forth and lengthened into twigs;\nhow these ramified out again, branch from branch, sucker after\nsucker; how the old staff expanded into a shapely trunk of\nthorn-tree, crowned with a pollard head of rustling leaves.\n\nAnd then through the keen wintry air was wafted such a fragrance\nas had never saluted the senses of shepherd, or of dreaming bard,\nwandering through the brakes and thickets of leafy May. The\nseasons had been reversed at the strong prayer of the just. He\nwho enabled Josue to command the greater and lesser light in the\nfirmament, \"Move not, O sun, toward Gabaon, nor thou, O moon,\ntoward the valley of Ajalon,\" now honored the name of the true\nJosue, the Captain of salvation, by the \"things that spring up in\nthe earth,\" [Footnote 152] which obey their Lord as perfectly as\nsun, and moon, and stars.\n\n    [Footnote 152: _Benedicite omnia germinantia in terr\u00e2\n    Domino_.--Dan. iii. 76.]\n\n{524}\n\nWhat cries of astonishment broke from the rude men who crowded\nround! How they came trembling to the feet of St. Joseph; how\nthey kissed the hem of his robe, and adored him as a god! They\nthought he was Baal himself; they shrieked out that the sun had\nset in clouds because Baal had come in person to take the place\nof his representative. And though St. Joseph and his companions\ntestified by signs of abhorrence and earnest words how much the\nrude impiety disturbed them, yet, \"Speaking these things, they\nscarce restrained the people from sacrificing to them.\" [Footnote\n153]\n\n    [Footnote 153: Acts xiv. 17.]\n\nBut this reverence, misguided and idolatrous at first, soon found\nits true channel, and was directed to the Giver of every best\ngift. And so the gospel was preached in Glastonbury, and grew,\nand flourished, and breathed out its fragrance like the thorn\nitself.\n\nThen, after nearly fifteen hundred years, came a winter more\nkilling than any Christmas during which the thorn had bloomed;\nand \"a famine, not of bread, nor a thirst of water, but of\nhearing the word of the Lord.\" The decree of spoliation went\nforth; the royal commissioners, with a warrant from Henry VIII.,\nthundered at the gates. The choir of Glastonbury, as of numerous\nother shrines in England, was desecrated; treasures of literature\nin the library and scriptorium were torn in shreds and scattered\nto the winds, with the relics of innumerable saints. The abbot,\nand two of his brethren, were drawn on a hurdle to the Tor, and\nmartyred on its summit; the community dispersed, and the ruins,\ncovering many acres, were given over to strangers, as a stable\nfor their cattle.\n\nBut this was long after St. Joseph and his companions had been\ngathered to the saints.\n\n-------------\n\n             The Sun. [Footnote 154]\n\n    [Footnote 154: This lecture was delivered by M. Secchi to the\n    scholars of the school of Saint Genevieve, on the 28th of\n    July last, at a scientific _soir\u00e9e_, presided over by\n    Mgr. Chigi. It occupied two hours in the delivery, during the\n    whole of which time the lecturer held captive the attention\n    of his distinguished audience, who testified their\n    appreciation of its scientific and literary merits by warm\n    applause. The lecture will speak for itself. But in\n    publishing it, there is one thing which cannot be reproduced;\n    that is, the deep interest which necessarily attaches to the\n    hearing a learned man himself explain his experiments and his\n    discoveries. A number of figures were necessary for the\n    illustration of certain parts of the lecture; and these,\n    prepared from M. Secchi's designs by M. Duboscq, optician,\n    were projected on a screen, by the aid of the electric light,\n    thus enabling the spectators to follow the learned astronomer\n    with greater ease. Of these designs, etc., only the most\n    essential have been given in the published lecture.]\n\n\nGentlemen: From the beginning of my stay in Paris, I was invited\nby persons to whom I owe great deference to lecture to you on\nsome of the subjects which are studied at the Observatory of the\nRoman College. This invitation I felt to be in the nature of a\ncommand, which I would readily have obeyed long before, had I not\nbeen prevented by numerous and incessant cares. I cannot,\nhowever, leave France without discharging the debt; and it is for\nthis purpose that we have met together, on the present occasion.\nI propose to speak to you of the sun, and to show you what\nscience teaches us of its physical constitution.\n{525}\nFor eighteen years I have studied the sun, and observed all that\npasses over its surface. I hope, also, to interest you in\nacquainting you not only with the fruit of my own labors, but\nalso with the discoveries of my learned contemporaries.\n\nWhat is the sun? Such is the question which has been frequently\nasked me. I confess it has always perplexed me to reply to it. I\nshould not be pardoned, perhaps, if I should say I know nothing\nof the matter; nevertheless, it is impossible for me to give a\ncomplete and satisfactory answer. You yourselves have addressed\nthis question to me with an eagerness which I appreciate as a\nparticular honor; and, in responding to your desire, I am going\nto place before you the very interesting results which we have\nobtained in the study of this luminary, to which, after God, its\ncreator, we owe all the physical blessings we enjoy here below.\n\nTo deal with this vast subject in something like an orderly form,\nlet us speak first of the new means of observation with which\nmodern science has furnished us; after which we shall see what\nadvantage we have derived from them, and in what way they have\nserved to make us better acquainted with the sun.\n\nAstronomers, gentlemen, are not privileged beings. Like simple\nmortals, they are dazzled by the sun. Far from sharing the\npenetrating sight which poets accord to the eagle, they cannot\nfix their gaze on the bright orb of day without exposing their\neyes to the greatest danger; and this danger becomes more serious\nif they employ their instruments for this purpose without taking\nproper precautions. Until recently, two means have been employed\nto protect the eyes of the observer: first, the reduction of the\nobjective aperture of the glasses; and second, providing\nstrongly-colored glasses. These two expedients present the most\nserious inconveniences. The first deprives the observer of the\nadvantages which he would gain from the large apertures, and the\nconfusion of the image is greatly augmented by the diffraction\nwhich the small diaphragms cause the light to undergo; while the\nsecond will not permit of our distinguishing the different colors\nwhich may meet in the sun; and on this account the observer is\nliable to fall into very grievous errors. The means now in use\neffectually obviate this double inconvenience, inasmuch as they\nallow of the use of the entire aperture of the glasses, and leave\nto the different parts of the sun their natural color. The first\nmeans consists of the employment of the reflective glass. A\nrectangular prism of crystal is disposed in such a manner as that\nits hypothenuse has an inclination of 45 degrees on the axis of\nthe glass. The light, on reaching the surface, divides itself\ninto two very unequal parts. The reflected rays are rather\nfeeble, but of sufficient brightness to make them pass through a\nglass faintly colored, falling perpendicularly on one of the\nfaces of the prism, without reaching the eye of the observer. The\ncolored glass, not having to sustain so high a temperature, is\nnot so liable to break, as often happened in the old method.\n\nIf the colored glass is completely done away with, we shall\nsucceed by adopting a method which rests on the properties of\npolarized light. When the light is reflected by a glass mirror\nunder an angle of 35 degrees 25 minutes, it undergoes a\nmodification which is called polarization. If the rays thus\npolarized are received on a second glass mirror under the same\ninclination of 35 degrees 25 minutes, they will divide into two\nparts, one part of which will traverse the glass, and the other\nwill undergo a second reflection.\n{526}\nThe quantity of light reflected by the second mirror will depend\non the relative position of the two surfaces of reflection. It\nwill be at the maximum if these surfaces are parallel, but\notherwise if they are perpendicular; so that, by varying the\nrelative position of the two mirrors to each other, we may either\naugment or diminish gradually the intensity of the reflected\nrays. Such is the property of the polarized light, which is\nutilized for making observations of the sun. To the eye-glass of\nthe instrument are fixed two smooth mirrors, so adjusted as to\nmake to the direction which the light follows an angle equal to\nthe angle of polarization. One of these mirrors can turn round to\nthe reflected rays. Then, by putting the surface of the second\nalmost perpendicular to that of the first, we can observe the sun\nas easily as we can the moon, seeing it in its natural color, and\nwe can regulate at will the intensity of the light. It is to this\nnew arrangement of the eye-glasses that we owe the greater part\nof the discoveries of which I am about to speak to you. I ought\nto add, however, that in the astronomical glasses we employ not\nonly two, but three and even four, of these reflections.\n\nBut to come to the consideration of the sun. Everybody knows that\nit has spots; that these spots, relatively very small, are of a\nblack color, and also, that they adhere to the body of the sun.\nThey move in a manner leading us to the conclusion that this\nluminary turns on its own axis in the space of twenty-five and a\nquarter days, and that its equator has an inclination of seven\ndegrees and a half on the ecliptic. These spots are far from\nbeing constant. They undergo, on the contrary, the greatest\nchanges both of form and size. They show themselves particularly\nin some zones, and appear and disappear at very irregular\nperiods. The maximum and the minimum are reproduced at intervals\nof about eleven years. One of the most curious discoveries of our\ntimes is, that this periodicity of the solar spots has some\ncorrespondence with terrestrial magnetism. It is impossible to\ndiscover the point at which the two classes of phenomena unite,\nbut the existence of the fact is incontestable. Thus, we have\njust seen the spots pass through the minimum. From September,\n1866, to March, 1867, there were scarcely any of them; and during\nthe same period the magnetic perturbations have been very feeble.\nAs soon as the existence of these spots had been fully\nascertained, the questions naturally arose, What is the cause of\nthem, and what their nature? On these points there have been\nnumerous opinions, all as diverse as possible. This is not to be\nwondered at; for hitherto there has been no correct observation\nfrom which could be learned the character and the particulars of\nthe phenomena we desire to explain. So, without stopping to\ndiscuss ancient theories, I am about to bring before you the\nlatest observations, and the conclusions at which we have\narrived. The drawings of the first observers represent the spots\nas formed with a black centre surrounded by a gray tint of a\nuniform figure, which is called penumbra. It is not surprising\nthat, with such imperfect means of observation, the theory of the\nspots should remain so long uncertain, and that these phenomena\nshould have been taken for simple clouds floating in the solar\natmosphere. This theory, which was put forth by Galileo, has been\nrevived in our day. The solar spots have an aspect completely\ndifferent from that which we see in the ancient cuts.\n{527}\nI am going to show the drawing of several of them as observed at\nthe Roman College. I designed them myself, by a very rapid\nprocess, such a process being very important for objects\nessentially variable, and which change their form with great\nrapidity, and in a short space of time. Here is, first, one of\nthe most common forms. (Figure 1.) It is a round spot, consisting\nof a black centre, around which is a penumbra all ragged. The\nfirst thing you wall observe is, that the figure of the penumbra\nis far from being uniform. It is composed of filaments, very long\nand very thin, which converge toward the centre. These have been\ncalled wisps of straw, willow-leaves, etc. I prefer to call them\ncurrents, being aware, at the same time, that it is impossible to\ncompare them to any known thing. They are more scattered near the\noutline of the penumbra, and they become condensed near the\ncentre, where the light is stronger and brighter. These luminous\nthreads start from the outline of the spot, traverse the\npenumbra, and often run into the black space that forms the\ncentre, where we see them floating singly, gradually becoming\nsmaller, and disappearing after a while.\n\nThe penumbra is not always composed exclusively of threads like\nthose you see. The centre is often surrounded by a uniform pale\ncolor, over which the currents are disseminated. These currents\nare not always continuous, and their different parts present an\nappearance which may be compared to elongated grains.\n\nIn spite of the increased power of the instruments we employ to\nobserve the sun, the detached parts of the spots often appear to\nus as microscopic objects. In order to form an exact idea of\ntheir real dimensions, we must always remember that, at this\ndistance, four fifths of a second is equal to 140 kilometres, and\nconsequently these apparent threads, whose seeming width is at\nmost not more than one or two seconds, are in reality immense\ncurrents, being, about the middle, of 600 or 700 kilometres in\nwidth, while their length is at least equal to the diameter of\nthe terrestrial globe.\n\nThe drawings which you have just seen represent some of these\nspots in their complete form and exactly defined. But they\npresent themselves oftener under fantastic and irregular forms.\nThey are sometimes accompanied by a kind of tail, itself formed\nof black spots, and which seems to follow the centre in its\nmotion.\n{528}\nWe have here a curious example. The centre is not quite black; we\nmeet with shadows there--some gray, and others red; the filaments\non all sides fall toward the centre, and their edges are turned\nback and bent, as if they had experienced some resistance, or as\nif they had encountered a whirlwind. Here is a spot of this kind,\n(Figure 2,) the details of which are most instructive, and most\nimportant in a theoretical point of view. We find the centre\ndivided in several parts by the luminous threads. This appearance\nwas remarked by the ancient astronomers, who explained it by\nsupposing that on the surface of the sun solid crusts were\nformed, which broke into shivers like glass under a blow from a\nstone. Modern observations, however, do not admit of this\nexplanation. They show us clearly that these divisions are\nproduced by currents which, leaving opposite edges, meet in the\nmiddle of the centre, and thus divide the spot into several\nparts.\n\nThe formation of a spot is never instantaneous. It is ordinarily\nannounced by the appearance of several black points, and by a\nkind of diminution in the thickness of the luminous bed. These\nlittle cavities multiply themselves; one of them develops itself,\nabsorbing the others, and the process ends in the formation of a\nblack spot in the centre. In this first phase the movements of\nthe spots are very irregular, and their advance is always to the\nfront, by reason of the solar rotation.\n\nThe drawing which is now before you represents the first\nappearance of a great spot which was formed almost suddenly on\nthe 30th of July, 1865. The day preceding that of its appearance,\nin observing the sun as usual, we had remarked only three little\ncavities, of which we noted the position. On the 30th of July, at\nmid-day, we found in the place of these cavities an enormous\nspot, the surface of which was equal to at least ten times the\nsize of our globe. It was so mobile, and its form changed so\nconstantly, that we could scarcely draw it. We could discover in\nit four principal centres, where the movement of the matter was\nvisible in the form of a whirlwind. In an interval of 24 hours it\nhad undergone some considerable changes. On the 31st of July, the\nfour centres were completely distinct, and the matter which\nseparated them seemed as if it were stretched out.\n{529}\nDuring the days which followed, this form became more and more\nmarked. Soon there were four spots clearly defined, which\nultimately assumed the form of four independent craters or\ncavities. In the interior of these craters we perceived some\nlight shadows, whose form reminded us of that of the clouds we\ncall cirrus. Their color was different from that of the other\npart of the sun which presented itself to view. As the\npolariscopic eye-glass does not change the color of objects, we\nare enabled to see that these clouds are often of a very decided\nred; and, as this tint is clear and well marked, it is impossible\nto confound it with the effects due to the achromatism of the\ninstruments. You see here a great number of spots presenting this\nappearance, and especially in Figure 2, where the red shadows\nseem intertwined with the white shadows. I have more than once\nseen these luminous tongues, so to speak, transform themselves\ninto red veils.\n\nThis hasty view is, however, so complete as to convince us that\nthe spots cannot be compared to clouds, their aspect not\nwarranting such a comparison. If any part of them may be compared\nto clouds, it is more the luminous matter; for we see it\nprecipitate itself in the obscure space, and there dissolve in\nmuch the same way as we see the vapor which forms the mist\ndissolve into thin air. All that we are required to believe is,\nthat these apparently black masses are but rents made in the\nluminous veil which covers the solar body, and to which we give\nthe name of photosphere. It is this bed which transmits light and\nheat to us. It is suspended in the solar atmosphere, just as\nclouds in the terrestrial atmosphere. What appear to us as spots\nin the sun is simply the effect of the rents which take place in\nit. We are confirmed in this view by the well-ascertained fact\nthat the spots are depressions in the solar body, and that they\nhave the form of a funnel. This form becomes very perceptible,\nwhen the spots are drawn by the rotary movement toward the solar\ndisk. When we examine a spot situated toward the centre of the\nsun, we find that the shape of the penumbra is more regular. But\nwhen the spot moves toward the edge, we see the penumbra diminish\non the side of the centre, and increase on the opposite side, in\nwhich case it presents the appearance of a cavity in the form of\na funnel looked at obliquely.\n{530}\nThis effect is very clearly indicated in the drawing (Figure 3)\nwhich you have now before you, and for which we are indebted to\nM. Tacchini, the astronomer, of Palermo. We have observed this\nsame spot at Rome, and we have made a drawing of it similar to\nthat you now see; but I would rather exhibit that of M. Tacchini,\nbecause it cannot be objected that it was made under the\ninfluence of a preconceived idea. You see that in this spot the\nedge of the aperture is raised much in the same way as in the\ncraters of the moon, and around these apertures are elevations,\nclearer and more luminous, which we call faculas.\n\nThe conclusions which I have just presented to you are also those\nto which M. Faye arrived, in studying the apparent perturbations\nin the movements of the spots. In short, what settles the\nquestion definitively is the study of the spots of exceptional\ngrandeur when they reach the edge of the solar disk. It is then\nvery easy to prove that the centre is lower than that part of the\noutline from which radiates the facule. Both M. Tacchini and I\nproved this at Rome, in studying the grand spot of July, 1865, at\nthe moment in which it disappeared behind the disk of the sun.\n\nThe spots, then, are apertures, rents made in the photosphere.\nBut how is it that these spaces do not fill up immediately? This\nis a serious difficulty, and it leads us to study the structure\nof the photosphere. If the photosphere was solid, all the\nmovements which take place in it would be impossible. It is,\nthen, fluid. But, on the other hand, a fluid would naturally\nspread itself until all points of the surface were on the same\nlevel, and it would require very little time to fill a gap having\nthe dimensions of even the largest of the spots. The celebrated\nWilliam Herschel saw this difficulty, and he met it by a solution\nwhich we still adopt, because it has been confirmed by\nobservations and discoveries; so that what to Herschel was but a\nconjecture has become to us a demonstrated truth. The\nphotospheric matter is like our clouds, gauze-like and\ntransparent as ours. We often see among the clouds differences of\nlevel--disruptions which enable us to perceive the blue of the\nsky in the space which separates them. The same thing happens in\nthe sun; and this hypothesis, which is so useful in explaining\nthe phenomena I have just set before you, accords perfectly with\nall the particulars observed.\n\nWe have seen, in effect, the luminous matter remain suspended and\nfloating in the midst of the centre, and the photospheric\ncurrents melt in obscure parts, just as our clouds dissolve,\napparently dispersing themselves in a space completely deprived\nof vapor, when the temperature is sufficiently elevated. The\nlittle white veil in Figure 1 is a cloud about to be dissolved.\nWithout this dissolving force, the matter which radiates from the\ncircumference to the centre would not be long in filling up this\ngap. As I told you just now, we have been able to seize the fact\nof this dissolution of the solar atmospheric matter, and to see\nthese cloud-like forms change into red veils occupying a large\nsurface in the centre.\n\nOne thing alone remains to be proved--the existence of a\ntransparent atmosphere. We have for a long time presumed its\npresence and its action to explain a well-established fact,\nnamely, that the edges of the sun impart to us less of heat and\nlight than the centre. This fact, inexplicable by any known laws\nof radiation, is easily explained by the action of an absorbing\natmosphere; for the rays part at the edge before passing through\na thicker atmospheric stratum, proving necessarily an absorption\nmore considerable than that which flows to the centre.\n{531}\nThe existence of a solar atmosphere, which was formerly regarded\nas probable, has been reduced to certainty by the observation of\neclipses, and it has been shown that veritable clouds float in\nthis gauze-like bed.\n\nEverybody has heard of the magnificent aureola which surrounds\nthe moon during the total eclipse of the sun. It is a truly\nsolemn moment when, the last rays having just disappeared, we see\nthe shadow of the moon projected on a sky of leaden hue, with a\nperfectly black disk surrounded by a magnificent luminous glory,\nlike that which we see represented around the heads of the\nsaints. This aureola, at least the part nearest the disk, is\nowing to the atmosphere of the sun. This spectacle is\nmagnificent, but it becomes much more instructive when we examine\nit through a good telescope. We then perceive around the disk of\nthe moon gigantic flames, of a lively red, the height of which is\nincomparably greater than the diameter of the earth. Some are\nsuspended without any support, and others take a horizontal\ndirection, like the smoke that comes out of our chimneys. These\nflames were designated protuberances; but we knew not how to\nexplain them. It was even doubted whether they were real; and we\nwere quite disposed to attribute them to an optical illusion.\nThese doubts have disappeared since the observations we made in\nSpain during the eclipse of 1860. On that occasion we were\nstationed at Desertio de las Palmas, on the coast of the\nMediterranean, while M. De la Rue took up his post at Riva\nBellosa, at a short distance from the ocean. We succeeded at both\nthese stations in photographing the sun at the period of the\ntotal eclipse, and a comparison of the two photographs has proved\nthat the protuberances have a real existence, that they have a\nform so fixed as to give identical images at two points distant\nfrom each other by several hundreds of kilometres. The perfect\nresemblance of the two photographs is the more remarkable, from\ntheir not having been executed at the same moment. Between the\ntwo operations an interval of ten minutes elapsed. These\nprotuberances, considering their distance and their bent forms,\ncan be nothing but clouds suspended in the solar atmosphere, and\nit is these which form the red veils that we have seen in the\ncentre. The observation of eclipses proves to us conclusively\nthat the sun is really surrounded by a stratum of this red\nmatter, which we ordinarily see only on the most elevated\nsummits.\n\nIn the photograph taken at Desertio de las Palmas during the\ntotal eclipse, the exterior form of the atmosphere is perfectly\nvisible. We see that it is more extended at the equator than at\nthe polar regions, which is a natural effect arising from the\nmovement of rotation which the sun possesses. We see, in short,\nthat this atmosphere is livelier in its action in the two zones\non each side of the equator, in which the spots ordinarily show\nthemselves. The existence of a solar atmosphere being perfectly\nin accordance with all known principles and with all ascertained\nfacts, there is no longer any room for calling it in question. We\ndescribe the sun, then, as surrounded by a dense atmosphere in\nwhich floats the photospheric matter. The surface of the\nphotosphere is far from being uniform and regular. It is, on the\ncontrary, wrinkled all over, and again covered with granulations.\nThese granulations, first perceived by Herschel, have been\ncarefully studied in later times.\n\n{532}\n\nWhen our atmosphere is calm and the observation very precise, the\nwhole bottom of the solar disk appears covered with small\nluminous grains, separated by a very fine and very dark net-work,\nresembling in appearance partially desiccated milk, examined\nthrough a microscope. These points, or white grains, are of\ndifferent sizes. Where there are openings, we see around each of\nthem some lines of grains in the form of leaves, more or less\noval. Their mean dimension is about the third of a second. These\ngrains are only the upper part of the flame which inclines toward\nthe openings, thus proving that there is a very sensible power of\nattraction in the apertures. We may even say that these\ngranulations resemble the appearance which the clouds known as\ncumuli present when, from the summit of a mountain, their upper\npart is examined. The largest spots would be, then, but an\nexaggeration of this net-work, ordinarily so fine, produced by\nthe force which caused the flame, or rather, the stratum of the\ncumulus.\n\nBut what is it that produces these spots in the sun? Here the\ndifficulty is singularly complicated. To reply satisfactorily to\nthis question, it would be necessary to become acquainted with\nwhat passes in the interior of the solar globe. But let us,\nwithout hesitation, and without attempting to delude ourselves,\nconfess that our study of the sun is confined to its external\nstratum, and to the most striking phenomena of which it is the\nseat; whereas, with regard to the interior mass, it is only by\nthe process of induction that we are enabled to arrive at any\nknowledge.\n\nObservations which we have just made lead us to the conclusion\nthat the spots are owing to emanations issuing from the solar\nbody, almost similar to the way in which matter is ejected by our\nvolcanoes. This is proved both by the form of the craters, which\nyou have just seen, and by the columns of clouds, analogous to\nthose arising out of volcanoes, or out of chimneys, observed\nduring eclipses. Here, then, is how we explain the constitution\nof the photosphere and the formation of the spots. The exterior\nstratum cools itself constantly by radiation, passes into the\ngauze-like state, or state of vapor, and ends by precipitating\nitself in the liquid state, or even in the solid, remaining,\nhowever, suspended in the solar atmosphere, as clouds do in ours.\nIt is this condensed matter that forms the photosphere, and it is\nfrom that principally we receive light and heat. From some cause\nor other, a movement from below takes place in the gauze-like\nmass which is situated underneath. By this movement the\nphotospheric stratum, raised at first, spreads itself on all\nsides, forming a sort of cushion, and ends by separating itself,\nleaving a wide opening in the form of a crater. While the\nvolcanic emission lasts, the spot remains open, and it disappears\nonly at the moment when the equilibrium is reestablished, by the\nluminous matter filling up the void which was formed. If this\ntheory is correct, the circumference of the spots ought to form\nthe mountains above the exterior surface. Now, we have just seen\nthat the outline of the spots is always surrounded by faculae,\nwhich constitute prominent elevations. Supposing it is true that\nthe interior mass is the seat of violent action, this conclusion\nhas nothing surprising in it, and we are led to it by a certain\nnumber of other phenomena equally remarkable.\n{533}\nThus, every time that a spot is produced, we remark that it is\nvisibly projected with a quickness greater than that of the solar\nrotation. The projecting mass is then animated with a quickness\ngreater than the surface of the photosphere; and, in order to\nexplain this fact, we must admit that the matter of the interior\nstratum possesses a quickness greater than the superficial part.\n\nThis novel conclusion is supported by another fact. We know now\nthat the rotation of the spots has not the same angular quickness\nunder all the parallels. The quickness is sensibly greater in the\nequatorial zone than in the higher latitudes. This circumstance\nforces us to the conclusion that the sun is not a solid globe,\nbut that its structure admits of the different strata of which it\nis formed having a movement of rotation independent of each other\nas regards velocity. In fact, the only explanation we can give of\nthis difference of quickness is, that the interior mass is fluid,\nand that it is moved by a rotary process, more rapid than that of\nthe external surface. We cannot, however, undertake the formal\ndemonstration of this point on the present occasion.\n\nThis fluidity of the sun is calculated to surprise you; but you\nwill cease to regard it as incredible when I remind you of\ncertain ascertained facts about this luminary. The gravity of its\nsurface is twenty-eight times greater than that of the surface of\nour globe, from which results an enormous pressure capable of\ncondensing a large number of substances, or, at least, of\nsingularly diminishing their volume. Looking simply at this fact,\nthe mean density of the sun ought to be much greater than that of\nthe earth. It is nothing of the kind, however, but just the\ncontrary; for the specific gravity of the terrestrial globe is\nfour times greater than that of the solar mass. We must admit the\nexistence of a repulsive force capable of overcoming the\nmolecular attraction, and of rarefying the substances which the\nweight tends to condense. This repulsive force is probably owing\nto the heat, and, in fact, the temperature of the sun is\nestimated at not less than five millions of degrees. At this\ntemperature no matter could remain solid, even in spite of the\nenormous pressure of which we have already spoken. It is, then,\nimpossible for us to admit the existence of a solid mass, and\nmuch more that of a cold centre in the interior of the sun.\n\nAnd here an objection presents itself to which I ought to reply.\nIf the interior mass of the sun is at a temperature so very\nelevated, how is it that, when the photosphere opens, a black\nspot is presented to our eyes? In examining this opening, we\nperceive a substance of which the temperature is extremely\nelevated, and which ought, consequently, to be very luminous. How\nis it, then, that, on the contrary, it presents to us the\nappearance of a very deep black? My reply is, that the black\ncolor of the spots is a purely relative matter; that it is owing\nto the contrast of the brilliant light which comes to us from the\nphotosphere. If we could see those apparently dark parts away\nfrom the glittering mass of the sun, they would appear not only\nluminous, but dazzling with light.\n\nBut you will say to me, it still remains true that the interior\nmass of the sun is less luminous than the photosphere; but since\nthe superficial part constantly cools by radiation, it follows\nthat there ought to be less heat, and, consequently, less\nbrilliancy in the photosphere than in the interior mass.\n{534}\nWith your permission, I will make a reply to this which might, at\nthe first blush, appear paradoxical, but which is, nevertheless,\nthe expression of truth. It is precisely because it is of so very\nhigh a temperature that the interior mass of the sun sends us a\nless degree of light and heat; it is precisely because it is\ncooled at the point of condensation, to precipitate itself in the\nliquid or solid state, that the photospheric matter becomes\nhotter and more luminous. To make this plain, we have only to\nrecall certain well-known principles of physics. Two bodies\nequally hot may not emit the same quantity of heat. One of them\nmay cool itself rapidly in heating the bodies which surround it;\nwhile the other may let its heat escape only very slowly, and\nheat but feebly the neighboring bodies. In this case, we say that\nthe first has a more considerable radiating power. Now,\nphilosophers know that gas has a very feeble radiating power, and\nthat it may be consequently at a very high temperature without\nemitting around it a great quantity of light and heat. You have\nan illustration now before your eyes. This lamp, fed by lighted\ngas, gives a very brilliant flame, because the carbon remains\nthere some time in suspension before burning. Let us throw into\nthe flame a little oxygen; immediately the flame pales, becomes\nbluish, and ceases to be luminous. Its temperature,\nnotwithstanding, has greatly increased, and it is now the\ncelebrated gas by the aid of which M. Sainte-Claire Deville melts\nhis platina so rapidly. The change results from the very rapid\ncombustion of the carbon by the oxygen. As soon as this takes\nplace, the flame, no longer containing any solid body, loses\nalmost all power of emission, and ceases, in spite of its high\ntemperature, to have the brilliancy which it possessed at a lower\ntemperature. To convince you perfectly, let us put a solid body\nin this flame, now so pale, and you will see it become more\nbrilliant than ever. We introduce, for example, a piece of lime,\nand the apartment is at once illuminated by the Drummond light,\none of the most brilliant of our artificial lights.\n\nBut, leaving the earth, let us now return to the sun. The\ninterior mass is undoubtedly at a very high temperature--so high,\nindeed, that all the substances composing it must be in the state\nof gas, possessing only a feeble radiating power; while the\nphotosphere is composed of matter precipitated in a liquid or\nsolid state, of which the radiating power must be considerable.\nHere is the explanation of what seemed paradoxical in my answer.\nThe hottest part of the sun is not the part which warms and\nlights us most, because, being in the state of gas, it produces\nonly a feeble radiation.\n\nTwo questions now present themselves. How is it that the sun\npreserves indefinitely so elevated a temperature in spite of the\nenormous amount of heat which it loses daily? Of what kind of\nmatter is this luminary composed? And what the nature of the\nradiation which sends to us daily the light and heat which we\nneed? It is undoubtedly impossible to give a complete and\nsatisfactory answer to these questions. We may yet be able,\nhowever, to do so; and we are persuaded that science in its\nprogress will only confirm and develop the explanations which we\ngive to-day of first principles. In the first place, it is\nimpossible to admit that the sun is simply a luminous globe, not\npossessing any means of renewing the heat which it loses at every\nmoment; for, in that case, at the end of a few years its\ntemperature would be lowered in a very appreciable manner; and it\nwould not require an age to effect a complete change in the\nphenomena which are dependent on it. There must be, then, a\nsource of heat in the sun.\n\n{535}\n\nWe are in the habit of comparing things we do not know with those\nwith which we are familiar. Thus we have been led to think of the\nsolar globe as the seat of a combustion similar to that we\nwitness on our hearths. This idea is deceptive.\n\nWe know the quantity of heat which each substance throws off in a\nstate of combustion; we know, too, what a vast body the sun is;\nand we are able to calculate with a rough but sufficient\napproximation the quantity of heat which the body of the sun\nwould produce in burning. The result of this calculation is,\nthat, at the elevated temperature which the sun possesses, the\ncombustion of the solar mass could not be kept up during many\nages. Since the historic period this temperature would have been\nso lowered as to produce a change in the seasons that has not\ntaken place. We are compelled, then, to abandon the idea of a\nmass in combustion, as well as that of a luminous globe, and to\nacknowledge that there is a secret which has escaped us.\n\nThis secret, gentlemen, chemistry is charged to unveil to us.\nAstronomers profit eagerly by all the discoveries which physical\nscience makes, and it is by this means alone that they arrive\nfirst at conjecture, and afterward at a knowledge of what is\ntaking place at prodigious distances. It is thus that the\nphenomenon of dissociation recently discovered by M.\nSainte-Claire Deville, puts us in the way of explaining the\npermanence of the solar temperature. We know that no combination\ncan resist heat. Whatever may be the stability of the\ncombination, whatever energy the affinitive force may possess, if\nthe temperature is raised to the proper degree, the elements\nseparate, and remain together simply in a mixed state, wanting to\ncombine anew when the temperature is lowered. This is what we\ncall dissociation; and this is just the state, for example, in\nwhich we find oxygen and hydrogen gas, exposed to a temperature\nof 2500 degrees. At such a temperature they remain in a mixed\nstate, without being able to form water, which ought to result\nfrom the combination of these two elements. But the phenomenon of\ndissociation cannot take place without the intervention of an\nenormous amount of heat. To illustrate this, let us suppose a\nkilogram of ice at zero. In liquefying it would absorb 79 degrees\nof heat; to make it warm, 100 degrees would be required; in\nevaporation it would absorb 640; and to dissociate it, 3955, or\nnearly 4000 degrees would be necessary. What we say of water is\nequally true of all the combinations; all that is required being\nto change the numerical degrees of the latent heat, for fusion,\nfor volatilization, and for dissociation. This being so, we\narrive at the conclusion that even the least considerable\nquantity of matter in a state of dissociation may be regarded as\na magazine of latent heat continually tending toward sensible\ndevelopment.\n\nThe temperature of dissociation of water is almost 2500 degrees.\nThe temperature of the sun being at least five millions of\ndegrees, the whole mass of which it is composed ought to be in a\nstate of dissociation, and to contain consequently an enormous\nquantity of latent heat independent of the sensible heat; to\nwhich is owing this prodigiously elevated temperature.\n{536}\nWhat, then, is the effect which the solar matter ought to produce\non the radiation of which it is the seat? Almost the same effect\nthat radiation produces on a liquid body which has reached a\ntemperature of solidification. The heat necessary to keep up the\nradiation is borrowed from that part of the liquid which\nsolidifies, so that the temperature, instead of decreasing,\nremains constantly at the point at which solidification ceases.\nThis is really what passes on the surface of the sun. This\nbrilliant mass, raised to a temperature of five millions of\ndegrees, has a tendency to cool itself rapidly. The radiation\nproduces, in fact, a coolness in the superficial stratum. By\nreason of this coolness, part of the gas which composes the\natmosphere is lowered below the temperature of dissociation; it\nyields then an enormous quantity of heat, which from latent\nbecomes sensible, and prevents also an ulterior lowering of\ntemperature. It is sufficient to repair the continual loss of\nheat that a mass of several kilograms passes daily from a state\nof dissociation to one of combination; and it is evident,\nconsidering the enormous size of the solar globe, that things may\nremain in this state during millions of ages without the\ntemperature of the sun changing in a manner which may be felt by\nus. I say, by us, for our knowledge of this temperature is\nobtained at no less a distance than several hundred thousands of\ndegrees.\n\nIt appears, then, from the very nature of the sun, that it does\nnot possess an inexhaustible quantity of latent heat. A day will\ncome when it will no more be able to lose heat without being\ncooled in a sensible manner, but that cooling will not take place\nbefore a very distant period, and long after we have disappeared\nfrom this world.\n\nBy way of recapitulation of the several views we have set forth,\nlet us endeavor to give you a precise idea of the sun, as regards\nboth its interior and its surface. The reasonings which we have\njust advanced, founded partly on astronomical observations and\npartly on known principles of science, lead us to regard the sun\nas composed of a fluid or gauze-like mass, surrounded with a\nphotospheric stratum, the matter of which has passed through the\nfirst stage of condensation. According to the views held by\nLaplace, the sun proceeded from the hands of its creator in a\nnebulous state. We are led to believe that the interior mass is\nstill in this state. A change has taken place only on the\nsurface, because there only could the loss of heat owing to\nradiation produce a partial cooling. The result of this cooling\nis the condensation of a relatively small quantity of matter,\nwhich, possessing a very considerable power of emission, forms\nthe photosphere. It is in the presence of this photosphere that\nthe only difference exists between the sun and a nebula, between\nthe myriads of stars which people the heavens, and the nebulae\nwith whose existence the telescope makes us acquainted.\n\nWe come, at length, to the last with which we proposed to deal:\nWhat is the constituent matter of the sun? What are the elements\nwhich enter into the composition of its atmosphere and of the\nphotospheric bed? Some years ago, to put a question like this\nwould have been regarded as rashness; to attempt to answer it,\nthe height of folly. We only knew, from the analysis of meteoric\nstones, that cosmical matter did not contain any other elements\nbesides those of which our globe is composed. But to-day we can\ngo further, thanks to the discoveries of the German Kirchoff.\n\n{537}\n\nWe all know the solar phantom, and the brilliant colors which\nresult from the decomposition of the white light. This phantom\nseems continuous if we make the observations in a rough manner;\nbut if we employ delicate means, we see that it is formed of a\nmultitude of black streaks and of brilliant rays perfectly\ndistinct from each other. It is impossible to imitate this\nappearance artificially. All that we are able to do is to project\non a screen the figure of a solar appearance taken from a\ndrawing. You see that it is furrowed over with a considerable\nnumber of black streaks, of which the principal ones are,\naccording to Fraunhofer, who discovered them, indicated by the\nletters of the alphabet, A, B, C, etc. These streaks are\nextremely numerous: we have counted no fewer than 45,000 of them.\n\nI have said that it is impossible for us to imitate this\nappearance with our artificial lights, and it is precisely here\nthat we are able to discern the nature of the different sources\nof light. In fact, each source has an appearance peculiar to\nitself, and by which it is characterized. The brilliant line of\nthe Drummond light gives a continuous appearance, and it is the\nsame with all the simple incandescents. But when we analyze the\nlight of a body in combustion, we arrive at an entirely different\nresult. The appearance obtained in this case is crossed by rays\nwhich, instead of being black, are, on the contrary, more\nbrilliant than the colors in the midst of which they are formed.\nThe same thing happens when we make the rays emanating from the\nelectric light pass through a prism, because in this case there\nis combustion, that is to say, a combination of the oxygen in\ncharcoals, mixed with foreign matter, from which is produced the\nvoltaic bow. If we are content to restore these burning coals,\nthey will give a continuous appearance just as lime.\n\nThe brilliant spectral rays are not always the same. They depend\non the nature of the metal which is found in the flame, and which\ntakes part in the combustion. You see at this moment the\nappearance which silver presents: it is characterized by a\nmagnificent green ray. Here is now the appearance of copper,\nwhich, we know, has a yellow ray, accompanied by a fine group of\ngreen rays, different from those which silver produces. We now\nburn some zinc, which gives a magnificent group of blue rays, a\nfine red ray, and another of violet. Finally, we shall close\nthese experiments with burning brass, which is, as you are aware,\na mixture of copper and zinc. You will recognize in the\nappearance which is produced the characteristic rays of those\nmetals, each of them producing its proper effect, as if it were\nalone.\n\nWe learn but little, however, from these experiments, of the\nnature of the substances of which the sun is composed; for the\nrays which we have produced are all brilliant, while those of the\nsolar appearance are black. Let us see, then, in pursuing this\nsubject, if it would not be possible for us to obtain these black\nlines with our artificial lights. Let us produce, in analyzing\nthe Drummond light, a perfectly continuous appearance. Now, let\nus make this appearance, before reaching the screen, pass through\na deep layer of hypoazotic acid. Immediately you see it\ndiscontinued. It is like the solar appearance, crossed over by a\nmultitude of black lines. The hypoazotic acid is not the only gas\nthat produces this result. The vapor from brome, that of iodine,\nwill give equally the black lines in the same circumstances, only\nthese lines are different from those we have just seen in the\nexperiment made with the hypoazotic acid.\n{538}\nThus, the gases, the vapors, possessing the property of absorbing\ncertain luminous rays, certain colors, these rays, found no\nlonger in the appearance, are necessarily replaced by the black\nlines we have just observed. All the gases, all the vapors, could\nnot, I am convinced, produce this result; for it is clear that\ntheir power of absorption, being less considerable, could not\nmake itself felt, unless by means of a stratum the thickness of\nwhich should be greater than that which we are able to use in our\nexperiments. We find a proof of this in what passes in the\natmospheric air. Under a feeble thickness no sensible absorption\nis produced; but it is certain that the atmospheric mass absorbs\na great number of rays, and consequently gives birth to many\nblack lines; for in the solar appearance we observe new and very\nmarked lines, when the sun being near the horizon, his rays pass\nthrough a bed of air of very considerable thickness. These rays\nare principally owing to the vapor of water. We can equally\naffirm the absorbent power of the atmosphere which surrounds the\nplanets Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. Their appearances contain\nlines very different from the solar appearance. Yet, as the light\nwhich they transmit to us comes to them from the sun, we are\nforced to conclude that that light undergoes some modification in\ntravelling over its transparent path. It is the atmosphere of the\nplanets which produces this result.\n\nThe sun also possesses an atmosphere, as we have seen, and this\natmosphere ought necessarily to exercise an influence on the rays\nwhich traverse it. Such is, in fact, the origin of the rays which\nwe notice in the solar appearance. They are owing to the\natmospheric absorption, and the bed of transparent but absorbent\nvapor which surrounds the atmosphere, and which the rays pass\nthrough before they spread themselves in space.\n\nBut how are we to ascertain the nature of the vapors which\nproduce the black lines we observe? Here physical science comes\nagain to our aid, and the question we have just put finds its\nanswer in a recent discovery. We have seen that a certain\nsubstance in burning gives birth to certain luminous rays which\ncharacterize it. We have also seen that this same substance, in a\nstate of vapor, absorbs, on the contrary, certain rays, and\nproduces in consequence certain black lines which are equally\ncharacteristic. Now, by a singular coincidence, these two powers,\nemissive and absorbent, are identically the same. Each substance,\nin a state of vapor, absorbs precisely the rays which it is\ncapable of producing in combustion, so that the black streaks\nproduced in the first case occupy identically the same place as\nthe brilliant lines observed in the second. We may demonstrate\nthis interesting theory by the following experiment, due to M.\nToucault. We know that sodium produces in burning a beautiful\nyellow light. Well, let us burn some sodium in the coals, and\nbetween these two substances the electric light is produced. The\nmetal while it is burning volatilizes largely; the vapors which\nare produced absorb precisely the rays which they should have\nemitted in their combustion; and you see that in the yellow,\ninstead of a brilliant line, we have a very dark line. What we\nhave just seen take place with the sodium has been equally proved\nby experiments on a great number of metals, and, by induction, we\nmay extend the application to all those on which it has been\nimpossible to make experiments.\n\n{539}\n\nLet us apply this principle to what concerns the light of the\nsun. The photosphere is composed of condensed substances,\nprecipitated in a solid or a liquid state, floating in a\ntransparent and absorbent atmosphere. This matter, being simply\nincandescent, ought to present to us a continuous appearance, and\nthis continuity can be disturbed only by the absorption of the\nsolar atmosphere. From this it follows, that to ascertain the\nchemical nature of the substances which compose this atmosphere,\nit will be sufficient to compare the black lines of the sun with\nthe bright lines of our artificial lights. This has been done. M.\nKirchoff first discovered that the sun contains sodium; for the\nline D of Fraunhofer coincides perfectly with the brilliant lines\nof this metal. It is equally well known that iron, copper, and\ntwenty other substances which exist upon the earth in a solid\nstate, would, at a temperature of five millions of degrees, be\nnecessarily in a state of vapor.\n\nAfter having thus made a chemical analysis of the sun,\nastronomers wish to go further; they have sought to know equally\nthe composition of the stars. We have been led by this to some\nvery remarkable consequences; we have been able to make a kind of\nclassification of these stars, and to determine the group to\nwhich our sun belongs. It remains, then, for us now to apply the\nspectral analysis to the myriads of stars which stud the heavens,\nto those far distant suns, the greater part of which, perhaps,\nsurpass in grandeur and brightness that which is the centre of\nour planetary system. It remains for us to interrogate these\nscarcely perceptible bodies, sparkling at such an incalculable\ndistance, and to demand and draw from them the secret of their\nchemical composition. This enterprise is daring, but it is not\nrash. The difficulties are alarming; yet learned men are not\ndiscouraged, for they are accustomed to see difficulties\ndisappear before strenuous and persevering labor.\n\nWe commenced our study of the stars with the complicated\ninstruments which we employ for the sun; but we soon found out\nthat this complication was useless. We have been able to reduce\nour instruments to the number of two, a cylindrical glass and a\nprism. And M. Wolff, of the Paris Observatory, has succeeded\nrecently in suppressing the cylinder, keeping only the essential\nelement, that is, the prism intended to produce the appearance.\n\nWe have examined a great number of stars, and I am going to\nsubmit to you some of the results at which we have arrived. You\nsee at this moment the appearance which the star Orion presents.\nThis star is of a yellow color; the appearance which it produces\nis deeply streaked; and it is one of the most beautiful in the\nheavens. You will find there the line D of sodium, and the line b\nof magnesium. These are two fundamental lines which have served\nas marked points to compare this appearance with that of the sun.\nBesides sodium and magnesium, _a_ of Orion contains iron,\ncopper, and several other known metals; but it is singular that\nhydrogen is not found there in the free state, as in the sun.\nThere is, then, some essential difference between the stars, of\nwhich you will be more convinced as we go further into the\nsubject. Here is the appearance of Sirius. You see it is not\nnearly so fine. You will find two large bands in blue, in the\nplace of the streak F of the sun; two others in violet; and one,\nvery faint, in yellow. The two first are attributable to\nhydrogen, and the last to sodium; but we know not to what\nsubstance the violet is owing. In the green there are also some\nvery fine lines, but very difficult to seize.\n\n{540}\n\nWhat is most remarkable is, that all the white stars present the\nsame appearances, and half the stars that are visible belong to\nthis type. Thus the fine stars of the Lyre, of the Eagle, of the\nBear, Castor, etc., ought to be ranged by the side of Sirius.\nThere is, however, an exception in [zeta] of the Bear, which is a\nyellow star. The magnificent stars of Arcturus, of the Goat, of\nProcyon, belong, on the contrary, to the class of which our sun\nis a type, except that the iron line E is much more marked. Their\ncolor, of light yellow, led to the inference that they were\nanalogous to the sun, and the supposition has been confirmed by\nspectral analysis. All know substances have an appearance which\nis peculiar to them, and which characterizes them. Can we say as\nmuch of the stars? Do they also present marked differences in\ntheir appearance? This has been the subject of very interesting\nresearches. The task has been undertaken at the observatory of\nthe Roman College, and it has led to a result altogether\nunforeseen, namely, that the stellar appearances appertain to\nonly a very limited number of types. We may classify them in\nthree groups. The first group is that of the white stars like\nSirius; the second, that of the yellow stars, of which Arcturus\nand the second are members; and Orion may be regarded as a type\nof the third, in which we ought to place _a_ of Hercules,\nand [Beta] of Pegasus. These two last-named stars have very\nremarkable appearances. They seem formed of a multitude of\nchannels, which are divided by large black bands. This form of\nappearance shows us that the stars which belong to this type are\nsurrounded with atmospheres heavily charged with vapor. In this\ngroup enters all the red stars, and in particular _Omicron_\nof the Whale, that celebrated star which has been called _The\nWonderful_. Several small stars of a blood-red color have\nappearances resembling each other. It is remarkable that in all\nthe appearances belonging to stars of this type, the black lines\noccupy the same place, which proves that in general they are all\nmade alike.\n\nI have observed further that certain types abound in certain\nparts of the heavens, and that the stars of the same kind are\ngenerally grouped together. Thus the white stars are found in the\nPleiades, the Bear, the Lyre, etc.; the yellow in the Whale,\nEridan, etc. The constellation of Orion deserves particular\nattention; it abounds in stars of a green color, reminding us of\nthe nebula which is found in the same region of the sky. This\nsmall number of types, and the grouping of which I have spoken,\nconstitute an unforeseen fact, the importance of which is\nconsiderable from a cosmological point of view. We should not,\nhowever, be hasty in drawing conclusions from it.\n\nA curious fact has been established with regard to one of the\nwhite stars in Cassiopeia. Its appearance is directly the\nopposite of that which is presented by stars of the same color,\nfor, in place of black lines, it shows some brilliant lines. This\nphenomenon has appeared to me so extraordinary, that I am anxious\nwhether it is an isolated fact. I have observed more than five\nhundred stars, selecting some of the largest, and I have found\nonly one, [Beta] of the Lyre, which possesses the same\npeculiarity. M. Wolff says that among the small stars of the Swan\nhe has found some examples of the same kind. A most remarkable\nfact is, that these brilliant lines were found in a transient\nstar which glittered for a time in the Crown in May, 1866.\n\n{541}\n\nThese observations upset the theories which had been prematurely\nbuilt upon facts formerly known. Still, there is nothing\ninexplicable here. You have seen that sodium burning gives a line\nof a very lively yellow, while the line becomes black if the\nsodium is increased to a considerable quantity. Might not the\nsame thing happen with the hydrogen, which produces the brilliant\nlines of which I have spoken to you? Might not a small quantity\nact by radiation, while the action would be one of absorption\nshould the mass be greater?\n\nAfter having examined the stars, it was impossible to resist the\ntemptation of observing the nebulae. You know that we designate\nby this name the kind of white clouds which are found spread in\nthe heavens, and of which the nature is not perfectly known.\nHerschel has assured us that many of them, by means of the\ntelescope, may be resolved into a multitude of small stars\napproaching very closely to each other. We infer from this that\nthe greater part are composed in the same manner, and that the\nfeebleness of our instruments is the only thing that prevents us\nfrom proving it. It is, however, admitted that many of these\nnebulae are formed of cosmical matter in a state of vapor not\ncondensed. Everybody knows the nebulae which compose the Milky\nWay. But besides those which are visible to the naked eye, there\nis a vast number whose existence the telescope has revealed to\nus. One, of the most celebrated is that which is found in the\nmagnificent constellation of Orion: we have carefully drawn it at\nthe Roman College, and you see at this moment a sketch of it on\nthe screen. The nebulae possess a very feeble light, and we had\nour doubts of success in seeking to apply the spectral analysis\nto them. We have, however, succeeded beyond our hopes. The\nappearances obtained in these observations are very singular.\nThey reduce themselves constantly to luminous streaks, all the\nother colors failing; it is, in another way, that which happens\nwhen we burn an alcoholic solution with marine salt; the flame,\nanalyzed by the spectroscope, gives simply a yellow streak. In\nthe nebulae we find two green lines and a blue one. Such is the\nresult which we obtained in examining the large nebulae of Orion,\nand that of the Milky Way in Sagittarius. Such is that, also,\nwhich furnishes the little nebulae called planetaries, on account\nof their form, which resembles that of the planets. These facts\nhave been established for the first time by M. Huggins.\n\nAs I have just told you, the nebulas present generally but three\nlines; one belongs to azote, another to hydrogen, and the third\nis unknown. This result, which was not known before, is of the\nhighest importance; for it teaches us that the nebulae are\ncomposed of gas and of vapors far removed from their point of\nsaturation and condensation. These appearances, with luminous\nlines, distinctly isolated and separated from one another,\nappertain essentially to gas, and, we ought to add, to gas raised\nto a very high temperature. Thus we have made a discovery by the\naid of the prism, for which the most powerful glasses had failed\nus.\n\nThe nebulae, notwithstanding their shining points, are not in\ngeneral a collection of stars, but masses of cosmical matter in a\nstate of dissociation under the action of an extremely elevated\ntemperature. The collections of stars are perfectly\ndistinguishable by the continuity of their appearances, as we see\nin the nebulae of Andromeda, and in some others which are well\nknown. The discovery opens a vast field of investigation, and\nwill be an epoch in science.\n\n{542}\n\nWe have wandered far into the depths of space, very far from the\npoint from which we started. This is of no consequence, however,\nfor between the sun, the stars, and the nebulae there is a close\nrelation. The sun is simply a star approaching nearer to us than\nothers. According to a bold hypothesis, its entire mass was at\none period in a state of dissociation, which a great part of it\nstill actually preserves. The only thing that makes it differ\nfrom the nebulae, and causes us to rank it among the stars, is\nits superficial stratum of inconsiderable thickness.\n\nWhat mysteries do we not discover in nature, when we investigate\nit by the aid of those principles and instruments with which\nmodern science has furnished us! And in the presence of the\nwonders, what an exalted idea ought we to form of the splendors\nof the universe and the power of its Creator!\n\nPermit me, gentlemen, in closing this lecture, to quote an\nadmirable thought of Saint Gregory of Nazianzus. The sun, says\nthat father, is the most perfect image of the Deity. You see the\neffects which it produces; you enjoy its benefits; but you cannot\ncontemplate it directly, nor sound its depths. The loss of life,\nthe greatest of the earthly blessings we enjoy, would be the\npunishment of the madman who would dare to invade its mysteries.\nIt is the same with the Deity; it is impossible for us to see in\nhimself; and we ought to content ourselves with admiring here\nbelow those traces of his infinite perfections which shine in his\nworks.\n\nWe have succeeded, by the means with which science has furnished\nus, in examining this dazzling star, and in doing so we have seen\nsome unexpected wonders; but how many other wonders have escaped\nus, which will doubtless be discovered at some future time!\n\nIf we can thus speak of the material sun and its splendors, what\nshall we not say of its prototype, when, freed from this material\ncovering of sense, and reduced to a state of pure intelligence,\nwe contemplate him with the eyes of our soul? Science and Faith\nare two rays issuing from the same focus, the one direct, the\nother reflected. As long as we are upon this earth we should be\ncontent with the second, our vision not being strong enough to\nsupport the brightness of the first. But a day will come when we\nshall see the Divinity face to face; and, in the meantime, the\nman who denies his unfathomable mysteries, under the pretence\nthat our feeble powers are not equal to their comprehension, is\nas foolish as the rude peasant who should deny the wonders with\nwhich I have entertained you, under the pretext that his eyes are\ndazzled by the light of the sun. A day will come when the direct\nrays of the Science of Divinity will no longer dazzle our\nintelligence: the high destinies which awaits humanity will\npermit of our contemplating the unclouded essence of the Deity,\nas the reward of the persevering but not blind fidelity with\nwhich we shall have here below, without pride as without\nbaseness, believed in his existence and admired his greatness.\n\n----------------\n\n{543}\n\n    Translated From The French.\n\n    An Italian Girl Of Our Day. [Footnote 155]\n\n      [Footnote 155: _Rosa Ferrucci: her Life, her Letters, and\n      her Death_. By the Abb\u00e9 H. Perreyve.]\n\n\n    Continued From Page 372.\n\n\nI here interrupt, for a moment, the order of these\n_Letters_, to introduce a fragment from one of the writings\nof Signorina Ferrucci, in which is found, eloquently developed,\nthe idea with which the last letter closes. Need we wonder that,\nto so a pure a soul, Christianity was all mercy and all love?\nCertainly not. The passions of men have so often disfigured the\nsweet countenance of the gospel that those outside the household\nof faith form a false idea of it, and, in their inability to\ndistinguish what is divine from what is human, they reject all.\nBut, if they would only learn to leave men and draw near to God,\nto flee vain disputes and go to the centre where all is calm,\nthey would soon know that the genius of Christianity is indeed\nlove. Pure souls, whom anger and dispute have not marred, know\nthis well. The young author whom I am about to cite understood\nit, and it is with a feeling of respect that I transcribe these\nbeautiful pages, which breathe so strong a perfume of the gospel:\n\n  The love of God, which inflames the heart of man and infuses\n  into it a holy zeal, has assuredly nothing in common with that\n  implacable fanaticism with which infidelity so unjustly charges\n  the religion of Jesus Christ. And yet it is but too true that\n  the sons of one Heavenly Father, the inhabitants of a world\n  watered by the Redeemer's blood, have more than once, while\n  waging cruel war upon each other, ranged themselves under the\n  standard of the cross. But because such horrors darken the page\n  of history, are we to conclude that the love of God banishes\n  all toleration from the human heart, or can we deny that the\n  Catholic religion is all love? And shall the blind fury of men\n  make the world forget the numberless benefits which, for\n  nineteen centuries, the gospel has bestowed upon all nations\n  and upon its most cruel enemies?\n\n  O church of the Redeemer! who dost pray for thine enemies, and\n  dost show thyself ever ready to succor them, even as our\n  Heavenly Father maketh his sun to shine upon the most\n  ungrateful of mankind, who was it that filled thy heart with\n  that holy and ever active love of all the virtues? Who gave\n  thee the strength to oppose at all times a tranquil front to\n  the masters of the world? Whence have thy martyrs derived that\n  courage which made them joyfully bend their heads under the axe\n  of the executioner? Who taught thee to confound the subtle\n  contradictions of the philosophers, and, with the same hands,\n  to break the chains of the slave? How is it that, ever firm and\n  immovable, thou alone hast survived the vicissitudes of all\n  things and the overthrow of so many thrones? Who has given thee\n  such power of persuasion that by its prodigies \"from the very\n  stones are raised up children to Abraham\"? In fine, whence hast\n  thou received that inviolable authority which resolves all\n  doubts, dissipates our errors, humbles the mighty, sustains the\n  weak, enlightens the world, pardons all faults, and consoles in\n  every affliction and in every distress?\n\n{544}\n\n  Ah! who does not see that so many miracles have been wrought by\n  the sole power of that divine love kindled in thee by Jesus\n  Christ? For just as thou lovest Jesus in fatigue and in repose,\n  in tears and in joy, in persecution and in peace, in combat and\n  in victory, so also thou lovest in him and for him the humble\n  and the great, the faithful and the unbelieving, the poor and\n  the rich. There is not on this earth a human being for whom\n  thou dost not pray, and whom thou wouldst not, at any price,\n  bring back to the bosom of him who suffered for all men because\n  he loved all. Oh! may thy desires soon be fulfilled, holy\n  church of the living God!\n\n  How, then, can that man call himself the friend of God and the\n  true son of the church of Jesus Christ, who would oppose arms\n  to arms, violence to violence, forgetting these words of\n  Christ, \"Love your enemies,\" \"Father, forgive them, for they\n  know not what they do\"? The blind apostles of intolerance show\n  well that they have never penetrated in its true sense the life\n  of the Redeemer, who, suffering every injury, and even the\n  death of the cross, drew the whole world to himself by the\n  irresistible power of pardon and of love. He who would be\n  willing to forget his prejudices, and, retiring into the\n  solitude of his own heart, would plant there the sweet image of\n  Jesus Christ, such a one would soon learn how far the power of\n  Christian meekness transcends that of the sword, and he would\n  shudder at the thought of pursuing with fire and steel them\n  whom the cross alone may vanquish. Ah! if Jesus crucified\n  entered truly into our hearts, how many things would he not\n  make them understand! [Footnote 156]\n\n    [Footnote 156: Della Carit\u00e0 Cristiani.]\n\nAgain, I find, in the same paper, this beautiful sentiment:\n\n  I believe that charity consists not solely in compassionating\n  the sufferings of the poor and relieving them. Its character is\n  more general: it must be the soul of all our sentiments. For my\n  part, I see charity in patience, in humility, in faith, in\n  docile submission to superiors, in justice, in courage, in\n  fortitude, in contempt of the world, in the desire of heaven.\n  Charity is, indeed, the light of God, infinite as himself.\n  Whoever has received into his heart a ray of this divine light\n  is bound, if I may so speak, to communicate its warmth to the\n  whole world.\n\nWe return to the letters.\n\n  July 15.\n\n  Sweet were the impressions, Gaetano, which our walk yesterday\n  in that beautiful garden left on my mind. Is it not true that\n  the flowers, the trees, the blue sky, the pure soft air, the\n  song of the birds, the hum of the insects--all conspired to\n  speak to our hearts of God? I feel, too, that all these\n  beautiful things seemed more joyous to me because you were\n  there, for to me they all seemed to reflect the feelings of\n  your heart. Then those beautiful verses of my mother's which\n  Uncle G---- read to us affected me powerfully. Earth and\n  heaven, flowers and songs, all borrowed a new charm from the\n  harmony of those beautiful stanzas.\n\n{545}\n\n  July 22.\n\n  I do not know the places you speak of, unless you mean Romito\n  and Antignano. I went as far as La Torre on foot, one beautiful\n  August morning, without suffering much from the heat, which was\n  tempered by the sea-breeze. After having traversed that long,\n  steep road, which becomes at every step more solitary and more\n  closely shut in between the hills and the sea, I went up to the\n  top of the little fortress, and thence for a long time I gazed\n  on the neighboring islands and the vast horizon where sea and\n  sky seemed to unite, and I even discerned some of the lands of\n  the Maremma. Another time, with the Plezza, the Gabrini, and\n  other friends, we went as far as Romito. The sun had already\n  sunk below the horizon. Every moment the last glimmering of\n  twilight was becoming more faint, and soon the moon rose behind\n  the hills. Her pale rays were reflected in the sea, where\n  nothing was seen save a solitary fishing-boat; and the gentle\n  murmur of the waves, as they came slowly to die on the rocky\n  shore, was the only sound that broke the stillness of the\n  night. We crossed from time to time the dry bed of one of those\n  torrents which fall from the mountains into the sea; and thus,\n  now talking, now silent, gazing, admiring, we passed the two\n  little towers, and, arrived at the limits of the two communes,\n  we stopped and turned back, as if we had reached the Columns of\n  Hercules, There is a comparison that would please my good\n  friend Louisa V----. Would you believe it, in her last letter\n  she gravely compares me to a navigator steering toward a new\n  world. \"Yet no,\" she says, \"love is a world as old as the\n  earth.\" That may be, my good Louisa; but to me it is new, all\n  new, Gaetano, and I believe, even, that it will never grow old,\n  like everything that comes directly from God, who is endless\n  duration in eternal youth! On this is grounded my sure hope\n  that, after having united us here on earth, he will unite us\n  again in the life to come; and this thought alone raises me\n  from earth to heaven!\n\nThis was not the first time that Rosa had visited Antignano. That\ncalm and lovely shore had witnessed the sports of her childhood.\nThree or four years before the date of the last letter we have\ngiven, she wrote from that place to one of her young friends the\nfollowing pretty letter:\n\n  Antignano, July, 1853.\n\n  In spite of our joy at being here, believe me, my dear Maria,\n  we feel your absence sadly. It turns to melancholy the joyous\n  memories of last year. This is from my heart, Maria; how happy\n  I should be to have you at this moment by my side! Come back to\n  us then, dear friend, come back! The little wood where we spent\n  so many happy hours, the great shady trees, the smiling\n  country, and the sea--all call you back. Why, it is but two\n  days since I heard a wave which came bounding over the sea say\n  to you, \"Come down, young girl, from the flowery bank into this\n  calm sea, and yield to the invitation of the sun, who with his\n  brilliant rays is brightening air and earth and water.\" But\n  this pretty song of the naiad was suddenly interrupted, for my\n  poor wave broke and expired on a rock. All its sister wavelets\n  murmured the same prayer to you, but all, like the first, soon\n  broke upon the shore; and I grew pensive at the sight, for\n  those poor waves, vanishing so quickly, seemed to me a true\n  image of our shattered hopes, which cause us so many tears.\n  Meanwhile a little interior voice remained with me, and\n  murmured sweetly in my ear, \"Courage, courage! Why are you sad?\n  Cannot Maria come back? I am your good friend Hope, listen to\n  me and believe me: I promise you that next year Maria shall be\n  here.\" This consoled me a little, for I always believe what my\n  good friend Hope tells me. Courage, then, and patience, and I\n  am sure of having you yet at Antignano. Dear Maria, pardon this\n  letter, which is as long as it is foolish, and, if you do not\n  understand it, seek in it only a new proof of my tender\n  affection for you. Meanwhile, let us leave the world of dreams\n  and enter that of news. ...\n\n{546}\n\n  To Gaetano.\n  July 28.\n\n  This day brings to us a mournful anniversary. Poor Charles\n  Albert! on this day, and at the very hour in which I write, he\n  yielded up to God his soul, oppressed with grief, but still\n  full of an unshaken confidence in the justice of his cause and\n  the imprescriptibility of his rights. Doubtless the saints have\n  welcomed into heaven him who on earth loved God and suffered\n  for justice' sake. It is with feelings of compassion that I\n  think of the king, his son, surviving all his family, who have,\n  one after the other, gone before him to the grave.\n\nThis enthusiastic remembrance of the house of Savoy is not the\nonly one to be found in the letters of Rosa Ferrucci. The\nmisfortunes of the king, Charles Albert; the death of the Duke of\nGenoa, his son; the ruin of so many hopes, for a moment\ntriumphant--all these often call forth in her correspondence\nplaints and regrets. I like to see this love of national\nindependence in so pure a soul. She says somewhere:\n\n  \"In considering the history of nations, we discover at every\n  step new and infallible proofs of the wisdom and omnipotence of\n  him who directs the affairs of the world; of that mysterious\n  justice which surpasses all human understanding as the heavens\n  surpass the earth. Hope, then, in the Lord, ye victims of\n  oppression! Acknowledge the hand which alone can give you\n  deliverance! And you, usurpers of the rights of the vanquished,\n  triumph not without trembling at the tears which you have\n  caused to flow. He lives, he will live for ever, who will never\n  remain deaf to the lamentations of his people Israel. If he\n  defers his justice, are you to cease to believe in him? Because\n  he can wait, will your presumption know no bounds? Do you\n  forget that God is patient because he is eternal?\" [Footnote\n  157]\n\n    [Footnote 157: Della Carit\u00e0 Cristiani]\n\nPatriotism was, however, a family tradition with Rosa Ferrucci.\nAt the time of the memorable events which, in 1848, threatened\nthe speedy overthrow of Austrian rule in Italy, Signer Ferrucci,\nwith his colleagues in the University of Pisa, quitted his chair,\nand, at the head of the students, who had formed themselves into\na body, set out for the army, accompanied by his young son. They\ntook part in all the battles of that unfortunate campaign--at\nfirst in its victories, then in its reverses--and returned to\nPisa only after the ruin of the last hope. These are facts too\nlittle known in the contemporary history of that unhappy Italy\nwhose faults are the theme of every tongue, while few know how\nmany noble hearts she can still produce.\n\nWe resume the correspondence:\n\n  August 4.\n\n  May I tell you, Gaetano, what I have been thinking about our\n  future life? We must first, as we have so often said, have\n  continually present to our minds the will of God, endeavor to\n  accomplish it in all things, and be ever submissive to it from\n  our inmost hearts. Then we must have but one heart and one soul\n  in serving God, and I hope that we shall have but one heart\n  also in loving our dear parents. What ingratitude would be ours\n  if in our happiness we forgot them to whom we owe so much, and\n  who loved us before we knew what love was! [Footnote 158]\n\n    [Footnote 158: \"Prima che noi potessimo sapere che fosse\n    amore.\"]\n\n{547}\n\n  Let us endeavor so to regulate the affections of our hearts\n  that one shall not be stifled by the other, but that all,\n  forming a sweet harmony, may rise toward him who created us,\n  and for whom alone we must live. May he alone be the end of all\n  our actions and of all our thoughts! Then fatigue will never\n  overcome our courage, our duties will never seem too heavy, our\n  life will be calm, our intentions pure, and we shall taste even\n  here below that interior peace,\n\n    \"Which no one knows but he who feels it.\"\n\n  Such is the plan of our life. I have but lightly sketched it,\n  fearing that I might seem to be giving counsels and prescribing\n  rules to you. All this is possible only by the grace of God.\n  Let us beg it through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin at\n  the approaching festival of the Assumption; we have so great\n  need of her protection and guidance.\n\n    \"We pray for grace and it obtain\n     From her who is its mother.\"\n\n\n  September 15.\n\n  To-day I am as sad as I was joyous yesterday. Your departure,\n  the thought of an inevitable separation from my father and\n  mother, a thousand conflicting feelings in my heart,\n  undefinable to myself, have made me weep. Alas for us women! we\n  are weaker than the leaves which are stripped from the trees\n  and scattered by the first wind of autumn; and, childhood\n  scarce passed, our hearts, capable only of loving and\n  suffering, are torn by a thousand contrary emotions of joy and\n  sadness. Pardon me these murmurs, O my God! No, I ought not to\n  weep, but ought rather to pour out my soul in thanksgiving.\n\n  I open my whole heart to you, Gaetano, because it is you who\n  are to be the support of my life; to share all my thoughts,\n  dispel my fears, and be my counsellor and guide. Singular\n  thing! my new hopes have made all my feelings more keen and\n  ardent. Hence those alternations of joy and sadness, to whose\n  deepest emotions I was till lately a stranger. As it is, I do\n  not know how I am to tear myself from the arms of those who\n  watched over my childhood and who love me so much. But let us\n  forget all this to-day. I can no longer speak of my mother\n  without my eyes filling with tears. It is drawing near that\n  dear October. If I cannot enjoy your ruralizing, I can, at\n  least, be happy in thinking of the pleasure you will find in\n  it. You are going to see your mountains again, and those\n  pine-groves, which from my childhood I have ever loved and\n  admired. In the midst of the flowers, the plants, the trees,\n  you will think often of him who created us with souls capable\n  of loving the beautiful and good; of him who this year has\n  opened to you the horizon of a new life, in which I hope you\n  will never find either regrets or thorns. Oh! how easy, as it\n  seems to me, does the beauty of the country make the love of\n  God. How sweet it is to think that the same God who gives the\n  dews and the fertilizing rains to the earth, foliage to the\n  trees, flowers and harvests to the fields, is also that loving\n  Father who supports us in all our trials and so sweetly invites\n  our souls to repose in himself! Let me speak to you of the good\n  God, Gaetano; I love so much to think of him.\n\n\n  September 25.\n\n  I cannot express the pleasure it is to me to gaze into the deep\n  azure of the beautiful mornings of which\n\n    \"The air is sweet and changeless,\"\n\n  and of the lovely evenings when the stars seem to speak, and\n  tell in a sacred language the wisdom of God. The country does\n  good to our souls. In admiring its beauties and its treasures\n  ever new, we are led more easily to think that, if earth was\n  made for man, man was created to love God. I often say to\n  myself, What, then, will heaven be, if there is so much of\n  beauty on this poor earth, where we are not so much dwellers as\n  pilgrims? ... On the eve of St. John's day, all Florence was\n  illuminated. There was nothing to be heard but games and noisy\n  laughter among the people. Every one was gazing eagerly at the\n  fireworks and the illuminations; but no one thought of admiring\n  the most beautiful ornament of the feast--I mean the moon,\n  whose tremulous rays were reflected in the Arno, lengthening\n  the shadows of the trees.\n\n{548}\n\n  September 28.\n\n  Next year we will go to the country together. If you knew how I\n  love your mountains, with their tall pines, their flowers,\n  their streams, and their green summits. I still remember the\n  moment I left them. It was a November morning. The faint rays\n  of a cloud-veiled sun shed a pale light on the horizon, the\n  leaves were falling from the trees, and the snow of the day\n  before still covered the summits. All nature was solitary and\n  sad. Who could have told me then, that to this melancholy spot\n  which I was leaving as a child, I should return with you a\n  happy bride?\n\n\n  October 23.\n\n  Enjoy well your ruralizing; its pleasures are a thousand times\n  sweeter than those of our towns. How pleasant it is of an\n  evening to climb the heights, and thence behold the vast\n  expanse of heaven still purpled by the sun's last rays; to see\n  at one's feet the fields, the pine groves, the pale olives, the\n  elms, yellow-tinted by autumn, the little, scattered cottages\n  of the peasants, with the smoke of the evening fire rising from\n  the roof, and the village church, which seems by the tolling of\n  its bell \"to mourn the dying day,\"\n\n    \"Il giorno pianger che si muore!\"\n    [Transcriber's note: This sentence is blurred.]\n\n  I am far from all this now, but I often think of it. Again I\n  see our happy day at Cuccigliana, our mountain walk, and that\n  beautiful horizon, with its luminous depths, which promised me\n  a joyous future. How many things nature can say! How she can\n  speak to the heart! How, above all, she can speak to it of God!\n  Flowers, hills, forests, earth, and sky--all are more\n  beautiful when we have learned to discern in them the beauty of\n  God. How many times already, Gaetano, have I gone over again\n  our walk on the Serchio, where the rustling of the leaves was\n  the only accompaniment to our long conversations! Ah! may God\n  bless thee, may he render thee happy, and all my desires will\n  be satisfied.\n\n\n  Eve of All Saints' Day.\n\n  Oh! if the feast of to-morrow should one day be our feast! Do\n  not suppose, however, that I am presumptuous enough to hope\n  that we shall ever be like the saints of our altars. No; but I\n  believe that not only those great saints, but also all the\n  souls of the just who are admitted to the beatific vision of\n  God, are invoked on this great day by the church. This it is\n  that emboldens my desires. ...\n\n  If you are sad, recollect that it has pleased God thus to\n  alternate in this world our joys and sorrows, in order to\n  implant more deeply in our souls the desire of that life in\n  which weeping shall be no more. Then shall we be united I hope,\n  in the love and blissful contemplation of that God whom we now\n  adore under the veil of faith.\n\n{549}\n\n  Meanwhile it is sweet to say to one's self: God loves me\n  infinitely more than I can love myself. He thinks of me and\n  watches over me with a tenderness surpassing all the tenderness\n  of a mother. What, then, should I fear? And besides, how be\n  Christians and not be willing to suffer for love of a God who\n  has suffered so much for us? I would share these thoughts with\n  you, Gaetano, because I find in them my strength and\n  consolation every day. Treasure them in your heart, call them\n  often to mind, and your sadness will disappear as\n\n    \"La neve al sol si disigilla.\" [Footnote 159]\n\n    [Footnote 159: \"The snow dissolves before the sun.\"]\n\n  I do not think we shall lose by the exchange when, having\n  finished Milton, we read Virgil together. That great man seems\n  to me indeed\n\n    \"The light and honor of the other poets,\"\n\n  as our Dante says. We shall reap from this reading the great\n  advantage of being able to compare the principal episodes of\n  the AEneid with the best passages of other poems. I assure you\n  I do not regret the time I give to my little studies; if I had\n  to commence them again, I should apply myself only with more\n  diligence and attention. I owe to them the best pleasures that\n  I have known; above all, I owe to them community of\n  intellectual life with you. [Footnote 160]\n\n    [Footnote 160: I would for a moment call the reader's\n    attention to this sentiment. Such should, indeed, be the\n    chief end of the studies of every Christian woman--community\n    of intellectual life with her husband, community of\n    intellectual life with her sons.]\n\n  Now that I do not take lessons, and that, consequently, I have\n  no more leisure, I know no more lively pleasure than to shut\n  myself up in my little room with my books and my pen; and even\n  during those hours which I ought and which I am determined to\n  devote to needlework, I love still to think of what I have read\n  and to beguile the time by these pleasant memories. Having had\n  some time for study to-day, I resumed the reading of Muratori,\n  taking the history of the wars of Odoacer and Theodoric. The\n  subject is a familiar one, but I return to it always willingly,\n  because I think the history of the middle ages even more\n  important for us to know than ancient history. And then what\n  joy of soul to see the church, in all places and in the most\n  barbarous ages, the mother and guardian of civilization, the\n  friend and consoler of the vanquished, the last bulwark of the\n  oppressed against the unbridled pretensions of power!\n\n  Poor Italy! how she has suffered! What carnage! How much blood\n  shed in vain! How many tears!\n\n\n  January 1, 1857.\n\n  Let us pray God, let us pray him with our whole heart to-day,\n  Gaetano, to bless our union, our souls, our actions, our\n  thoughts, our life. May he deign to preserve long those who are\n  dear to us, to shield us from great misfortunes, and, above\n  all, never to withdraw his grace from us! Such are the prayers\n  that we will offer together, united in heart, though separated\n  by distance. God will see the sincerity of our desires, and he\n  will grant them.\n\n  The serenity of the heavens gladdens all nature, and rejoices\n  also our souls, which in the light of the sun seem, as it were,\n  a reflection of the Increated Light. I do not think I am\n  superstitious, Gaetano; and if the new year had commenced in\n  the midst of lightning, thunder, and dismal rains, I should\n  certainly not, on that account, have augured ill for our\n  future. But now, contemplating the calmness and pureness of the\n  sky and of the whole horizon, I ask of God to give us a life\n  like to this beautiful day, that is to say, such a life that\n  nothing may ever be able to disturb in our souls that peace\n  whose source is in God, its eternal fount.\n\n{550}\n\n  January 4.\n\n  After some cold days, the weather has again become very mild,\n  and the air is balmy as with the first perfumes of spring. How\n  brightly the sun shines to-day! Its warm beams inundate my\n  little room. Seated at my table, at some distance from the\n  window, my eye wanders involuntarily to what I can see of the\n  sky. I fancy I see a great blue eye looking down lovingly on\n  me. Ah Gaetano! how good is God!\n\n  I have just learned the death of a very dear friend. Young,\n  beautiful, brought up in opulence, the only daughter of a\n  mother who idolized her, she wished to become a Sister of\n  Charity in order to serve God in his poor. For ten years she\n  has been a tender mother to the orphan, and she has just died\n  in the bloom of her days. Dear and good Sister Maria! how happy\n  I should have been to see her again! I do not cease thinking of\n  her! Schiller would say here: \"Cease to weep: tears do not\n  resuscitate the dead.\" Ah! with what a far different power do\n  the words addressed by the Redeemer to the afflicted come home\n  to our hearts: \"Blessed are they that weep, for they shall be\n  comforted!\" The more I meditate on these words, and then look\n  on earth in its renewal, the pure light and deep azure of the\n  sky, the more I am impressed, death notwithstanding, with the\n  infinite goodness of God and the ineffable bliss of a future\n  life. I hear sometimes of the good being oppressed by the\n  wicked; I often see virtuous persons in misfortune; will not,\n  then, the just also have their day and their recompense? Ah!\n  often, when at night I raise my eyes toward the twinkling\n  stars, I think of those happy souls who are there on high,\n  higher than the stars, in the eternal enjoyment of the beatific\n  vision, of adoration and love without end. If man would only\n  fix his soul on such thoughts, what is there on earth that\n  could discourage him?\n\n  I received your dear letter this morning, Gaetano, and lest you\n  should suppose I thought it too gloomy, I must tell you that I,\n  too, have been thinking of death the whole day, and that I even\n  offered a special prayer to our Lord to be merciful to me when\n  the hour shall have come for me to pass from time to eternity,\n  and, as I hope, \"from the human to the divine.\" We have need of\n  abandoning ourselves with a child-like confidence into the arms\n  of God, if we wish to keep alive in our hearts the hope of\n  seeing in heaven him whom we adore on earth. For my part, if,\n  instead of thinking of him alone, I turned to think of myself,\n  I really know not whither my reflections might lead me. But\n  hope, which is a Christian virtue, is a firm expectation of\n  future glory, I will, then, forget my fears and believe that,\n  despite our imperfections, we may one day taste in the bosom of\n  God a happiness even of the shadow of which we cannot catch a\n  glimpse on this earth. We shall then know in what overflowing\n  measure the Lord rewards even the feeblest efforts of his\n  friends. We shall know how everything here below was inevitably\n  passing away with ourselves, how this earthly life vanished\n  more lightly than a dream, and that there remains nothing to\n  man after death but love, that ethereal part of the soul which\n  God claims all for himself. Yet more: I believe that the love\n  which shall unite and commingle our souls on high will not be\n  absorbed in the contemplation of the divine essence in such a\n  manner that the sweetness of loving each other still shall\n  escape our perception.\n{551}\n  I believe, on the contrary, that it will be the triumph of love\n  to exist and to endure in God, and to unite in one canticle of\n  praise the souls which God made to love one another.\n\n  More sorrow--Matilda is dead! [Footnote 161] Oh! how we loved\n  her. She was an angel! It is we only who suffer, for to her it\n  is pure happiness to have quitted earth. Not a murmur was ever\n  heard from her lips. She found all peace and all strength in\n  the love of God. Her soul so easily opened itself to joy. The\n  day before her death, seeing some flowers, \"What beautiful\n  things our God has made!\" she exclaimed. Her friends wished to\n  inform her father of her imminent danger. This she constantly\n  opposed, wishing to spare that poor father the agony of a last\n  farewell. Here are examples.\n\n    [Footnote 161: Matilda Manzoni, daughter of the celebrated\n    author of _I Promessi Sposi_.]\n\n  I do not know the introduction you speak of; but my mother has\n  read to me the admirable verses of Manzoni which are prefixed\n  to it. How many things these verses recall to me. They have\n  affected me powerfully. Returning in memory to the times that\n  are past, I fancied as I listened to them that I heard the\n  sweet voice of my poor Matilda, who, in reciting this beautiful\n  poetry, evinced so tender an admiration for her father's\n  genius. We were at Viareggio. It was a beautiful summer\n  evening, and the peace of a starlit sky penetrated deep into\n  our souls. Matilda said to me: \"Rosa, if you could only tell me\n  the first verse of those stanzas, I am sure I could recite the\n  whole.\" For some time I ransacked my poor memory in vain.\n  Suddenly came the word, \"Pause awhile.\" That word was enough.\n  Matilda recited without failing in a word--and oh! with what\n  feeling--the whole piece of poetry. Dear friend! she is with\n  us no longer, and we shall see her no more on earth. When I\n  parted with her last, I said to her: \"Farewell till we meet\n  again.\" I ought to have said: \"Farewell till we meet in\n  heaven.\"\n\n  When the storm came upon us, [Footnote 162] two terrific peals\n  of thunder were heard at once. I confess, Gaetano, I did not\n  expect to reach Pisa. And oh! how terrible is the thought of\n  death, when all around reminds one of the almighty power of\n  God. I trembled as I thought of eternity. I saw my own\n  nothingness, and that my only refuge was in the bosom of God.\n  There did I cast myself with all the confidence of my soul.\n  Unperceived by any one, I drew from my bosom my crucifix, and,\n  concealing it in my hand, I pressed it to my lips. I felt then\n  what help religion will give us in our last moments, for I\n  immediately regained courage, and all my fears vanished.\n\n    [Footnote 162: Signorina Ferrucci was, with her parents,\n    returning from Leghorn to Pisa, when they were surprised by a\n    violent storm, which is the subject of this letter.]\n\n\n  To Signorina Louisa B----.\n\n  I received your sad and tender letter yesterday, my dear\n  Louisa, and I answer it without delay, to prove to you that\n  your sorrows are mine. Poor Antonietta! Yet, why weep for her?\n  Her soul has winged its flight to the celestial regions, where,\n  as she said in her delirium, all was ready to receive her. It\n  is not to her, then--it is to you, to your family, to\n  ourselves, that our tears belong.\n{552}\n  As soon as I heard the sad tidings, I raised my heart to God,\n  and offered him a fervent prayer for your mother and yourself.\n  As to Antonietta, I could not pray for her, because I saw her\n  truly in the midst of the angelic choirs.\n\n  Dear friend, would that I could console you; but I feel with\n  sadness my utter inability. It is God alone who has the secret\n  of true consolation. Is not he our good Father? Does not he\n  await us in that blessed abode where there are neither sorrows\n  nor tears, but where reign eternal peace and happiness? And\n  then, my poor Louisa, if life seemed to promise your dear\n  sister happiness and joy, has not death put her in possession\n  of joys more pure, happiness more profound, than she could ever\n  have desired? Oh! how enviable is her lot. She will never know\n  the troubles, the disappointments, the disenchantments of this\n  life. She will be spared all the suffering which is inseparable\n  from a long existence. Death has been to her a beautiful angel,\n  come from heaven to crown her with flowers. Dry your tears,\n  Louisa: your sister is happier than we.\n\n\n  To Gaetano,\n\n  Each day is bringing you nearer the mournful anniversary you\n  spoke of in your last letter. I beg, I conjure you, Gaetano, to\n  allow to your heart no sentiment but that of resignation.\n  Remember that we shall see in heaven those who are taken from\n  us on earth; and that the sufferings of this life are the means\n  by which we are to attain endless beatitude. I speak thus, not\n  to preach patience to you, which it would ill become me to do,\n  but to give you a word of consolation; for I know all that you\n  have suffered, all that you still suffer in secret. The cares\n  of business and the multiplicity of exterior duties will not\n  prevent sorrowful memories from taking possession of your soul.\n  You can, then, but offer your sufferings as a sacrifice,\n  believing that they will render us more worthy of the divine\n  love. If I already shared your life, I would do everything in\n  my power to console and encourage you on these sad days.\n  Meanwhile let us both strive each day to lessen our\n  imperfections, and to let the love of God have fuller scope in\n  our hearts. Thus shall we, if not without fear, at least\n  without remorse, reach that solemn moment of our life, the one\n  that will end it. May God, who, we hope, will one day unite us\n  on earth by holy ties, deign to unite us also in heaven!\n\n\n  January 21.\n  (Three days before the commencement of her illness.)\n\n  Truly we must be always ready to die when and as God wills, and\n  to love him infinitely more than all the things of this world\n  which are passing away with our frail lives. Our immortal soul\n  is not made for this world, where all is fleeting, dissolving,\n  changing. By the very nature of its being, it yearns for\n  heaven. For me, living or dead, in this world or the next, I\n  will be ever thine, my Gaetano, in the love that God knows and\n  blesses.\n\nThis letter is the last that Rosa Ferrucci wrote.\n\n    Concluded In Next Number.\n\n----------\n\n{553}\n\n  The Sanitary and Moral Condition of New York City.\n\n\nA glance at New York City, embracing the entire of Manhattan\nIsland, will show that its geographical position, its advantages\nfor sewerage and drainage, in fact for everything that would make\nit salubrious and healthy, cannot be surpassed by any city in\nthis or any other country. And still, with its bountiful supply\nof nature's choicest gifts, many of our readers will be surprised\nto hear that our death-rate is higher than that of any city on\nthis continent, or any of the larger cities of Europe. We append\na table showing the relative per annum mortality in various\ncities:\n\n               Death. Population.\n\n  New York       1  in  35\n  London         1  in  45\n  Paris          1  in  40\n  Copenhagen     1  in  36\n  Christiansund,\n    (Norway.)    1  in  40\n  Liverpool      1  in  44\n  Philadelphia   1  in  48\n  Boston         1  in  41\n  Newark, N. J   1  in  44\n  Providence     1  in  45\n  Hartford       1  in  54\n  Rochester      1  in  44 [Footnote 163]\n\n    [Footnote 163: _Health in Country and Cities_. W. F.\n    Thorns, M. D.]\n\nLet us first examine the conditions which favor and cause this\nexcessively high death-rate, and then approximate as nearly as\npossible what our percentage of mortality should be, under good\nhygienic regulations.\n\nThe primary cause of the present condition is, evidently, in the\npacking system of the tenant-houses; and how the unfortunates\nexist in the fetid air and dirt of these dens, it is impossible\nto imagine. The name tenant-house is applied to all buildings\ncontaining three or more families. There are at present in our\ncity 18,582 of these residences. In these live over a\nhalf-million of people, or more than half of our entire\npopulation. These houses vary in condition, from the apartments\nover stores on our prominent thoroughfares, which often contain\nall the comforts and conveniences of more aristocratic and\nimposing structures, through many gradations to the cellar,\ngarrets, and model tenant-houses, occupied by the most miserable\nof our inhabitants. Such an economy of space was never known to\nbe displayed in sheltering cattle as is here shown in the houses,\nif they can be so called, of the laboring classes. We give a\ndescription of one of these establishments, for the benefit of\nthose who have never examined a \"model tenant-house.\" On a lot 25\nby 100 feet two buildings are erected, one in the front, the\nsecond in the rear. Between the houses is a yard or open space,\nin which are located rows of stalls to be used as water-closets.\nThe buildings are frequently seven and eight stories high,\nincluding basement. Through the middle of each house runs a hall\nthree to four feet wide. On each side of the hall are the\napartments, as they are termed, more properly coops or dens.\nThere are sometimes three or four sets of these coops to each\nhalf, making six or eight families to the floor; and so they are\npacked, from the cellar to the roof of the establishment. As the\nterm \"suites of apartments\" is rather deceptive to the\nuninitiated, we will state this means simply two--one, the\ncommon room, where all the cooking, washing, and other family\nwork is performed, and in some instances used additionally for\nmanufacturing purposes, as shoe-making, tailoring, etc.; the\nother is the sleeping-room.\n{554}\nThe first is generally 8 feet by 10, and the second 7 by 8, with\nan average height of 7 feet. \"Not unfrequently two families--yea,\nfour families--live in one of these small sets of dens; and in\nthis manner as many as 126 families, numbering over 800 souls,\nhave been packed into one such building, and some of the families\ntaking boarders and lodgers at that. And worse yet, all around\nsuch tenements, or in close proximity to them, stand\nslaughter-houses, stables, tanneries, soap factories, and\nbone-boiling establishments, emitting life-destroying\nexhalations.\" [Footnote 164]\n\n    [Footnote 164:  Mr. Dyer's Report on the Condition of the\n    Destitute and Outcast Children of this city.]\n\nImagine rows of such houses, so close to each other as to shut\nout the air and sunlight from their inmates, and you have a\npicture of the condition of some portions of the lower wards of\nNew York City. Of the 18,582 tenant-houses. Dr. E. B. Dalton, the\nSanitary Superintendent, reports \"52 per cent in bad sanitary\ncondition, that is, in a condition detrimental to the health and\ndangerous to the lives of the occupants, and sources of infection\nto the neighborhood generally; 32 per cent are in this condition\npurely from overcrowding, accumulations of filth, want of\nwater-supply, and other results of neglect.\" Dr. E. Harris, the\nefficient Register of Vital Statistics for the Board of Health,\ninforms us that, although the Fourth ward has given up nearly one\nhalf its space for mercantile purposes, it still retains the\npopulation it had in 1864. This is effected by driving the poor\ntenants into smaller space and more miserable dens, which they\nare obliged to accommodate themselves to, as there is no rapid\ntransportation at their command by which they could reach homes\nin more salubrious districts, and still retain their employment\nin this section. The result is, that in some locations the people\nare packed at the rate of nearly 300,000 to the square mile. Here\nare congregated the vilest brothels, the lowest dance-houses, and\nother dens of infamy. It is doubtful if throughout Europe, and\ncertainly in no other part of America, in the same amount of\nspace, so much vice, immorality, pauperism, disease, and fearful\ndepravity could be found, as some of the worst of these locations\npresent daily for our consideration. Our readers must not\nsuppose, from our frequent references to the Fourth ward, that it\ncontains all of this character of trouble existing in New York.\nThis is not the case. In portions of all the wards in the lower\npart of the island, as well as up-town by either river-side as\nhigh as Fiftieth street, will the same condition be found, but\nnot in so concentrated a form as in the Fourth Ward and its\nimmediate surroundings, which has for a long time held the\nunenviable reputation of being the worst locality on the island.\n\nPractical hygienists give 1000 cubic feet as the standard amount\nof air-space for each individual. Dr. W. F. Thoms, in his\npamphlet on _Tenant-Houses_, thinking that quantity\nimpracticable in this character of building, gives 700 cubic feet\nas the minimum in which a person can live and not be injured by\nthe carbonic acid he constantly expires. With many of the\n'fever-nests' not more than 300 to 400 feet to the individual are\ngiven; and Captain Lord's report shows that in 289 houses the\nquantity allowed each inmate is only between 100 and 300 cubic\nfeet.\n\n{555}\n\nThe zymotic or foul-air diseases, as they are termed by some,\nformed 29.36 per cent of our total mortality during last year.\n[Footnote 165]\n\n    [Footnote 165: Dr. Harris's Report.]\n\nBelonging to this class are the diarrhoeal maladies, Asiatic\ncholera, cholera-morbus, typhoid and typhus fevers, small-pox,\nmeasles, scarlet fever, and others of this kind; also the\ndietetic disorders, inanition, scurvy, etc. It will be readily\nseen that, in such locations as are above described, a very large\nproportion of the mortality from this class must arise.\nConsumption also, which might properly be termed the constant\nscourge of the human family, assists largely in running up our\ndeath-table. The late Archbishop Hughes, in speaking of this\ndisease, said \"it was the natural death of the Irish emigrant in\nthis country.\" This remark is equally true of persons coming from\nall other countries, partially on account of foreigners not being\nacclimated to the vicissitudes of our climate, but more\nparticularly because so many of them dwell in damp, leaky\nshanties, or in cellars which are frequently below the level of\nhigh water. Here the seeds of the disease are planted by which\nthe miserable victims of hectic fever, night-sweats, and other\nattendant evils are hurried to their untimely graves. In the\nfifteen months ending December 31st, 1867, 4123 persons died in\nour city of this disease. The largest number of these were\nbetween the ages of 25 and 40. One thousand seven hundred and\nsixty-five were natives of Ireland, 1430 were Americans, 600\nGermans, and 328 from other foreign countries.\n\nUpon the infants, however, of these polluted districts death\nfastens his relentless grasp, and from their ranks under the age\nof five years he claimed last year over one half the entire\nmortality of the city. The blood of these innocents is poisoned\nfrom birth by the noxious influences of bad air and adulterated\nfood; consequently their nutrition is defective, and the majority\nof them are found frail, puny, and miserable. In this condition\nthey are little able to stand the irritation attendant upon the\nprocess of dentition, and during this period a large number of\nthem rapidly sink from diarrhoea, marasmus, or some kindred\ndisorder.\n\nSeven thousand four hundred and ninety-four of these little ones\ndied last year under twelve months of age. This is supposed to be\nlittle less than one fourth of all the infants born alive during\nthe same period. Is it not enough to send a thrill of horror to\nthe breast of every mother, to think that one out of every four\ninfants born, must perish before it reaches its first birthday?\n\n\"This is well known to be twice too high a death-rate for the\nfirst year of infant life, and experience demonstrates, that the\ninfant death-rate is a safe index of the general rate of\nmortality, both in the total population and in the adults of any\ncity or district. That is, if in the Sixth ward we find a high\ndeath-rate in children, and if it is vastly higher than that in\nthe children of the Fifteenth ward, then we shall find (as we\nactually have found) that the death-rate is excessively high in\nthe total number of adult inhabitants of the Sixth, while there\nis a very low death-rate in the Fifteenth that buries the\nsmallest percentage of its infants.\" [Footnote 166]\n\n  [Footnote 166: Dr. Harris's Report.]\n\nAn easy solution to this is found in the greater susceptibility\nof early infancy from extreme delicacy of formation. Just as the\naccurate thermometer indicates immediately every change in the\ntemperature, so these frail organizations blight first under\ndetrimental influences, before the more matured portion of the\npopulation are perceptibly affected by the same causes.\n{556}\nThe following will strikingly elucidate the greater expectation\nfor human life to persons living in even comparatively salubrious\ndistricts. The death-rate in the Fourth ward, in 1863, was about\n1 in 25 of the population; in the Fifteenth, in the same year, it\nwas 1 in 60.\n\nWhy should this wide difference in the mortality exist in two\nsections of the same city adjacent to each other? The reason is\nobvious: there are but few of the densely over-crowded\ntenant-houses in the Fifteenth or healthy ward, while the Fourth\npresents a population of nearly 20,000 souls packed in these\nbuildings. Thus it is shown that persons living in the Fifteenth\nward, have two and a half times more chances for life than those\nresiding in the Fourth.\n\nThe all-important question to the social economist now recurs:\nWhat is the necessary or inevitable mortality of the total\npopulation of this city? We cannot do better than refer to the\nmortality above given for the Fifteenth ward, which is 1 in 60.\nWhy is it not practicable to bring our sanitary regulations to\nsuch perfection as to reduce the mortality of the entire city to\nnear this standard? Thus we would save many lives, now sacrificed\nby diseases which we have the power in a great measure to\ncontrol; and we would lessen the general death-rate of the city\nto between 16,000 and 17,000 to the 1,000,000, instead of\nranging, as it now does, from 23,000 to 26,000 to the same amount\nof population.\n\nTo look at this fearful drain of human life is painful enough;\nbut the moral aspect of the subject will be found even more\ndeplorable. The constant inhalation of vitiated air lowers the\nvitality and poisons the entire organism, and, as a natural\nconsequence, predisposes these unfortunates to a continual desire\nfor stimulation. This, in fact, is a manifestation of nature,\nwhich, by a wise dispensation of Providence, when depressed or\ndisordered from any cause, has a constant tendency toward health.\nThey, however, do not appreciate that pure air, cleanliness, and\nsubstantial food would quench this natural longing; but they seek\nthat which is more gratifying to their depraved appetites; as for\nthe time being it steals their reason and blunts their\nsensibility to present misery. These facts account to a great\nextent for the large number of rum-holes found in the\nneighborhood of these tenant rookeries, which is reported in\ncertain localities to be one for less than every two houses. Many\nof these low groggeries are so disgustingly filthy, and their\npoisonous compounds so corrupting of every moral feeling, that\nthey can properly be placed on an equality with the despicable\nChinese opium-dens found in the neighborhood of Whitechapel in\nLondon. The following figures demonstrate the immense number of\nvotaries who frequent drinking-saloons in this city, and the vast\nsums of money squandered annually in these degrading haunts:\n\"There are at present 5203 licensed rum-shops in New York;\n697,202 persons visit these daily, 4,183,212 in a week, and\n218,224,226 in a year. The total amount of money paid out for\ndrinks across the bar and at the drinking-tables of the\nliquor-shops of New York is $736,280.59 a week, or $38,286,590.68\na year.\" [Footnote 167]\n\n    [Footnote 167: Dyer's Report.]\n\nThis is the account of the licensed bar-rooms: how many\nunlicensed ones exist it is impossible to know. When we consider\nthat the highest estimate made of our population gives us only\n1,000,000 of inhabitants, the foregoing figures certainly are\nastounding, and deserve most earnest consideration.\n{557}\nIn connection with this subject, it will be interesting to\nexamine the annals of crime for the past year. There were 80,532\n[Footnote 168] arrests made during the twelve months ending\nOctober 31st, 1867.\n\n    [Footnote 168: Report Metropolitan Police.]\n\nThese embrace offences of every grade, from petty larceny to\nmurder. The number of the latter is 59, or an average of more\nthan one a week. This total number of criminals amounts to nearly\none twelfth of our entire population, and certainly shows a very\nlow grade of morals in our community. It would be most\ninteresting to know what proportion of these criminals date the\ncommencement of their career in crime, from the time they began\nto drink intoxicating liquors.\n\nOne of the saddest features in our city is the condition of the\nhomeless children. \"The number of these between the ages of five\nand fifteen years is stated to be 200,900, of which not more than\n75,000 attend Sunday-school, leaving the vast number of 125,000\nof our children unreached and uncared for, of which it has been\nestimated that nearly 40,000 are vagrant children.\" [Footnote\n169] \"Hundreds of these children are confirmed drunkards, and\nthousands of them are accustomed to strong drink. Children from\nthe age of fourteen years down to infants of four are daily met\nin a state of intoxication. They come drunk to the\nmission-schools. The little creatures have many a time lain\nstretched upon the benches of this institution, (Howard Mission,)\nsleeping off their debauch. Hundreds of them have become veteran\nthieves, and thousands more are in training for the same end.\nNine hundred and sixty girls and 3,958 boys, between the ages of\nten and fifteen years--making a total of 4618--were arrested\nduring the year ending October 31st, 1867, for drunkenness and\npetty crimes.\" [Footnote 170]\n\n    [Footnote 169: R. G. Pardee, Esq., communication to _New\n    York Observer_.]\n\n    [Footnote 170:  Dyer's Report.]\n\nThe arrests for the same period between the ages of ten and\ntwenty years amounts to the fearful number of 13,660. Is it not\nmelancholy to contemplate these little creatures, \"made to the\nimage and likeness of God,\" allowed to develop in such haunts of\ncrime, every faculty as soon as awakened blunted by the\natmosphere of sin surrounding them? If not rescued from their\nfate at an early age, we know they are the embryo criminals who\nwill in the future fill our prisons and grace our scaffolds. How\ncan it be otherwise? Nurtured in a hot-bed of crime from infancy,\neducated in pilfering and beggary in childhood, it is but human\nthat they should develop these accomplishments in rank luxuriance\nas they grow to manhood. It seems strange that Mr. Bergh's\nattention has never been drawn to the condition of the miserable\ntenants and the homeless children. He and the rest of his society\ntake every means to remedy the complaints of ill-used quadrupeds;\nbut unfortunate biped humanity may be stalled in filthy dens with\nimperfect drainage and no ventilation, or, the little ones starve\nand die on our thoroughfares, without finding a humanitarian to\nraise a voice in their behalf. It is true, our cattle should be\ncared for, but a just God will demand at our hands some\nprotection for his poor.\n\n  \"He has said--his truths are all eternal--\n     What he said both has been and shall be--\n   What ye have not done to these my poor ones,\n     Lo! ye have not done it unto me.\" [Footnote 171]\n\n    [Footnote 171: Proctor.]\n\nThe radical relief for the evils growing out of the tenant-house\nsystem can only be reached by, first, condemning and tearing down\nthe worst class of these buildings; and, secondly, remodelling\nthose which, by their construction, are susceptible of such\nimprovement as will insure the inmates at least the blessings of\nsunshine and pure air.\n\n{558}\n\nThese stringent measures are unfortunately, for the present,\nimpracticable, as, should they be carried into effect, two thirds\nof the inhabitants of these dens would be thrown upon the streets\nwithout shelter. Space must be found adjacent to the city where\nneat and comfortable cottages can be built for the laboring\nclasses, and transportation of such character provided as will\nenable them to reach these abodes in as little time and at as\nsmall an expense as it now consumes to get to their tenant\ndwellings. The beautiful shores on the opposite sides of the\nHudson and East rivers must eventually be dotted by the villages\nof these working people. It has been reported that a very wealthy\ngentleman of our community proposes building a number of such\nhouses somewhere in the vicinity of New York. To be the projector\nof such a philanthropic enterprise would entitle him to the love\nand admiration of the people now, while in after-years it would\nbe pointed out as a monument of his generosity to the struggling\npoor. The proposed \"Hudson Highland Bridge,\" the \"East River\nBridge,\" and the tunnel under the East River, all of which, we\nhope, will be pressed rapidly to completion, will form the first\nof the links which are to bind our Island City to the surrounding\nrural districts. The location where the first will span the\nHudson is near Fort Montgomery, in the Highlands; the second is\nintended to connect the lower part of the city with Brooklyn; and\nthe iron tubular tunnel is, as its name indicates, a wrought-iron\ntunnel, to be laid at the bottom of the East River; it also is to\nconnect Brooklyn with New York. In a sanitary point of view, we\nthink these proposed means for rapid communication between our\nisland and the neighboring country vie in importance with the\ngigantic enterprise which gives us the water of the Croton river\nfor our daily consumption, and the Central Park for the\nrecreation and amusement of our pent-up population. Over the East\nRiver Bridge it is intended to run cars by an endless wire rope,\nworked by an engine under the flooring on the Brooklyn side. The\nminimum rate of speed is put down as twenty miles an hour. It is\nsuch travelling facilities as these structures will afford which\nare necessary to enable the workingmen to reach healthful and\nsalubrious homes outside of the metropolis. We would thus be able\nto disgorge the immense surplus of population which it is\nimpossible for us to accommodate in our midst.\n\nBut while we keep this in our minds as the great ultimatum which\nwill eventually relieve us, we must in the mean time use every\neffort in our power to ameliorate as much as possible the misery\nsurrounding us.\n\nSince the establishment of the Board of Health, in March, 1866,\nstrenuous efforts have been made by that body to remedy the most\nglaring defects in the tenant-houses. Nothing could bear better\nevidence of the good results effected by the wise sanitary\nmeasures they have adopted than the saving in our mortality rates\nduring the last year. It has been asserted that \"our present code\nof health laws are better than those of any other city on this\nplanet;\" and had the commissioners, in the execution of these\nlaws, been sustained in their laudable efforts for the public\ngood by the courts of justice, no doubt much more would have been\neffected.\n{559}\nThe Sanitary Superintendant, Dr. E. B. Dalton, reports 35,045\ninspections made during the last year; 11,414 of these were in\ntenement-houses, 11,473 to yards, cellars, waste-pipes, etc.; the\nremainder, to private dwellings, slaughter-houses, establishments\nfor fat-melting and bone-boiling, stables, piggeries, etc. This\namount of visitations by the sanitary inspectors shows great\nactivity in their department, and entitles them to much credit.\nThe evils, however, attending the entire of the present systems\nare so numerous that, without a good deal of active legislation,\nit is to be feared the root of the trouble cannot be reached. In\nthe first place, no person should be allowed, in the future, to\nbuild a house to be occupied by more than three or four families,\nwithout its plan of construction being first officially approved\nof by an appointed superintendent. This would confine the\nsanitary evils, so far as the internal arrangement of tenements\nare concerned, to those we now have; and, in the second place, as\nDr. Dalton suggests, the erection of a front and rear tenement on\nthe same lot should be strictly prohibited. The importance of\nthese means cannot be overestimated. In addition, many changes\napparently slight in themselves can be effected in the existing\nhouses, which would materially add to the comfort and chances of\nlife of the inmates. Miss F. Nightingale says: \"It is a fact\ndemonstrated by statistics, that in the improved dwellings the\nmortality has fallen in certain cases from 25 to 14 per 1000; and\nthat in the common 'lodging-houses,' which have been hot-beds of\nepidemics, such diseases have almost disappeared through the\nadoption of sanitary measures.\" One condition probably more\npregnant with disease to the tenants than almost any other is,\nthat so large a percentage of the water-closets in the tenant\nbuildings are not connected with the regular sewers. The\nconsequence is, these places become choked up with accumulations\nof filth, and give forth noisome and offensive odors, most\ndetrimental to health. This alone is sufficient to cause a large\namount of the diarrhoeal diseases which pervade our community\nduring the hot season with such fatal results. The inspector of\nthe Fourth Sanitary District, for the Citizens' Association, in\n1864, reported \"less than 30 per cent of the privies in his\ndistrict as being connected with drains or sewers.\" He also says:\n\"There is a section of my district, embracing at least nine\nblocks, in every part of which the peculiar odor arising from\nprivies is always distinctly perceptible during the summer\nmonths. From this region fever is never absent. I refer to typhus\nand typhoid, for intermittent and remittent fever do not prevail\nin this neighborhood, even in the low tract adjoining the river.\nSuch a gentle fiend as paludal miasma flies affrighted from the\nterrific phantoms of disease that reign supreme in this domain of\npestilence.\" The landlords who grind the last cent of rent\npossible from their tenants should be obliged, at least, to do\nall in their power to preserve them from palpable occasions of\ndisease. At a small expense in comparison to the income this\nclass of property yields, the proper connections with the sewers\ncould be made, and thus much suffering avoided.\n\nOne great trouble the sanitarian encounters is, the\ndisinclination of a large portion of this class to adopt habits\nof cleanliness. They seem actually to riot in and be proud of\ntheir filthy surroundings. And their example is unfortunately\ncontagious, as it is known frequently to be the case that where\nneat, clean, and respectable families are thrown in contact with\nthem, they, too, soon degenerate into the same condition.\n{560}\n\"It would be true of many thousands that, if left to the\nuncontrolled indulgence of their reckless and filthy habits, they\nwould convert a palace into a pig-sty, and create 'fever-nests'\nand hot-beds of vice and corruption under circumstances most\nfavorable to health, comfort, and social elevation.\" [Footnote\n172]\n\n    [Footnote 172: Report of Association for Improving the\n    Condition of the Poor in New York. 1863.]\n\nThis fact, although discouraging, should be but a greater\nincentive to keep constantly over them a vigilant sanitary\ninspection, to show them the baneful effects of their habits of\nliving, and to cause a spirit of emulation to assist themselves\nin purifying their homes and surroundings. This can be done.\nTheir \"reckless and filthy habits\" are, in many instances, but\nthe indication of a lowered moral and physical status, the result\nof the poverty, starvation, and misery they have endured. A\nlittle encouragement, and a constant stimulation as to the right\nmeans to be adopted, would soon cause many of them to overcome\ntheir vitiated and depraved tastes.\n\nThese combined facts, we think, necessitate a thorough house to\nhouse examination of all this character of property in the city,\nby competent sanitary persons, so that the Sanitary\nSuperintendent may know the exact condition of each tenement.\nWith such knowledge many advantageous improvements could be made\nand many nuisances abated, without waiting for a report from\neither the occupants or sanitary police, as is now done. This\naction is at present rendered more essential as the summer is\ncoming on, and under the influence of its long, hot days the\nanimal and vegetable decomposition will make the air putrid with\nits \"life-destroying exhalations.\" Our death-rate from the\ndiarrhoeal, and other miasmatic diseases, will, as usual, run up\nto the highest mark; and should cholera get a foothold in the\ncity, it is questionable if it could be controlled by the Health\nCommissioners as readily as it was in the summer of 1866.\n\nThe question, how to deal wisely with the abuse of alcoholic\nstimulants, has been earnestly discussed and considered by the\npress, by municipal and legislative bodies, from the pulpit, and\nalso by countless temperance associations, without reaching a\nsolution of this great problem. Philanthropic efforts are\nconstantly made to stop the tide of self-destruction without\navail; and the originators of such movements seem all to arrive\nat the conclusion that it is impossible to thoroughly restrain\nthe appetite for strong drinks by any character of laws which may\nbe enacted. The only resource that remains is to throw around the\ntrade such restrictions as will confine it to its narrowest\nlimits. This is to be effected not alone by legislative\nenactments, but also by a moral and religious influence. Public\nopinion has great weight, and every man who loves the well-being\nof his race should frown down this social evil to the utmost of\nhis power. Ministers of the gospel should persistently teach the\nenormity of the ills resulting, as they alone fully know, from\nthis cause.\n\nA great many persons think the present laws have no influence in\nrestraining drunkenness, and that as much liquor is consumed now\nas formerly. As a proof of their efficacy, we will give here a\nportion of a table, taken from the report of the Excise\nCommissioners for last year, comparing the number of arrests for\noffences actually resulting from the excessive indulgence in\nintoxicating drinks on Sundays, when the rum-sellers were obliged\nto keep their glittering shops closed the entire day, and\nTuesdays, when the prohibition applied only to before sunrise.\n\n{561}\n\n  Months.  Year.   Days.     Arrests.\n\n  March,   1867  5 Sundays,    210\n  March,   1867  4 Tuesdays,   471\n  April,   1867  4 Sundays,    195\n  April,   1867  5 Tuesdays,   480\n  May,     1867  4 Sundays,    123\n  May,     1867  4 Tuesdays,   380\n\nAs it is well known that before the enaction of these laws the\narrests on Sunday far exceeded those of any other day in the\nweek, this should convince the most sceptical of the effect of\nthe Sunday prohibition.\n\nThe estimated number of vagrant children in this city is nearly\n40,000. Forty thousand immortal beings floating, day by day,\ntoward physical and moral destruction! Throw aside all the\ndictates of Christianity, and look upon these children in the\nfuture. According to our free institutions, they will have the\nsame amount of control over the destinies of the nation as our\nown offspring, although the latter may be thoroughly educated to\nmake good and intelligent citizens. Here we are allowing to be\nnurtured the element which, in the riots of 1863, threatened to\ndeluge the length and breadth of the island with tumult,\nconflagration, and bloodshed. Every year, with the constantly\nincreasing tide of emigration, new material is added to develop\nthis character at a more rapid rate. Such being the case,\nself-protection demands that something be done to give these\nchildren homes and draw them from the pollution surrounding them.\nIn the lower portion of the city, there are some institutions\nintended particularly to take care of these little vagrants, and\nthey form the only breakwater to this torrent of infantile\ndepravity. The first of these is the Five Points Mission. This\nwas established under \"An Act,\" passed in March, 1856, by the\nSenate and Assembly of the State of New York, \"to incorporate the\nLadies' Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal\nChurch.\" The intentions of the ladies forming this association\nare shown in the second paragraph of the above-named act, and\nreads: \"The objects of said society are, to support one or more\nmissionaries, to labor among the poor of the city of New York,\nespecially in the locality known as the 'Five Points;' to provide\nfood, clothing, and other necessaries for such poor; to educate\npoor children and provide for their comfort and welfare; and, for\nthat purpose, to maintain a school at the Five Points, in said\ncity, and to perform kindred acts of charity and benevolence.\"\nThe \"Old Brewery,\" a most notorious den of infamy, just at the\nFive Points, was selected by the association as headquarters for\ntheir missionary labors; and to gather round them here the little\nones of this worst location of the city, to be fed, clothed, and\ninstructed in the rudimentary English branches, as well as the\nMethodist Episcopal faith, became a labor of love. This\nenterprise prospered, and now, in place of the \"Old Brewery,\"\nstands a large, commodious mission-building. A peculiar feature\nin the management is, that entire families are taken in, and\ngiven work of some kind to do, so that it forms a character of\ntenant-house. The institution contains some 18 families,\nincluding between 60 and 70 children. One thousand and nineteen\nchildren have been taught during the year in the day-school.\nImmediately opposite and facing this is the second of these\ninstitutions, the \"Five Points House of Industry.\"\n{562}\nThis was established under the supervision of the same gentleman\nwho at first had control of the Five Points Mission, the Rev. L.\nM. Pease. Through some misunderstanding, he withdrew from the\nmission and founded the House of Industry. His beginning was very\nsmall, and consisted of an effort to obtain work for a number of\nunhappy females who desired to escape from their criminal way of\nliving. His next step was the establishment of a day-school; soon\nafterward men and women were employed in making shoes, baskets,\netc. The success of the enterprise was quickly assured, and it\nrapidly enlarged its sphere of usefulness. Some time since, the\nmanufacturing of baskets, shoes, etc., was given up, and it is\nnow simply a house of refuge, where homeless children are\neducated, fed, and clothed. During the winter, a meal was given,\nin the middle of the day, to destitute adults. One of the\ngentlemen informed us that 325 men and women partook of this meal\ndaily during the cold weather. The average number of children\ngiven three meals was also 325, making 1300 meals given by this\ninstitution daily. The whole number of children taught here\nduring the last year was 1289. An interesting feature connected\nwith this enterprise is the boarding-house which has recently\nbeen established for working-girls. A large tenement-house was\nbought, and fitted up in the most complete manner; and here\nhomeless working-girls can get good, substantial board for three\ndollars and a quarter a week. This is of great advantage to these\npoor young women, who are overworked at meagre pay, and enables\nthem to live for about one half the price they would be obliged\nto pay for board in a respectable lodging-house. In the internal\narrangements, everything is done to add to the comfort as well as\nthe mental improvement of the inmates. In the public parlor there\nare an organ and a piano, also several sewing-machines. These are\nat the disposal of any one in the house, at all times. Two\nevenings in the week they have night-school. The Germans teach\ntheir language in exchange for English. The matron states:\n\"Through the kindness of some publishers, we have 5 daily papers,\n12 weeklies, and 4 monthlies. Three daily German papers are sent\nus; also a German magazine, published at Leipsic, Germany.\" Some\nsix years ago, the third of the houses for this special work was\nestablished at No. 40 New Bowery, by the Rev. W. E. Van Meter.\nThe Howard Mission (as this establishment is called) far exceeds\nthe House of Industry in its internal appearance. The latter,\nwith its massive bare walls and iron gratings resembles more a\nprison for culprits than a home for little ones. The former, to\nthe contrary, is built with a desire to surround the children\nwith everything that can please and attract them. The assistant\nsuperintendent remarked to us that \"their wish had been to make\ntheir mission home more beautiful and enticing than any saloon\ncould be.\" The two large halls are neatly finished and\nartistically adorned. In the lower one, through the benevolence\nof a gentleman, a fountain is constantly playing, several hanging\nbaskets of moss and evergreens swing from the ceiling, and at the\nbase of the fountain is a pretty reservoir containing gold-fish.\nThis institution has received, in six years, 7581 children; and\nthe March number of the _Little Wanderers' Friend_,\npublished by this house, states that \"for this month (February)\n619 children have been fed at its tables, clothed from its\nwardrobes, and taught in its schools.\"\n{563}\nThese houses all have their regular religious services, morning,\nnoon, and night, with Sunday-schools, singing, and\nprayer-meetings. On Sunday mornings, the prisoners from some of\nthe station-houses, under arrest for disorder and drunkenness the\nnight previous, are taken to the Howard Mission, and furnished\nwith coffee and bread, and then, before leaving, they have a\nreligious discourse preached to them. In addition, these houses\nhave regular visitors, who call at the homes of those making\ncomplaints, to assist and comfort the sick, and, at the same\ntime, to find out if the statements given by them are correct. In\norder that those not familiar with the workings of such\ninstitutions may see the charitable work these ladies effect, we\nextract the first two items from the visitors' diary in the April\nnumber of the _Monthly Record of the Five Points House of\nIndustry_, 1866:\n\n  \"Called on Mrs. L---- , Irish Catholic; is a widow, with two\n  small boys; tells me she cannot get enough work to support the\n  family; would be willing to sew, wash, pick hair, or any of the\n  various female employments, if she could get it. We offered to\n  feed and clothe her boys if she would send them to our school,\n  which she readily promised.\n\n  \"Visited Mrs. G----, 31 M---- street, Irish Catholic. She lives\n  in a small attic room, rear building; is a widow, with one\n  child; has been but a few days out of the hospital; found her\n  little girl sick with fever; promised to send a doctor and give\n  her necessary assistance.\"\n\nAlthough these institutions are doing something by their work to\nalleviate the condition of a portion of this vast army of 40,000\nstray waifs, still it is most evident that they are utterly\ninadequate to provide for more than a small fraction of this\nnumber. It is well known that nearly one half the population of\nthis city profess to be members of the Roman Catholic religion;\nand, to show the great excess of persons belonging to this church\namong the lower classes in our city, we extract the following\nanalysis of a block of buildings from the _Little Wanderers'\nFriend_ for March, 1868: \"Fifty-nine old buildings occupied by\n382 families, in which are 2 Welsh, 7 Portuguese, 9 English, 10\nAmericans, 12 French, 39 negroes, 186 Italians, 189 Polanders,\n218 Germans, and 812 Irish. Of these, 113 are Protestants, 287\nJews, and 1062 _Roman Catholics_.\"\n\nThe Catholic Reformatory in Westchester county, established by\nthe late Dr. Ives, is doing everything possible for the children\nunder its control; but the little vagrants, unless arrested for\nsome petty crime and thus committed to that institution, are not\nwithin reach of its benefits.\n\nThe Rev. F. H. Farrelly, the pastor of St. James's church, has\nlabored most zealously during the last three years in the cause\nof the Catholic children in his immediate vicinity. He has\nestablished a poor-school in the basement of his church, under\nthe charge of the Sisters of Charity. The average daily\nattendance here is 200, and these are furnished with a meal at\nnoon, in order to facilitate their remaining in the institution\nthe entire day. During the year, two suits of clothing are\nfurnished to as many as the good father's means will permit. This\nschool will be removed to the very elegant five-story\nmission-house, now nearly completed, on the corner of James\nstreet and New Bowery. This structure is of brick with freestone\ntrimmings, and has a front of 111 feet on New Bowery, and 83 feet\non James street. It will be divided into 21 class-rooms.\n{564}\nThis enterprise will take more means for its support than St.\nJames's parish can possibly furnish, and it deserves and should\nhave the sympathy and pecuniary assistance of all Catholics.\n\nIt is impossible to calculate the amount of good to be effected\nby the establishment of a large home, under the supervision of\nthe Sisters of Charity or Mercy in this location. These good\nladies are peculiarly adapted to care for the wants of the poor,\nthe sick, and the afflicted, as they devote all their energies,\naccording to the intention of their institution, to these classes\nof society. And why? Because simply in so doing they fulfil the\nwishes of \"The Master.\" Thus their mission is one of love, and to\nstrictly attend to duty the greatest pleasure of their lives.\nThis is the solution of their great success in the management of\nhospitals, schools, and charitable institutions; and the large\nnumber of their magnificent edifices devoted to these purposes,\nfound throughout almost every portion of the known world, attest\nthe success with which God blesses their labors. To these good\nsisters the poor emigrants could appeal, without even apparently\ndenying their religion, for a little sustenance to keep their\nmiserable bodies from perishing; the sorrow-burdened could\ncommunicate their troubles, confident of a ready sympathy; and to\nthese the homeless little vagrant could come, knowing a mother's\ntender love and gentle forbearance awaited him. In the home a\nroom should be devoted to the use of mothers--a place where they\ncould leave their babes to be fed and taken care of for the day.\nThis would enable poor widows to do washing and other kinds of\nwork, and thus many could support their families who are now\nentirely dependent upon public charity. In addition to the home,\na large farm should be procured near the city, where the children\ntaken permanently under the care of the institution could be\nraised and educated. This is advisable, because, in the first\nplace, it would be more economical, and secondly, experience\ndemonstrates that a large body of children do not thrive well in\nsuch establishments when located in cities. We feel confident\nthere would be no trouble in supporting this home, as the great\nCatholic heart always responds liberally to appeals made for the\npoor, and in this institution the weight of the burden should be\nequally borne by all the Catholics in the city. In addition to\nall this, to take care of these little wanderers is a matter of\ngreat import in the light of political economy. They form the\nfountain-head from which a large proportion of our criminals are\ndeveloped. If they could be made useful members of society, it\nwould relieve the city of a large proportion of the taxation\nwhich is now necessary to support our various prisons; and the\nenergy now shown in the commission of crime would become a source\nof material wealth to the country.\n\nThere is one other subject we wish to mention before concluding\nthis paper: it is, the condition of the night-lodgers at the\nstation-houses. From the report of the Board of Metropolitan\nPolice, we find that 105,460 persons were accommodated with\nlodgings at the various precincts during the last twelve months.\nMr. S. C. Hawley, the very accommodating chief clerk of this\ndepartment, informs us that the number this year will be much\ngreater. Over 100,000 sought refuge in the station-houses, glad\nto obtain the bare floor to rest their weary limbs; but how many\npace our streets nightly, poverty-stricken and despairing, but\ntoo proud to seek a shelter in these abodes of crime! It is a\nstigma on the fair fame of this great city that, throughout its\nlength and breadth, there is not one refuge, established by\nreligious or philanthropic efforts, where the homeless can find\nshelter from the wintry night blasts.\n\n{565}\n\n  \"Our beasts and our thieves and our chattels\n     Have weight for good or for ill;\n   But the poor are only his image,\n     His presence, his word, his will;\n   And so Lazarus lies at our doorstep,\n     And Dives neglects him still.\" [Footnote 173]\n\n    [Footnote 173: Proctor.]\n\nIn Montreal, Canada, refuges are connected with the church\nproperty, and are superintended by the female religious orders,\nwe think more particularly by the Gray Nuns. In 1860, the\nProvidence Row Night Refuge was established in London, under the\ncare of the Sisters of Mercy. There is no distinction made as\nregards religious creed, and the only requisites necessary for\nadmission are, to be homeless and of good character. Before\nretiring, a half-pound of bread and a basin of gruel are given to\neach lodger, and the same in the morning, before they are allowed\nto commence another day's efforts to obtain work. What charity\ncould so directly appeal to our hearts as this? Think how many\nmen and women arrive daily in this metropolis, in search of\nemployment! For days they eagerly seek it without success,\nhoarding their scanty means to the uttermost. Finally the time\ncomes when the last dime is spent for bread, and they wander\nalong, their hearts filled with dread, as night covers the earth\nwith her sable mantle, knowing not whither they shall turn their\nweary steps. Think of the poor woman wending her way through the\npelting storm; garments soaked and clinging to the chilled form;\nheart filled with despair, and crying to Heaven for shelter; head\naching, temples throbbing, brain nearly crazed with terror;\nfinally, crouching down under some old steps to wait the first\ngleam of day to relieve her from her agony. If one in such\ncondition should reach the river-side, what a fearful temptation\nit must be to take that final leap which ends for ever earth's\ncares and sufferings, or, still worse for the poor female, the\ntemptation to seek in sin the refuge denied her in every other\nway!\n\n  \"There the weary come, who through the daylight\n     Pace the town and crave for work in vain:\n   There they crouch in cold and rain and hunger,\n     Waiting for another day of pain.\n\n  \"In slow darkness creeps the dismal river;\n     From its depths looks up a sinful rest.\n   Many a weary, baffled, hopeless wanderer\n     Has it drawn into its treacherous breast!\n\n  \"There is near _another river_ flowing.\n     Black with guilt and deep as hell and sin:\n   On its brink even sinners stand and shudder--\n     Cold and hunger goad the homeless in.\" [Footnote 174]\n\n    [Footnote 174: Proctor.]\n\nWhat a mute appeal for such institutions is the case of the\nlittle Italian boy found dead on the steps of one of our Fifth\navenue palaces last winter! Think of this little fellow as he\nslowly perished that bitter night, at the very feet of princely\nwealth. How his thoughts must have reverted to his dark-browed\nmother in her far-off sunny home! And think of that mother's\nanguish, her wailing\n\n  \"For a birdling lost that she'll never find,\"\n\nwhen she heard of her boy's death, from cold and starvation, in\nthe principal avenue of all free America! We consider we are safe\nin saying that in no other work of charity could a small amount\nof money be made to benefit so many as in the founding of these\nrefuges. In the police report it is recommended that \"several of\nthese be established in different parts of the city, to be under\nthe supervision of the police.\" This is a great mistake. These\npeople always associate station-houses and the police with crime;\nconsequently it is bad policy for them to come constantly in\ncontact with either.\n{566}\nThis is the objection to the lodging-rooms used in the various\nprecincts. Official charity, as a rule, hardens those who dole it\nout, and degrades its recipients.\n\nThere are thousands of noble-hearted women attached to our\ndifferent churches, who, if they once thoroughly understood this\nsubject, would not cease their efforts until societies were\nestablished and refuges opened. How could it be otherwise! How\ncould they nestle their little ones down to sleep in warm,\ncomfortable beds, and think of God's little ones freezing under\ntheir windows? How could they go to sleep themselves, and feel\nthat some poor woman was probably wandering past their doorways,\ndying from want and exposure? We hope, before the chilling winds\nof next November remind us of the immensity of suffering the\nwinter entails upon the poor, some philanthropic persons will\nhave perfected this design, and have the refuges in working\norder. If such should be the case, the founders will find an\nample reward in the words of Holy Writ, \"He that hath mercy on\nthe poor, lendeth to the Lord: and he will repay him.\"\n\nIf we could thus, by the adoption of every possible sanitary\nprecaution, deprive our death-tables of all avoidable mortality;\nand by a proper religious influence elevate the moral character\nof the people, we should, in the first place, save thousands of\nlives, now necessary to develop our vast resources; and,\nsecondly, our advance toward perfection in healthfulness and\npublic virtues would go hand in hand with the gigantic strides\nbeing made in the adornment of our beautiful island. Our people\nwould no longer seek other places in quest of health, as none\nmore salubrious than New York could be found; and strangers,\ninstead of saying, as is said of that most beautiful of Italy's\nfair cities, \"See Naples, and die!\" would exclaim, \"Go to New\nYork, and live!\"\n\n----------\n\n       Wild Flowers.\n\n\n  The child, Mercedes, youngest of the three\n    Whom God has sent me for a mother's crown.\n  Brought me wild flowers, and with childish glee\n    Thus prattled on, as at my feet she cast them down:\n\n  \"See, mamma! here are saucy flowers I found\n     Hiding behind the hedge, like boys at play.\n   Just peeping up their heads above the ground.\n     To watch if any one should chance to pass that way.\n\n  \"'Aha!' said I, 'whose little flowers be you,\n     And from whose garden have you run away?\n   Your leaves are dripping with the morning dew.\n     Fie, naughty things! What, think you, will the gardener say?\n\n{567}\n\n  \"'Come, let me take you to my mamma's home;\n     And she will put you in a golden vase,\n   Where you shall stand and look around the room,\n     And see your pretty, rosy faces in the glass.'\n\n  \"I took them softly up, and here they are.\n     And now, my mamma, I should like to know\n   Whose garden they have wandered from so far.\n     And why they did not stay at their own home to grow?\"\n\n  I said: \"My child, these flowers have never strayed\n    From any other home. Their place to grow\n  Is just behind the hedge, down in the glade.\n    Though no one may their beauty see or sweetness know.\"\n\n  Then she: \"Why, mamma dear, how can that be?\n    What use for them to grow there all alone?\n  Why look so pretty if there's none to see?\n    Or why need they smell any sweeter than a stone?\"\n\n  \"No one on earth may see,\" I then replied--\n     \"No one may know that flowers are blooming there\n   But God.\" Mercedes clapped her hands, and cried,\n     \"God's flowers! Oh! keep _them_, mamma, in your book of prayer.\"\n\n  Methinks the child did choose a fitting place\n    To put those unnursed blossoms of the field:\n  Like them, our humble prayers with beauty grace\n    The heart's rough soil, and unto God their perfume yield.\n\n-----------\n\n           Translated From The French.\n\n         Faith And Poetry Of The Bretons.\n\n\nThe bay of St. Malo is strewn here and there with rocks, upon\nwhich forts have been erected to protect the town by their cross\nfires. One of these, the Grand B\u00e9, was formerly armed with\ncannon; but the fort is now abandoned, and only recognizable\nmidst its ruins by the cross at the extremity of the beach,\nresting apparently on the blue sky above. To this cross all eyes\nare attracted, to this all steps turn, so soon as the breakers\nleave a shore of sand and granite for a pathway for the\ntravellers.\n\nAfter having ascended a rough and steep declivity, a naked and\ndesert plateau is attained, where a few sheep find with\ndifficulty a herb to browse upon; then a turn through a defile of\nrocks, and on the steepest point a stone and cross of granite.\nThis is the tomb of Chateaubriand.\n\n{568}\n\nNo longer a poetical tomb; leaning against the Old World, it\ncontemplates the New; under it, the immense sea, and the vessels\npassing at its feet; no flowers, no verdure around it, no other\nnoise than the incessantly moving sea, covering in its tempests\nthis naked stone with the froth of its waves. Here he chose his\nlast resting-place; and we wonder what thought inspired the wish\nthat not even his name should be inscribed upon his tomb. Was it\npride, or humility that actuated him? To me it appears that this\nhumility and this pride were from the same source--a perfect\ndisenchantment with the world. This man, who had proved so many\nprojects abortive, so many ambitions misplaced; this traveller\nwho had overrun the universe, visited the East, the cradle of the\nOld World, and the deserts of America, where was born the New;\nthe poet who could count the cycles of his life by its\nrevolutions, was overwhelmed at the end of it by a sadness that\nknew no repose. He, whose youth was preluded by _Considerations\non Revolutions_, so comprehended life in his latter years as\nto write _The Biography of the Reformer of La Trappe_. The\nsilence and solitude of the cloister were in harmony with the\nsadness of his soul. Having been charged with the most important\nmissions, having accomplished the highest employments, and set to\nwork the most skilful and powerful men, he retired from the\nwhirling circle of the world, penetrated with the overpowering\ntruth, how little man is worth, how little he knows, and how\nseldom he succeeds in what he undertakes. The usual source of\njoy--pride, the intoxication of the world--only provoked in him a\nsmile; for all men he had the same contempt--did not even except\nhimself--and knew well, according to the ancient proverb, that\nthere is very little difference between one man and another.\n[Footnote 175]\n\n    [Footnote 175: Thucydides.]\n\nThrough humility, then, he cared not for any inscription on his\ntomb, not even a name. What mattered it who read it! Men were\nnothing, and he was one of them! But through pride also, he chose\nthis naked stone. Travellers would come from all parts of the\nworld, they would contemplate it and say, _Chateaubriand!_\nHis name would be echoed by the waves that came from, and those\nthat parted for, distant shores; and men were obliged to know\nwhere he lay.\n\nThus--ever-recurring instability of the human soul!--in him were\nunited the most contrary sentiments--the disenchantment of glory,\nand the belief in the immortality of a name; the disdain of\nscepticism, and the thirst for applause; the impression of the\nChristian's humility, and an instinct of sovereign pride.\n\nHere, however, we find truth: this cross, the sign of eternity on\nthis stone marked by death, is the immutable testimony of the\nemptiness of human pride. Chateaubriand desired only a cross on\nhis tomb, while Lamennais, his compatriot, rejected it: both\nobedient to the same preoccupation, in negation as in faith. The\ncross, dominating the tomb where the Breton poet reposes, is the\nsymbol of the genius of his country, of Catholic Brittany.\n\nFaith, in Brittany, has a particular character, allied to a\npoetry peculiar to Breton genius. In this country material\nobjects speak; the very stones are animated, and the fields\nassume a voice to reveal the soul of man conversing with his God.\nThis is not imagination; no one can be deceived in it. So soon as\none enters Brittany, the physiognomy of the country changes, and\nthe sign of this change is the cross. On all the roads, at all\nthe public places, is raised the cross; of every epoch from the\ntwelfth to the nineteenth century we find them, and of every\nform.\n{569}\nThere, simple crosses of granite raised on a few steps; here,\ncrosses bearing on each side the image of Christ and the Virgin,\nrude sculptures in themselves, but always impressed with a\nsincere sentiment. The Bretons not only understand the tenderness\nof the Blessed Virgin, but they feel her grief; they share it\nwith her, and express it with an energetic truth. Look at the\npicture of the Virgin holding her dead son on her knees, in the\nchurch of St. Michael at Quimperl\u00e9. It is a primitive painting by\nan unskilled hand, and one totally ignorant of the resources of\nart; the design of it is incorrect; yet what an expression of\ngrief! The painter wished to portray the living suffering of the\nmother; the mouth is distorted, the eyes are fixed, the pupil\nseems alone indicated: yet this fixedness of look seizes upon\nyou; you stop, you remain to examine it, you forget that it is a\nrepresentation, and see the Virgin herself, immovable in her\ngrief, with no power to express her sorrow; petrified, yet\nliving.\n\nAt one side, leaning against the wall, is a statue of the Virgin,\nconceived with as contrary a sentiment as possible. She is all\ntenderness and delicacy, and has a leaning attitude, the head\ninclined, with the gentle look of the Mother who calls the sinner\nto her side. Her robe falls in numberless plaits, her mantle\nenvelops her with a harmonious grace; for she is no longer the\nMother of sorrow, but the sweet consoler of human kind, holding\nher Son in her arms, whom she presents to bless the earth,\n_Notre Dame de Bot Scao_, The Virgin of Good News.\n\nThe faith of sailors in the Blessed Virgin is well known, that of\nthe Breton sailors particularly. At Brest, we look in vain for a\nmuseum of pictures. Brest is not a city of art; it breathes of\nwar; the port, filled with large ships, the arsenal and its\ncannon, its shells, its gigantic anchors, the forts built on the\nrocks, the animated movement of the streets, where soldiers of\nall kinds go and come, and sailors constantly arriving from all\nparts of the world, give to it an air of intense reality--a\ncharacter at once powerful and precise. Man has built on the rock\nhis granite home, and we may believe it is immovably established.\n\nBut ascend the steps that lead from the lower to the upper town,\nand under a vault you will find four pictures appended to the\nwall. Here is the museum of Brest. Sea pictures dedicated to the\nBlessed Virgin, the departure of the vessel, women and children\non the beach on their knees during a tempest, the vessel tossed\nby the waves, and the arms of the sailors extended to heaven; and\non their return, the rescued sailors, bending their steps, with\ntapers in their hands, toward the chapel of Notre Dame; and\nunderneath, touching legends, cries of the soul that implores,\nhumbles itself, or renders thanks. _Holy Virgin, save us! Holy\nVirgin, protect those who are now at sea!_ Man we see in his\nweakness, his aspirations, and his hopes--the true man; the rest\nwas but the mask.\n\nThey seize every opportunity and use every pretext to testify\ntheir faith. At Saint Aubin d'Aubign\u00e9 between Rennes and Saint\nMalo, you go along a tufted hedge; you see a cross cut of\nthorn--a cross which grows green in the spring, among the\neglantines and roses. [Footnote 176]\n\n    [Footnote 176: At St. Vincent les Redon, a tree is cut in the\n    form of the cross.]\n\nYou return to visit the land of Carnac--a land so pale and\ndesolate, where the standing stones are squared by thousands,\ngigantic and silent sphinxes that for twenty centuries have kept\ntheir impenetrable secret--what is that cross that rises on an\neminence?\n{570}\nOne that they have planted on an isolated ruin in the land--a\ncross on a Druidical altar, and before the army of stones which\nmark, perhaps, a cemetery of a great people.\n\nElsewhere, at the cross-way of a road near Beauport, a spring\ngushes out and flows among the rocks, forming both basin and\nfountain on the heaped-up stones; in an arched niche is enclosed\na Virgin crowned with flowers; all around, the field\nmorning-glory, the periwinkle, and the eglantine have peeped\nthrough the moss and herbs, and enlaced the rustic chapel with\ntheir flowery festoons, and fallen again on the infant Jesus.\nOpposite lie fields of green thorn-broom, and above their long,\nslender stalks appear the half-destroyed walls of an ancient\nabbey, roofless, opened to heaven, and silent. Through the\nblackened arches appears the blue sea, whose prolonged and\nincessant roaring fills the air.\n\nIn this Catholic country _par excellence_, all the churches\nare remarkable. There is no village, however small, of which the\nchurch does not form an interesting part; and here and there, as\nat Gu\u00e9rande and Vitr\u00e9, we find the beautifully carved pulpits\nenclosed in the wall, from which the missionary fathers, on\ncertain extraordinary occasions, speak to the people assembled in\nthe square. At Carnac and Rennescleden we have the arched roofs\nso exquisitely painted; at Roscoff, Crozon, and elsewhere,\nmedallions of stone and wood framing the altar with quaint gilded\nsculptures; then, again, we meet with a tabernacle formed for an\narchitectural monument, a sort of palace in miniature, with its\nwings, pavilions, columns, domes, galleries, and statues, (as at\nRosporden;) then an antique confessional greets us in a little\nchapel near Chateaulin, and a canopy sculptured in wood or even\ncrystal, at Landivisiau. An odd ornament, which is found in only\none church--that of Notre Dame de Comfort, on the way to the Bec\ndu Raz--is called _the wheel of good fortune_, and is\ncomposed of a large wheel suspended from the roof of the church,\nand entirely surrounded by bells. On days of solemn feasts, for\nbaptisms and weddings, the wheel is turned, and, agitating all\nthe bells at once, forms a noisy chime, which times the march of\nthe procession, and adds a joyous and silver-toned accompaniment\nto the voices of the young girls chanting the canticles to the\nBlessed Virgin. Finally, we meet with one of those trunks of\ntrees, large squared pillars of oak, encircled with heavy bands\nof iron, and placed in the middle of the church, by the side of a\ncatafalque of blackened wood, but sowed with whitened tears; the\ntrunk and the coffin, emblems of the fragility of life, and the\nChristian principle above all others, charity.\n\nThe churches in the towns are truly _chefs-d'oeuvres_, the\ncloisters of Tr\u00e9guier and Pont l'Abb\u00e9, for example, where the\narcades are so light and so finely carved; or the\n_bas-reliefs_ inside the portal of Sainte Croix, at\nQuimperl\u00e9, a vast page of sculptured stone, finished with the\ndelicacy and richness of invention, the charming qualities of\nyouth and of the _Renaissance_. Then, in all these churches,\nnear the altar, you perceive immediately the painted statue of\nthe parish saint, one of the Breton saints, not found\nelsewhere--Saint Corn\u00e9ly, Saint Gu\u00e9nol\u00e9. Saint Thromeur, Saint\nYves especially.\n{571}\nSaint Yves has the privilege of being represented in almost all\nthe churches, even in those of which he is not patron; the\nremembrance of this great, good man, this wise priest, this\nincorruptible judge, is indelibly impressed on the heart of every\nBreton. Sometimes he is seen in his judge's robe, his cap on his\nhead, and listening to two litigants, one in red velvet,\nembroidered in gold, with his grand wig, his silken stockings,\nand sword; the other, the poor peasant, all in rags, holes on his\nknees and his elbows, and naked feet in his wooden shoes. The\ngreat lord, with his cap on his head, and an air of pride,\npresents the saint a purse of gold; the peasant, with timid look\nand attitude, his head bent down, his cap in his hand, humbly\nawaits his sentence. He has nothing to give, but justice will not\nfail him. Saint Yves turns toward him with a gracious smile, and,\nhanding him the judgment written on parchment, lets him know it\nis his. And thus the history of the middle ages: the church\nprotecting the peasant, the weak against the powerful and the\nstrong.\n\nAs to monuments, properly called, nowhere can we find more of\nthese beautiful churches of the middle ages, testimonies of the\npiety, the science, and the taste of so glorious an epoch. Here,\nthe Cathedral of Dol, of the best day of Gothic art--the\nthirteenth century--imposing by its massiveness, its grandeur,\nand the noble simplicity of its ornaments and the harmony of its\nproportions, the granite of whose towers, in the lapse of ages,\nis permeated with the air of the sea, has a color of rust, we\nmight say built with iron; there, Tr\u00e9guier and its exquisite\nwainscoting, benches, altars, stalls, pulpit in brilliant black\noak, carved in such fine and delicate designs, with inexhaustible\nvariety; not a baluster alike, enough models to furnish the\nentire sculpture of our time; and further on, Saint Pol de Leon\nand its spire of granite; daring and easy, a prodigy of\nequilibrium, immovable, girded with open galleries like graceful\ncrowns, flinging to heaven its tiny sharpened bells; so\nbeautifully carved, so aerial, the joy of Brittany, as well it\nmay be, its legitimate pride; then Folgoat, a little unknown\nvillage north of Brest, lost at the extremity of the isle, and\nnecessary to leave one's route to see it; but even here, two\nBreton princes, the Duke Jean III. and the Duchess Anne, have\nconstructed a royal church accumulating all that Gothic art in\nits richest ornamentation, united to the most ingenious caprices\nof the _Renaissance_, could have imagined of delicacy and\nbrightness; portraits sculptured, statues of the finest style\nreflecting their antiquity, a richly Gothic and carved choir, and\na gallery--one of those graceful and original monuments of\nCatholicism so seldom met with--of lace-work, where trefoils,\nroses, and foliage are carved in indestructible blue granite. The\nhammer of the Revolution has only knocked off small pieces of\nthese beautifully carved stones. They resisted the passions of\nmen, as they have defied the action of time.\n\nWith the bells, of such varied forms, and the vessels for holy\nwater, we will conclude.\n\nThese bells are of every style--of the _Renaissance_, the\nRoche-Maurice-les-Landerneau, of Landivisiau, of Ploar\u00e9, of\nPontcroix, and of Roscoff. Many are hung with smaller and lighter\nbells and ornamented with two-story balustrades, like the\nminarets of the East; then the coverings, spires as they are\ncalled, are like that of Tr\u00e9guier, open, that the winds of the\nsea may pass through them, and adorned with crosses, roses,\nlittle windows, cross-bars, and stars like the cap of a magician.\n\n{572}\n\nThe vessels for holy water also express the character of the age.\nAt Dinan, in a church of the twelfth century, an enormous massive\ntub is supported by the large iron gauntlets of four chevaliers;\nthe old crusader dress, armed _cap-a-pie_ in the service of\nChrist. In a church of the fifteenth century, at Quimper, is one\nof an entirely opposite character--a small column, around which a\nvine is entwined, and above an angel, who, with wings extended,\nappears as if it had descended from heaven to alight upon the\nconsecrated cup. Again, and as if inspired by a still more\nChristian sentiment, we find the exterior vessels for holy water,\nso common everywhere in Brittany, of which the most remarkable\nare at Landivisiau, at Morlaix, and Quimperl\u00e9. The interior ones\nseem only accessories; the exterior, isolated before the door,\nhave a more precise signification: they solicit the first impulse\nof the soul; the Christian, in stretching out his hand toward the\nblessed vase, pauses, and prepares his heart for the coming\ndevotion.\n\nHow well these Breton architects have understood religion! These\nexterior vases are living monuments, little pulpits, with their\nemblems, symbols, and heads of angels enveloped in their wings.\nTheir canopies, prominent, sculptured, and under them, standing\nand always smiling, our blessed Mother, who seems to invite the\nfaithful to enter the house of prayer. And prayer, as some one\nhas said, is the fortress of life. The Breton people believe and\npray: a hidden power is theirs--religion; its effectiveness\nattesting not only its existence, but its life.\n\n---------\n\n     Sayings Of The Fathers Of The Desert.\n\n\nAbbot Pastor said: He who teacheth something and doth it not\nhimself, is like unto a well which filleth and cleanseth all who\ncome to it, but is unable to cleanse itself of filth and\nimpurities.\n\n\n\nA brother asked Abbot Pastor the meaning of the words: He who is\nangry with his brother without cause. He answered: If in all\ncases where thy brother wisheth to put thee down thou art angry\nwith him, even though thou pluck out thy right eye and cast it\nfrom thee, thy anger is without cause. If however, any one\ndesireth to separate thee from God, then mayest thou be angry.\n\n\n\nAbbot Pastor said: Malice never driveth away malice; but, if\nanyone shall have done thee an injury, heap benefits upon him, so\nthat by thy good works thou destroy his malice.\n\n\n\nA brother came to Abbot Pastor, and said: Many thoughts enter my\nmind, and I am in great danger from them. Then the old man sent\nhim out into the open air, and said: Spread out thy garment and\ncatch the wind. But he answered that he could not. If thou canst\nnot do this, replied the old man, neither canst thou put a stop\nto these thoughts; but it is thy duty to resist them.\n\n\n\nAbbot Pastor said: Experiments are useful, for by them men become\nmore perfect.\n\n-----------\n\n{573}\n\n\n     New Publications\n\n\n\n  Discussions in Theology.\n  By Thomas H. Skinner,\n  Professor in the Union Theological Seminary.\n  New York: Anson D. F. Randolph, 770 Broadway.\n\n  Hints on the Formation of Religious Opinions.\n  Addressed especially to young men and women of\n  Christian education.\n  By Rev. Ray Palmer, D.D.,\n  Pastor of the First Congregational church,\n  Albany. Same publisher.\n\nThese two volumes are very much alike in their general scope and\ncharacter. Both are written in a calm, philosophical style, and\nwith the praiseworthy view of presenting the claims of the\nChristian religion on the reason and conscience of men, combating\nscepticism, and removing difficulties and objections derived from\nthe infidel literature of the day. Professor Skinner begins with\na very good essay on miracles as the basis of a reasonable,\nhistorical belief in the teaching which they authenticate, and\nthen proceeds to develop his own views respecting certain special\ntopics which he can assume will be admitted by his particular\naudience to be contained in that teaching. These relate chiefly\nto the mode by which fallen man may obtain restoration to the\ndivine favor through the Redeemer of our race. The author's\nobject is to show that this mode, as explained by himself,\nexhibits the attributes of God in a manner consonant to the\ndictates of reason and the truths of natural theology, and is one\nby which any sincere, well-intentioned person can make sure of\nobtaining grace from God, pardon and eternal life. The author's\nview is that of the new school of Calvinists, which is a great\nimprovement on that of the old school in a moral, though not in a\nlogical, sense. Such preaching and writing as that of Professor\nSkinner must have a good influence on those who still believe in\nChristianity and know no other form of it than the Presbyterian.\nIt puts forward the goodness and mercy of God, and encourages the\nsinner to hope for grace and pardon, if he will be diligent in\nprayer, meditation, and other pious exercises, and this appears\nto have been the practical end proposed to himself by the author\nin this volume. Dr. Palmer's essays are more elaborate and\nconsecutive in their character, and aim more immediately at\nsatisfying the intelligence. He first portrays in a clear and\nimpressive manner the evils of scepticism, and then proceeds to\nexhibit the evidence of the truths of natural theology and of the\nfact of a divine revelation, which is also accomplished with a\nconsiderable degree of ability and force. The result at which he\naims is to convince his readers that they are morally bound to\nrecognize Christianity as true, and to form some definite\nopinions as to its real meaning, which may serve them as a\npractical rule and guide for attaining their eternal destiny. The\ncapital defect in his argument is, that he reduces the evidence\nof the being of God to mere probability, thus leaving the mind\nwhere Kant left it, in a state of scientific scepticism with no\nbetter basis of certainty than the practical reason. Of course,\nthen, he has nothing more to propose under the name of Christian\ndoctrines than probable opinions. No doubt, it is obligatory on\nall to act upon opinions which are solidly probable in regard to\nthe momentous interests of the soul, where there are no other\nequal probabilities to balance them, and no greater certainty is\nattainable. We deny, however, emphatically that man is left in\nthis state by the Christian revelation. The being of God is a\nmetaphysical certainty. The fact of revelation is a moral\ncertainty, reducible in the last analysis to a certainty which is\nmetaphysical and sufficient to produce an absolute assent of the\nmind without any fear of the contrary.\n{574}\nThe articles of faith proposed by the revelation of God ought to\nhave the same certainty, since it is necessary to believe them\nwithout doubting. Our respected authors cannot propose a\nreasonable motive for believing all the doctrines of their sect\nor school without any doubt, but can only propose opinions more\nor less probable, or even directly contrary to reason. We do not\nthink, therefore, that they will be able to satisfy the reason of\nany person who thinks logically that their theories of\nChristianity are true and complete. The most they can do is to\nbreed an anxious desire to find out with certainty what\nChristianity is and to attain to a rational faith.\n\n----\n\n  Celebrated Sanctuaries of the Madonna.\n  By Rev. J. Spencer Northcote, D.D.,\n  President of St. Mary's College, Oscott.\n  For sale by the Catholic Publication Society, New York.\n\nThis is a valuable contribution to Catholic literature, and\npresents a subject of interest not only to Catholics, but to the\npublic at large; for great public facts are always of interest,\nwhatever may be our opinion in regard to their significance. A\nclear and full account is given in this book of the principal\nfacts connected with the origin of some of the sanctuaries of the\nMadonna in Europe, particularly of the Holy House of Loreto and\nthe recently established pilgrimage of La Salette in France. We\ndo not see how any one can read it and resist the conviction that\nGod has, by his own finger, established and maintained the\ndevotion of the faithful at these holy places. It is easy enough\nto cry superstition, and to call everything supernatural\nsuperstitious. But the evidence of facts speaks for itself, and\nwe commend this book to the candid reader, confident of his\nfavorable judgment in spite of all preconceived opinions, as able\nto speak for itself. We have, moreover, found it most attractive,\nand have read it from beginning to end with unflagging interest.\nIt is calculated to quicken the faith of the dumb Christian, open\nhis eyes to the unseen world, and fill his heart with desire for\nvirtue and the love of God, and, as well, to produce in the mind\nof the careless a deeper conviction of the truth of spiritual\nthings, which may make him set less value on the present, and\nprize more highly the world to come. We hope this book may\nattract attention and be widely circulated.\n\n-----\n\n  Notes on the Rubrics of the Roman Ritual:\n  Regarding the Sacraments in general.\n  Baptism, the Eucharist, and Extreme Unction.\n  By Rev. James O'Kane, Senior Dean,\n  St. Patrick's College, Maynooth.\n  New York: The Catholic Publication House.\n  1 vol. crown 8vo, pp. 527. 1868.\n\nThis is one of the most excellent commentaries upon the Ritual\nthat has come under our notice. The reverend author has for\nseveral years delivered lectures upon the Rubrics to the senior\nclass of theological students in Maynooth, and the substance of\nthese lectures is to be found in the present volume. That he is\neminently qualified for such a difficult task, is apparent from\nthe thoroughly practical as well as theoretical knowledge he\ndisplays in treating of the administration of the sacraments.\n\nPriests on the mission will find the book one of the most useful\nworks for reference on the subjects treated of which can be found\nin the English language.\n\nIt has been examined by the Sacred Congregation of Rites, and\nreceived its approbation, and can, therefore, be consulted and\nfollowed with confidence as good authority.\n\n------\n\n  Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia for 1867.\n\nThis valuable work appears to receive more care and attention\neach year. The present volume is of unusual importance on account\nof the political events in our own country and elsewhere, bearing\non the ultimate destiny of the Christian world, which are\nrecorded in its pages.\n{575}\nIt contains, also, a very fair statement of the history and\npresent condition of the Pope's temporal dominion, and of the\nprincipal events in the history of the Catholic Church during the\nyear. In the article on the \"Roman Catholic Church,\" it is\nincorrectly stated that the Council of Florence is by some\nregarded as oecumenical. It is universally regarded as\noecumenical, and was one of the most important councils ever held\nin the church. The Patriarch of Constantinople, the Greek\nEmperor, the representatives of the other Eastern patriarchs and\nof the Russian Church, and a number of other Eastern prelates\nwere present, and discussed all their causes of difference with\nthe Roman Church during thirteen months, after which they signed\nthe Act of Union, and united in a solemn definition of the\nsupremacy of the Pope.\n\nThe Council of Basle is enumerated among the certain oecumenical\ncouncils, although all its acts from the twenty-fifth session\nhave been condemned, and none of those of the prior sessions\napproved, by the Holy See. Although a few Galilean writers have\nmaintained that this council was oecumenical during its earlier\nsessions, their opinion is generally rejected and is of no\nweight.\n\n------\n\n  Red Cross; or, Young America in England and Wales.\n  By Oliver Optic.\n  Boston: Lee & Shepard.\n\nThis volume, the third of the series published under the title of\n_Young America Abroad_, continues and concludes the travels\nand adventures of the naval cadets on British soil and in British\nwaters. London, Liverpool, Manchester, the Isle of Wight, the\nLake District, Snowdon, the Menai Straits, etc., are visited,\naffording an opportunity for the introduction of a great deal of\nmiscellaneous information regarding the physical geography and\nhistory of many interesting localities. So far the book is\nunexceptionable. The adventures of the students, however, are, in\nOliver Optic's usual style, exaggerated to the very verge of\ncredibility; and though they will doubtless be relished by the\nclass for which they are written, we no less decidedly think\nthat, as mental food for youth, the selection is not the most\njudicious, and that the author could very easily, with equal\ncredit to himself and greater benefit to his juvenile readers,\nserve up something else more nutritious, if less palatable, or\nnot so highly seasoned. As regards the students themselves, it\nseems to us, also, that the author has not yet hit upon the\ngolden mean: the good boys are almost too good, the bad equally\nuntrue to nature. Our experience with boys--and it is by no means\nslight or superficial--tends to prove that with those who, from\nan indisposition to submit to an \"iron rule,\" are commonly known\nas \"wild,\" such impatience of restraint generally springs from\nexuberant animal spirits, and is seldom, if ever, met with in\nconnection with meanness, much less vice. _Per contra_, the\ngreatest sycophants are, as a rule, the meanest and most\ndepraved.\n\n------\n\n  Chaudron's New Fourth Reader.\n  On an Original Plan.\n  By A. De V. Chaudron.\n  Mobile:  W. G. Clark & Co. Pp. 328. 1867.\n\nExteriorly, this book presents a by no means pleasing appearance;\nhence, the greater our surprise, and, we may add, our pleasure,\nat the variety and excellence of its contents, in which respect\nit is nowise inferior to any of those in use in our public\nschools. While we cannot expect for Mrs. Chaudron's Series of\n_Readers_ an extended circulation in this city, in view of\nso many and generally deserving rivals already firmly established\namongst us, we do with confidence recommend them, if in their\ngeneral features they resemble this, the only one of the series\nsubmitted to us.\n\n--------\n\n{576}\n\n  Imitation of Christ\n  Spiritual Combat\n  Treatise on Prayer.\n  Boston: P. Donahoe. Pp. 816. 1868.\n\nDecidedly opposed to small type in books of a religious or\neducational character, we can cheerfully overlook its use in this\ninstance, giving us, as it does, complete in one volume and in\nbulk not exceeding the average size of prayer-books, three such\nadmirable devotional works.\n\n------\n\n  Irish Homes and Irish Hearts.\n  By Fanny Taylor, author of\n  _Eastern Hospitals, Tyborne,\n  Religious Orders,_ etc., etc.\n  Boston: Patrick Donahoe. Pp. xi. 215.\n\nThe original work, of which this volume is a very neat reprint,\nwas favorably mentioned in _The Catholic World_ for\nSeptember, 1867. Hence we need not enter into details. It is\nenough to say that the author, leaving the beaten track of\nordinary tourists, devoted herself to the visitation and\ninspection of the various charitable and religious institutions\nof Ireland, the number and excellence of which amply vindicate\n\"the warmth of Irish hearts and the depth of Irish faith.\" This\nvolume gives the result of her examination. It unfolds not a new,\nbut to many an unexpected, phase of Irish character, and will\nwell repay a perusal, from which few can rise without being\nbenefited thereby.\n\n------\n\n  Choice of a State of Life.\n  By Father C. G. Rossignoli, S. J.\n  Translated from the French,\n  1 vol. 16mo, pp. 252.\n  Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1868.\n\nThis is a well-reasoned little treatise on vocations, or the\nchoice of a state of life, an important matter too little thought\nof in our day, when material things have the upper hand, and\nspiritual things are made of so little account. Many, no doubt,\nfitted by their talents and called by an interior voice to the\npriesthood or the religious state, neglect the call; and others\nagain, quite unfit, thrust themselves forward, allured by some\nprospect of worldly advancement. This little book clearly exposes\nthe motives which should govern us in the choice of a state of\nlife. If read in a calm and undisturbed state of mind, we do not\ndoubt it will do a great deal of good, and induce many to embrace\nthe better part which shall not be taken away from them.\n\n------\n\n  Margaret: A Story of Life in a Prairie Home.\n  By Lyndon.\n  New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1868.\n\nA pleasantly told story of everyday life. The interest in the\nnarrative is well sustained throughout; the incidents natural,\nyet effectively introduced; and the characters strongly marked\nand sufficiently diversified. \"Life in a prairie home,\" however,\nif here faithfully described, differs materially from what it is\ngenerally supposed to be. The incidents are such as to be equally\npossible in any village in any one of the original thirteen\nstates.\n\n------\n\n  Elinor Johnston: Founded on Facts; and\n  Maurice and Genevieve, or\n  The Orphan Twins of Beauce.\n  Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham. Pp. 136.\n\nTwo charming stories for children, tastefully got up, if we\nexcept an occasional inequality in the pages and carelessness in\ntypography, which we hope to see avoided in future volumes. There\nis no reason why books intended for children should not be as\ncreditable in appearance as those for adults. That this can be\ndone is proved by the beautifully uniform series just issued by\nthe Catholic Publication Society.\n\n------\n\n      Books Received.\n\nFrom John Murphy & Co., Baltimore:\n\n  The First-Class Book of History, designed for\n  pupils commencing the study of history, with\n  questions; adapted to the use of academies\n  and schools.\n  By M. J. Kerney, A.M., author of Compendium\n  of Ancient and Modern History, Columbian\n  Arithmetic, etc., etc., etc.\n  Twenty-second revised edition.\n  Enlarged by the addition of Lessons in\n  Ancient History,\n  1 vol. 16mo, pp. 335.\n\n----\n\nFrom P. O'Shea, New York:\n\n  O'Shea's Popular Juvenile Library.\n  First series. 12 vols., illustrated.\n\n\n-------------\n\n{577}\n\n         The Catholic World.\n\n    Vol. VII., No. 41.--August, 1868.\n\n----\n\n    A New Face On An Old Question.\n\n\nA few months ago I described a visit which I had recently paid to\na friend of mine in the country, and repeated a little of the\nconversation we then had together upon subjects especially\ninteresting to Catholics. [Footnote 177]\n\n    [Footnote 177: See _The Catholic World_, March, 1868;\n    article, \"Canada Thistles.\"]\n\nI was so well pleased with what I saw and heard on that occasion\nthat I resolved to spend a few more days with him; and last\nmonth, as soon as the warm weather set in, I presented myself one\nevening at his hospitable door, valise in hand, and was soon\ncomfortably installed as a guest. If I found his house an\nembodiment of domestic comfort during the winter, it was still\nmore delightful, now that the lawn and meadows wore the brilliant\ngreen of early summer, and the prairie-roses, climbing over the\ngreat, roomy piazza, shook down perfume into the open windows,\nand drew around the place the ceaseless song of bees and the whir\nof the restless little humming-bird. The library which had\ncharmed me so much when the blazing wood-fire shed a ruddy glow\nof comfort over the bookshelves and the big writing-table, and\nthe tempting arm-chairs, was a thousand times more attractive,\nnow that green branches and bunches of roses filled the\nold-fashioned fire-place, and windows, open to the floor, let in\nthe breath of new-mown hay, while creepers and honeysuckles kept\noff the glare of the sun, and waved gently in and out with the\nsouth-west breeze. Here we used to sit and chat on warm\nafternoons, and our conversation generally turned upon the\nreligious topics in which we were both so much interested. One\nday we were talking about the great improvement of late in the\nstyle of discussion on the Catholic question. \"We don't hear so\nmuch of the old slanders,\" said my friend, \"but there is rather\nan inquiry into the reasons of our success and the best methods\nto meet us. Whenever that inquiry is conducted honestly and\nthoroughly, it is found that the only way to meet us is, to come\nover boldly to our side and fight under our banner. As an\nillustration of what I have said,\" continued he, picking up a\npamphlet from the table, \"take this sermon on 'Christ and the\nCommon People,' by the Rev. Mr. Hinsdale, a Protestant clergyman,\nof Detroit. He states the subject of his discourse boldly enough:\n'We start,' he says, 'with the _confessed failure of\nProtestantism_ to control spiritually the lives, and to mould\nreligiously the characters, of the millions.\n{578}\nWhat are the reasons?' He declares that Protestantism has\nscarcely won a foot of ground from Romanism in more than two\nhundred years. 'Geographically, it is where it was at the close\nof the century in which Luther died. Neither is Protestantism\nstronger religiously or politically than it was in the\nseventeenth century; some deny that it is as strong' Nor can it\nbe claimed that it is now making any material gains in any of\nthese directions.' Again: 'In the Protestant countries, no ground\nhas been wrested from false religion or irreligion within a\nhundred years;' and in the principal American cities the\nProtestant denominations are unquestionably losing ground. There\nis good authority for stating that in Cincinnati, for instance,\nthe communicants in the Protestant churches are fewer by two\nthousand than they were twenty years ago; yet the population of\nthe city has increased during the interval by something like a\nhundred thousand. Well, Mr. Hinsdale being, as I should judge, a\ngentleman of common sense and honesty, does not try to relieve\nhis mind from the pressure of these disagreeable facts by cursing\nthe Catholics, but sets himself to work to find out the reasons\nfor the greater prosperity of our church. I need not read them to\nyou; for of course the great reason of all--the assistance of\nHeaven--he does not perceive; but he makes some significant\nadmissions. He tells his people that Catholicism is the especial\nreligion of the poor, and that Protestantism is restricting\nitself daily more and more closely to the rich; and he quotes a\nsaying of Theodore Parker's: '_If the poor forsake a church, it\nis because the church forsook God long before._' I am a\nProtestant of the Protestants,' Mr. Hinsdale adds, 'but have no\nhesitation in affirming that in some particulars we should stand\nrebuked before Romanists this hour; none in declaring that in\nsome respects the Romish priest understands the methods of Christ\nbetter than the evangelical preacher.' Now, when the alarm of\nProtestants at the increase of our churches takes such a form as\nthis, I believe that good results must flow from it.\"\n\n\"No doubt you are right,\" said I; \"but I am afraid few of the\nanti-popery preachers are like this gentleman of Detroit. Here,\nfor example, is an address, delivered at the last anniversary of\nthe American and Foreign Christian Union, by the Rev. Dr.\nTalmadge, of Philadelphia. He begins with the admission that the\ncause of popery is still flourishing, 'although in the attempt to\ndestroy it there has been expended enough ink, enough voice,\nenough genius, enough money, enough ecclesiastical thunder, to\nhave torn off all the cassocks, and to have extinguished all the\nwax candles, and to have poured out all the holy water, and to\nhave rent open all the convents, and to have turned the Vatican\ninto a Reformed Dutch church, and the convocation of cardinals\ninto an old-fashioned prayer-meeting, and to have immersed the\npope, and sent him forth as a colporteur of the American and\nForeign Christian Union. But somehow there has been a great waste\nof effort. The plain fact is,' he continues, 'that Romanism has\nto-day, in the United States, tenfold more power than when we\nfirst began to bombard it.'\n{579}\nAnd the moral he draws from this survey of the situation is, that\nthe Protestants had better 'change their style of warfare,' and\nintroduce into the fight the principle of holy love, and the\nexample of charity and devotion. Nothing could be more sensible\nthan this remark of his: 'Bitter denunciation on the part of good\nbut mistaken men never pulled down one Roman Catholic church, but\nhas built five hundred. There is only one way to make a man give\nup his religion, and that is by showing him a better.' Brave\nwords, you say, and so they are. Yet this very sermon is full of\njust the sort of bitter denunciation which the preacher\ndenounces. The whole address is a condemnation of the speaker\nhimself--one of the finest pieces of unconscious satire I ever\nread. I don't believe _The Observer_ itself could do the\nraw-head and bloody-bones business better than Dr. Talmadge does\nit.\"\n\n\"Never mind. Get these people to admit the principle of honest\nand gentlemanly dealing in religious controversy, and you may\nleave their practice to reform itself. For one man who was\nimpressed by Dr. Talmadge's swelling invectives, I make little\ndoubt that there were five who carried away in their hearts his\nadvice to be charitable, courteous, and just. The English\nNonconformist preacher, Newman Hall, who travelled through the\nUnited States recently, told his congregation on his return home\nthat one of the greatest dangers of Protestantism nowadays was\ninjustice toward Roman Catholics. I am afraid that his advice was\nnot much relished in England, for you know injustice to Catholics\nis one of the pet foibles of Englishmen; but it is not so bad\nhere. The American people are naturally fond of fair play. You\nhave only to convince them that a certain course of conduct is\nunjust, and they will change it of their own accord.\"\n\n\"Do you mean to say, then, that you believe reason and logic are\nhenceforth to supersede violence and slander in the discussion of\nthe Catholic problem?\"\n\n\"Not entirely, of course. But I believe that falsehoods are\nrapidly losing their efficacy in polemics, and that Protestants\nrecognize this fact and are preparing to adapt themselves to the\naltered conditions of the conflict. And I do not mean to\ninsinuate that as a class they do this merely from policy. Most\nof them probably used to believe the old standard lies; at least,\nthey did not _dis_believe them. They repeated them by rote,\nbecause they had been brought up to do so, and they never thought\nof stopping to inquire into their authority. Now that the\nslanders have ceased to serve a purpose, it is naturally easier\nto convince those who used to profit by them that they _are_\nslanders. What I mean to say is, that the tendency of our time is\ntoward fairness and good sense in religious disputes. You and I,\nfor example, are quite young enough to remember when 'Romanism'\nwas popularly regarded as an unknown horror, no more to be\ntolerated than the plague or the yellow fever. It was not thought\nto be a question open for debate. A Protestant would no more have\ndreamed of examining the merits of popery than the merits of\nhydrophobia. But now it is a very common thing for our\nadversaries to admit that we have done wonderful service to\nhumanity in our day; that in some particulars we have done and\nare still doing more than any other denomination; only we belong\nto a past age and ought now to give way to fresher organizations.\n{580}\nI remember a rather striking sermon which I read in a Detroit\nnewspaper, the other day, on the 'irrepressible conflict' between\nCatholicism and Liberalism, by the Rev. Mr. Mumford, a Unitarian\nclergyman. The greater part of the discourse was as illiberal as\nanything could be. Mr. Mumford saw in the Catholic Church a\ntremendous engine of oppression, and thought it was scheming to\nget control of the negroes in the Southern States, and through\nthem to direct the politics of the whole country--\"\n\n\"He saw no danger in the great influence which Methodism has\nacquired over the colored people, did he?\"\n\n\"No; and he forgot to mention that the Catholic Church is almost\nthe only one in America which has never been tainted by the\nintrusion of politics. Well, I was going on to say that, with all\nMr. Mumford's prejudices and absurdities, he had the honesty to\nacknowledge that the Catholic Church is really entitled to the\ngratitude of mankind, and declared that he was glad it had\nsecured some foothold in America, 'to act as a restraint upon the\nintolerance of the Protestant churches.'\"\n\n\"I am afraid that you rather exaggerate the importance of\nadmissions like these. They are so often made merely for\nrhetorical effect! They are little patches of light artfully\nthrown into the picture to heighten the effect of the shadows.\"\n\n\"I know that I don't refer to them as proofs of a willingness to\nexamine the nature and grounds of Catholic doctrine, though I\nbelieve that there is much more of such willingness than there\nused to be, but as an evidence that a spirit of fairness and\ngood-breeding is beginning to prevail in religious controversy;\nand from that spirit I cannot but expect good results.\"\n\n\"So far I have no doubt you are right; and one of the good\nresults, it seems to me, must be the gradual extinction (or\npossibly the reform) of denominational newspapers of the old\nbludgeon-school. _The Observer_ must go out of fashion\nwhenever reason comes in. There will be no room for the religious\nbrawlers when those who differ in creed learn to talk over their\ndifferences in a common-sense way. Don't you think there is a\nchange in the tone of the press already?\"\n\n\"The secular press certainly has improved wonderfully in its\ntreatment of Catholics. About the religious periodicals I am not\nso sure: some of them are tamer than they were formerly, but the\nold stand-bys lash their tails as furiously as ever, and the less\nthey are heeded the louder they roar. But that is only natural.\nYou see the same thing at the theatres. When a play ceases to\ndraw very well, the single combats become doubly fierce and the\nred-fire is frequent. The violence of the denominational organs\nmust not be taken as an evidence of the sentiment of society. If\nthey really led the opinions of their readers, we should have an\nanti-Catholic crusade every year. I wonder if you have noticed,\nhowever, that some of the Protestant religious papers which have\nusually been mild in their tone have been roused of late to an\nunaccustomed bitterness against us?\"\n\n\"Yes, and I hardly know how to account for it.\"\n\n\"I think the explanation is this. The calm discussion of Catholic\nquestions, as we said before, must logically lead to the\ndiscovery of Catholic truth. There are Protestant writers who see\nthis and do not want to see it. They perceive whither the current\nis bearing them, and they struggle against it. They rail at the\nchurch by way of protest against the growth of an unwelcome,\ndimly foreseen conviction, as an encouragement to their tottering\nunbelief, just as boys whistle to keep up their courage.\n{581}\nHave you ever seen a dying sinner try to fight off death? It is\nin some such hopeless effort as his that _The Liberal\nChristian_ and a few other journals are now engaged. I do not\nsay that they understand this themselves. I do not charge them\nwith absolutely resisting the progress of conviction, or, to\nspeak more exactly, the resistance is instinctive rather than\nvoluntary; but they feel or suspect, perhaps without fully\ncomprehending, that, if they keep on as they are going, they must\ncome pretty soon to the Catholic Church, and that provokes them.\n_The Liberal Christian_, you know, is edited by Dr. Bellows,\nan accomplished gentleman, who was thought some years ago to\nexhibit a decided leaning toward the church. I am not prepared to\nsay whether this supposition was correct or not; but it is\ncertain that he saw more clearly and exposed more boldly the\ninherent defects and logical tendencies of Protestantism than any\nother Protestant I can remember, and in one of his published\nsermons he declared that Unitarians (his own sect) had more\nsympathy with Catholicism than with any other form of religion.\nIt might seem strange to find him among the foremost revilers of\nthat very Catholicism; but my theory explains it. The hostility\nwhich glistens in his letters and runs mad, sometimes, in the\nmiscellaneous columns of his paper, is the revolt of his\nProtestantism against the progress of unwelcome ideas--an effort\nof his unregenerate nature, so to speak, to throw off something\nwhich does not agree with it. Ah! how many men have trod in the\nsame path he is now following, and have been led by it to the\nbitter waters of disappointment! He saw the fatal gulf into which\nthe Protestant bodies were plunging. He felt that hunger of the\nspirit which nothing but the church of God ever satisfies. He\nraised a cry for help, and when he found that there was no help\nexcept from the Holy Catholic Church, he turned his back upon\nher, and bound himself down once more with the narrow bonds of\nwhat is called Unitarian 'liberalism.' And now, of course, he\nmisses no opportunity of declaring his detestation of the succor\nwhich he has refused. He has failed in his aspirations after a\nmock church, and naturally he vents his disappointment on the\nreal one. He fancies that he is moved by principle, when he is\nreally instigated by pique. He imagines that he is an earnest,\nhonest seeker after an answer to what he well terms 'the dumb\nwants of the religious times,' when he is--but I have no business\nto judge his motives. That is God's affair. We must presume that\nhe is courageous and sincere, and that whenever he finds the\nright road he will boldly walk in it. Nine years ago, Dr. Bellows\ndelivered an address before the alumni of the Harvard Divinity\nSchool, on 'The Suspense of Faith,' which was generally supposed\nto indicate his wish to engraft a ritual and a priesthood upon\nthe Unitarian denomination, bringing it perhaps nearer to\nEpiscopalianism than to any other system of worship. There was no\nsuch thought in his mind, I am sure; though his sentiments, had\nthey been acted upon, might have led many men through\nEpiscopalianism into the Catholic Church. I will not weary you\nwith the whole of it; but let me read a few lines which have a\nspecial application to what we have been saying.\n{582}\nHe is trying to account for the fact that Unitarianism is in a\nposture of pause and self-distrust and he says: 'If, with logical\ndesperation, we ultimate the tendencies of Protestantism, and\nallow even the malice of its enemies to flash light upon their\ndirection, we may see that _the sufficiency of the Scriptures\nturns out to be the self-sufficiency of man_, and the right of\nprivate judgment an absolute independence of Bible or church. No\ncreed but the Scriptures, practically abolishes all Scriptures\nbut those on the human heart; nothing between a man's conscience\nand his God, vacates the church; and with the church, the Holy\nGhost, whose function is usurped by private reason: the church\nlapses into what are called religious institutions, these into\nCongregationalism, and Congregationalism into individualism--and\nthe logical end is the abandonment of the church as an\nindependent institution, _the denial of Christianity as a\nsupernatural revelation,_ and the extinction of worship as a\nseparate interest. There is no pretence that Protestantism, as a\nbody, has reached this, or intends this, or would not honestly\nand earnestly repudiate it; but that its most logical product is\nat this point, it is not easy to deny. Nay, that these are the\n_tendencies_ of Protestantism is very apparent.' When he\ncomes to speak of Unitarianism as the representative and most\nlogical exponent of Protestantism, he expresses himself in a\nstill more remarkable way. Religion, he thinks, like everything\nelse in the world, has been constantly making progress, and\nUnitarianism has always been in the van. Now this progress seemed\nto have reached its limit; there is a pause, a partial recoil, in\nsome cases a turning back to the formalism and ritual worship of\nRome, in others a headlong rush into the abyss of pure\nrationalism. In fact, Dr. Bellows believes that to create an\nequilibrium in the relations between God and man, two opposing\nforces are in operation--a centrifugal force, which drives man\naway from submission to divine authority, that he may develop his\nown liberty and functions of the will, and a centripetal force,\nwhich leads him to worship and obedience. These are represented\nrespectively by Protestantism and Catholicism, and he seems to\nthink them destined to alternate--perhaps for all time, though\nabout this his meaning is not very clear. 'Is it not plain,' he\nsays, 'that, as Protestants of the Protestants, we are at the\napogee of our orbit; that in us the centrifugal epoch of humanity\nhas, for this swing of the pendulum at least, reached its bound?\nFor one cycle we have come, I think, nearly to the end of our\nself-directing, self-asserting, self-developing, self-culturing\nfaculties; to the end of our honest interest in this necessary\nalternate movement.'\"\n\n\"That means, if it means anything that Protestantism has done its\nwork, at least for the present age; that it has accomplished all\nit can; and there is nothing left for man but a return to the\ncentripetal force, or to the Catholic Church.\"\n\n\"Exactly: that would be the logical complement of the position he\nassumed in the curious discourse from which I have been quoting;\nbut the misery is that he had not the courage to be logical. Ah!\nhow well I remember the impression produced at the time by that\nsad, sad cry of weariness and disappointment which went up from\nhis pulpit when he perceived that the toil, and speculation, and\nuneasiness of years had brought him to no goal; that he had\ndeveloped man's faculties without finding a use for them; that he\nhad achieved an intellectual freedom without knowing what to do\nwith it; that, as he well expressed it himself, '_there was no\nmore road_ in the direction he had been going.'\n{583}\nMany, as we have seen, when they reached that point on their\njourney whence this whole dismal prospect was visible, turned\nback to the church which their fathers had forsaken, and there\nfound peace; and Dr. Bellows had stated so boldly the miseries of\nhis own situation that it was no wonder people thought he too\nwould follow that course. But he set himself about finding a new\nroad, imagining a new church which was to arise at no distant\nday, and combine the most conservative of liturgies with the most\nradical of creeds. It was to be constituted on strictly\ncentripetal principles. Speculation having proved empty, worship\nwas to be essayed as a change. Doubt being but sorry fare for a\nhungry soul, there was to be a good deal of faith, and preaching\nnot being a gift of all men, place was to be made for prayer.\nWhat that church was to be, how it was to arise, and when it was\nto make its appearance, he did not pretend to say. But it must\ncome soon, because 'the yearning for a settled and externalized\nfaith' was too strong to be left unsatisfied. It was to be, I\nmust suppose, a mingling of the revelations of our Saviour with\nthe dreams of Luther, Calvin, Fox, and Swedenborg; because, as\nDr. Bellows says in one of his lectures, 'the religious man who\nhas no vacillations in his views, who is not sometimes inclined\nto Calvinism, sometimes to Rationalism, sometimes to Catholicism,\nsometimes to Quakerism, has an imperfect activity, a dull\nimagination, and a timid love of truth; for all these faiths have\nembodied great and interesting spiritual facts which the free and\nearnest explorer will encounter in his own experience, and find\nmore vividly portrayed in the history of these sects than in\nhimself.' It was to possess a fixed creed, but nobody was\nexpected to believe in it, for 'inconsistencies of opinion' are\nto be expected of everybody, and doubt, fear, and scepticism are\nactually desirable, provided they are 'the work of one's own\nmental and spiritual activity, and not of mere passive\nacquiescence in the forces that one encounters from without.' It\nwas to be a _true_ church, of course, yet a false church\nalso; because Dr. Bellows declares that 'truth is too large to be\nsurrounded by any one man or any one party,' and there are always\ntwo great parties in religion as there are in politics, 'and each\nhas part of the truth in its keeping;' so that, of course,\nneither can be wholly right. He wanted his church to be a\nhistorical church, for Christianity is a historical religion, and\n'a faith stripped of historic reality, disunited from its\noriginal facts and persons, does not promise to live and work in\nthe human heart and life.' He seemed to have forgotten that\nhistory is the growth of time, and cannot be conferred upon a\nnew-born infant. The future church must have rites and\nceremonies, for without them religion hardly 'touches our daily\nhabits and ordinary career,' and is, like Unitarianism, 'an\nunhoused, unnatural, and disembodied faith.' It must be a visible\nchurch, yet without a priesthood; a divinely instituted church,\nyet without authority; receiving its doctrines by divine\nrevelations, yet only true in part; eternal, yet changeable, I am\nnot surprised that Dr. Bellows has not yet found it.\"\n\n\"Surely he never uttered any such extraordinary farrago as you\nhave been putting into his mouth?\"\n\n{584}\n\n\"Not in those words, of course, nor with that collocation of\nthoughts; but all that I have said you will find either in his\n_Suspense of Faith_, or in the volume of sermons published\nunder the title of _Re-Statements of Christian Doctrine_,\n(New York, 1860.) I have represented, as fairly as possible, the\nvagueness of his aspirations and the inconsistency of his\nprinciples. It is only clear that he wanted to be a Protestant\nand a Catholic at the same time. He was shocked at the results of\nhis own centripetalism, and he longed for a visible church, with\na tangible creed and a set form of worship; only he wanted to\nmake the church himself; not to be the founder of a new sect--he\ndisclaimed that, and was unwilling even to change the form of\nservice in his own congregation--but to dream about it, to\nspeculate upon what it ought to be, to mould and influence\nopinion, until, by a seemingly spontaneous movement, the new\nchurch should arise from the midst of the people. Poor man! He\nsees, by this time, that nobody feels the want of this new\nchurch, and nobody believes in it; and he hates the true church,\npartly because it is a continual reproach to him, bringing to\nmind a duty unfulfilled and a happiness unappreciated, and partly\nbecause it continually revives his disappointment.\"\n\n\"I have serious doubts, however, whether Dr. Bellows ever\ncomprehended the beauty of the Catholic religion half so well as\nmany people supposed that he did. Read his books with a little\ncare, and you will see that he never took but the most\nsuperficial view of religion: he never got at the core of it.\nReligion to him--as to how many others!--was a thin philosophy\nwhich amused his intellect, a sentimental poetry which tickled\nhis aesthetic instincts; it was not a _life_. Of that vital\nChristianity which comprehends the whole relationship between God\nand man, which is both a creed, a worship, and the very essence\nof devout life, his heart seems to have been void.\"\n\n\"Yes, he says something almost equivalent to this in his sermon\non 'Spiritual Discernment.'[Footnote 178]\n\n    [Footnote 178: _Re-Statements of Christian Doctrine_.]\n\n'All the triumphs of Protestantism,' he declares, 'the universal\nimprovement of private and public morality, of public education,\nrespect for the individual, have grown out of the increasing care\nto keep the church and the world apart--religion and other\ninterests distinct subjects of thought and attention.' And the\nword 'world' here he does not use in its bad sense, but merely as\nsynonymous with secular affairs. Again he says, that 'the\nCatholic Church succeeded wonderfully in blending life and\nreligion together, faith and daily usage, pleasure and worship,\nphilosophy and the Gospel;' and this, he thinks, was its great\nfault, while the great merit of Protestantism was, that it\ncarefully separated what the church had so carefully melted\ntogether. That gives you the real old Puritan idea of piety--a\nsomething to be put on at stated times, and then put off again,\nlike the long faces which old-fashioned Protestants pull for\nSunday wear; to have no intimate connection with daily life, but\nto be kept carefully apart, like the best coat which our\nancestors used to lay by in lavender leaves, to be worn on days\nof ceremony. What is the good of a religion which does not blend\nwith work-a-day life? of a faith which is not felt in daily\nusage? of a worship which must be kept apart from our pleasures,\nfrom our business, from any of our honest pursuits?\n{585}\nWhy, the very beauty of religion is, that it shall be in man's\nheart at all times and in all places. If it cannot accompany us\neverywhere, if it can only live in the artificial atmosphere of\nSunday meetings, it is not worth having. The danger against which\nwe have most to guard is not, Dr. Bellows thinks, that of\nforgetting our religion, but that of growing too familiar with\nit. His God is an awful rather than a loving God, and our sin\nagainst him is not that we go so far away from him, but that we\nbring him so near to us. In effect he tells us to fetch out our\npiety once a week or so, on stated occasions, but not to let it\ninterfere with our daily walk and conversation, for that would be\nsacrilege.\"\n\n\"All this shows, as you say, that he has no comprehension as yet\nof the true nature of religion; and shall I tell you why he is so\nslow to acquire it? I believe that he is not really in sympathy\nwith Christianity.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Oh! he is nominally a Christian, of course. He would be\nhorrified if you told him he was not. But he has no sympathy with\nthe religion of Christ. Our Saviour, in his opinion, was only the\nexpounder of a system of ethics, and, to tell the truth, it is\nnot clear to me wherein the Christ of Unitarianism is essentially\nsuperior to Socrates or Benjamin Franklin. The worship of our\nLord Dr. Bellows emphatically denounces as rank 'idolatry.' We\nmay only reverence him as a creature specially favored by the\nAlmighty, and a teacher to whose word we owe the most profound\nrespect. Take away from your religious system the idea of God in\nthe person of his divine Son perpetually present with the\nfaithful, and helping them to bear the burdens of humanity which\nhe himself has borne, and it is but a cold, cheerless, fallacious\nbelief which is left you. It is no longer religion; it is only a\nfalse philosophy. Devotion vanishes; faith, hope, and love are\nexchanged for a code of rules of behavior; and God withdraws from\nthe world into the impenetrable mystery of the heavens, where the\nvoice of prayer indeed may reach him, but his presence is never\nfelt by man, and his love never fills the heart. He is no longer\nthe dear Lord of the Christian saints, but the Allah of the\nMoslems.\"\n\n\"You have hit it exactly; and now let me tell you that ever since\nDr. Bellows set out on the foreign tour in which he is still\noccupied, I have watched for the record of his impressions of\nOriental life, feeling certain, from what I knew of him, that he\nwould find an attraction in Mohammedanism which he never saw in\nChristianity. I was not mistaken. He is not a polygamist: he has\nno taste for a sensual heaven; I don't suppose he prefers the\nKoran to the Bible; and I never heard of his keeping the\ninordinate fasts of Ramadan; still, the creed of Islam seems, in\nits main features, to have caught his fancy, and he loads it with\nindirect praises, which he never thought of bestowing upon any\nform of Christianity. Let me read you an extract from one of his\nrecent letters to _The Liberal Christian_:\n\n  \"'These people,' he says, referring to the Egyptians, 'know\n  nothing of Christianity which ought to give it any superiority\n  in their eyes over Mohammedanism. When the Arabian prophet\n  commenced his marvellous work, there is little doubt that he\n  was animated by the sincere enthusiasm of a religious reformer.\n  Mohammed recognized both dispensations, the Mosaic and the\n  Christian; and his intelligent followers to this day speak\n  reverently of the Christ. They evade the authority and use of\n  our Scriptures, by asserting that they have been thoroughly\n  corrupted in their text. A learned Mohammedan in India,\n  however, has just written the introduction to a new Commentary\n  on our Bible, in which he ably refutes the Mussulman charge of\n  general corruptness, and adduces all the passages quoted out of\n  the Old and New Testaments in the Koran.\n{586}\n  But what have Mussulmans seen of Christianity to commend it\n  greatly above their own faith? Is it alleged that Mohammedanism\n  has owed its triumphs and progress to the sword? Is it the\n  fault of Christians if the Cross has not advanced by the same\n  weapon? What infidel rage of the Crescent has ever exceeded the\n  fanatical soldiering of the Crusades, and what has Coeur de\n  Lion to boast over Saladin in enlightenment or appreciation of\n  the Christian spirit? And if we come to bowing, and fasting,\n  and washing, and external forms, _I confess that the\n  degrading prostrations, and crossings, and mummeries of the\n  Greek and Catholic churches, with the gaudy trappings of robes\n  and jewels, the worship of saints and images, and the\n  deification of a humble Jewish woman, appear to me to have\n  nothing in the presence of which Mussulmans could feel the\n  lesser reasonableness, purity, or dignity, or the lesser\n  credibility of their own unadorned and simpler\n  superstition._ Compared with Catholic and Greek legends, the\n  Koran is a model of purity and elegance of style, and _its\n  worst superstitions do not much exceed in grossness the popular\n  interpretation given to monkish fables._ As it respects\n  ecclesiastical interference and tyranny, Mohammedanism is a\n  whole world in advance of Romanism or the Greek Church. It is\n  essentially without priest or ritual, in any Catholic sense.\n  The Mussulman is his own priest. He finds Allah everywhere, and\n  he has only to turn toward Mecca, and bow in prayer, and his\n  field, his boat, the desert, is as good an altar as the mosque.\n  It is truly affecting to see the fidelity of the common people\n  to their faith, the apparent heedlessness of observation, the\n  absorption in their prayers, the careful memory of their hours\n  of devotion.'\n\n\"And, speaking of the absence of symbols and rites in the\nmosques, he adds: 'Surely there is something grand in this\nsimplicity, _and something vital in a faith which, aided by so\nlittle external appliance, has survived in full vigor twelve\nhundred years'_\"\n\n\"Why don't he admire the vitality of the devil? Satan has\nsurvived in full vigor a good deal more than twelve hundred\nyears.\"\n\n\"That would be about as logical. But is it not melancholy to see\nhow far a man whom we would like to respect can be carried by his\nuncontrolled vagaries! He demanded a 'historical church:' there\nis only one in Christendom, and that he will not have; and now it\nalmost seems as if he felt an occasional temptation to search for\none _outside_ of Christendom. Protestantism, he finds, has\nrun its course. Catholicism he will have nothing to do with.\nWhat, then, is left him, if he will be a religious man at all?\nThat seems to be the question which perplexes him and the small\nbut intelligent school of thinkers of whom he is the\nrepresentative. As the Jews are still waiting for the Christ they\ncrucified eighteen hundred years ago, so the Bellows school are\nwatching for the coming of that Christianity which they have\nalready rejected. And both, it seems to me, are sick at heart\nwith hope long deferred.\"\n\n\"Yes; we hear little now of the confident prophetic tone in which\nDr. Bellows some years ago discoursed of the glories of the new\nreligion of humanity, and predicted a resettlement of worn-out\ncreeds and a revival of suspended faith. He writes now rather of\nthe desolation of the present than of brightness which he\ndiscerns in the future. And this brings us back to the point from\nwhich we started. While Protestant theologians in general are\ndiscarding vituperation, there are certain of our opponents who\nshow us a bitterness to which they were not formerly accustomed,\nbecause they have been disappointed in their own religious\naspirations, and have a vague, half-conscious, and wholly\nunwelcome impression that the Catholic Church alone is capable of\nsatisfying them. Dr. Bellows, for instance, travels through\nEurope and finds that Protestantism is everywhere lifeless. He is\nbold enough to say so; but he takes his revenge in the next\nbreath by trying to show that the Catholic Church is no better.\n{587}\nHe is powerless to arrest the decay which is destroying his own\norganization, but he seems to find a melancholy compensation in\nattacking Catholicism. He reminds me of what the boy said when he\nwas thrashed by a school-fellow: 'If I can't whip you, I can make\nfaces at your sister.' He visits Paris, and confesses that\n'Protestantism makes next to no headway' in France, and is torn\nby internal dissensions. He goes to the heart of Protestant\nGermany, and finds the general aspect 'one of painful decay in\nthe faith and spirituality of the people.' All over the\ncontinent, he observes that where the Catholic faith has died\nout, 'nothing vigorous has shot up in its place,' and the masses\nof the population are 'without aspiration, devoutness, or faith\nin the invisible.' 'Protestantism, as it appears here, is a\nchilled, repulsive, ungrowing thing, entering very little into\nthe national or the social and domestic life, and apparently not\ndestined in any of its present forms to animate the passions or\nwin and shape the hearts and lives of the middle classes. ...\n_Out of the present elements of faith and worship in Germany I\nsee no prospects of any healthy and contagious religious life\narising.'_ Nay, what is worse than all, the peculiar form of\nProtestantism upon which, if upon any. Dr. Bellows would rely for\nthe regeneration of Europe, is in no better way than the others.\n'It does not appear,' he says, 'that the liberal element in the\nProtestantism of Germany, I mean that branch of its Protestantism\nwhich we should consider 'most in sympathy with Unitarianism, is\nvery earnest or creative. It seems still rather a negation of\northodoxy than an affirmation of the positive truths of\nChristianity. ... Forced to take positive ground, I fear that a\nlarge part of this extensive body _would be compelled to\nabandon Christian territory altogether._' From Berlin he\nwrites that 'the whole life of the national church is sickly and\ndiscouraging;' from Strasburg, that Protestantism 'must learn\nsome new ways before it will become the religion of the people of\nFrance, Italy, or even Germany;' from Vienna, that the\nProtestantism of Austria is 'essentially torpid and\nunprogressive, presenting nothing attractive or promising.' These\npassages, and many more of similar purport, we may take as\nequivalent to the little boy's confession that he could not whip\nhis antagonist. When it comes to the other part, the making faces\nat his sister, I am bound to say that Dr. Bellows shows more\ntemper than strength. In Vienna, he deplored the lukewarmness of\nthe Catholic people all through Germany, yet, in several previous\nletters, he had contrasted their zeal in church-going with the\nindifference of the Protestants. He accuses the clergy of\navarice, though in Rome he compliments the priests for their\npersonal merits, their 'seriousness, decorum, and fair\nintelligence.' He declares that 'the Catholic Church is an artful\nsubstitute for anything that a human soul ought to desire;' that\nshe is 'the chief hinderance to progress;' that she has\n'glorified the blessed Mother into the Almighty;' that she\n'mutters spells and practises necromancy at her altars,' and all\nthat kind of thing, which I need not repeat, because we have\nheard it in almost the very same words scores of times before.\nBut the most curious of all his angry attacks was made--where,\nthink you? Why, on a steamer in the Levant, where there was\nnothing whatever to provoke him: where the onslaught was so\nperfectly gratuitous that it burst upon the calm flow of his\nletter like a thunderbolt rending the summer sky. Here it is:\n\n{588}\n\n  \"'Roman Catholicism, weak in every member, is prodigious in its\n  total effectiveness, because it is a unit. It is quietly\n  seizing America, piece by piece, state by state, city by city.\n  In a new state like Wisconsin, for instance, it has the oldest\n  college, the largest theological school, the best hospitals and\n  charities, the finest churches; and what is true of Wisconsin\n  is equally true of many other Western states. Protestantism,\n  with a hundred times the wealth, intelligence, public spirit,\n  and administrative ability, by reason of its sectarian\n  jealousies and divisions can have no parallel successes, and is\n  losing rapidly its place in legislative grants and in public\n  policy. The Irish Catholics spot the members of state\n  legislatures who vote against the appropriations they call for,\n  and are able in our close elections to defeat their return.\n  Representatives become servile and pliable, and Romanism\n  flourishes. A Quaker gentleman of wealth, in the West, (the\n  story is exactly true,) married a Vermont girl who had become a\n  Catholic in a nunnery where she was sent for her education. It\n  was agreed that, if children were given them, the boys should\n  be reared in the faith of their father, the girls in that of\n  their mother. _The Vermont mother gave her husband ten girls,\n  but never a son!_ Eight of them grew up Catholics, married\n  influential men, and brought up their children Catholics, and\n  in some cases brought over their husbands, and so the Roman\n  Church was recruited with Protestant wealth and Quaker blood to\n  a vast extent. So much for sending Protestant girls to Roman\n  Catholic seminaries, and then complaining that so many\n  Protestants are lost to the superstitions of Romanism! There is\n  an apathy about the Roman Catholic advances in the United\n  States among American Protestants, which will finally receive a\n  terrible shock. There is no influence at work in America so\n  hostile to our future peace as the Roman Catholic Church. The\n  next American war will, I fear, be a religious war--of all\n  kinds the worst. If we wish to avert it, _we must take\n  immediate steps to organize Protestantism more efficiently_,\n  and on less sectarian ground.'\n\n\"Well, upon my word, the conduct of that Vermont girl was\nabominable. I suppose Dr. Bellows thinks she never would have\nbeen artful enough to swindle her husband out of all his expected\nboys if she had not been brought up in a convent. 'So much for\nsending Protestant girls to Roman Catholic seminaries!' I should\nthink so, indeed!\"\n\n\"The story is very ridiculous; but the moral Dr. Bellows draws\nfrom it is worse than ridiculous. If we wish to avert a religious\nwar, he says, 'we must take immediate steps to organize\nProtestantism more efficiently, and on less sectarian ground.'\nThat means that Protestantism must maintain an overwhelming\npreponderance in this country by fair means or foul. If it cannot\nconvert the papists with the Bible, it ought to knock them on the\nhead with a bludgeon. And the same atrocious sentiment is still\nmore plainly expressed by an Irish writer in _The Liberal\nChristian_ of Feb. 29th, who says, 'Popery and Fenianism are\nSiamese curses, withering every noble and humane feeling wherever\nthey exist. ... _They deserve no toleration; they should\nreceive no mercy._' There's a 'liberal' Christian for you,\nwith a vengeance!\"\n\n\"Well, we can afford to ridicule such fears and threats; but it\nis very sad. Here, where nearly all honest people seem to have\nmade up their minds to reform their bad language, and be as\npolite in discussing sacred questions as in talking over secular\naffairs, a sect which professes toleration and fairness beyond\nall others goes back to the old style of polemical blackguardism.\nI can appreciate the unfortunate position of the liberal\nChristians, when, having pushed ahead so far, they find that\nthere is 'no more road' in that direction, and can understand\nthat only one of two courses may seem open to them, either to\nberate the Catholics or to join them; but the instruction which\nthe barrister received from his attorney when the law and the\nfacts were both against him, 'Abuse the other side,' does not\napply so well to religion as to jury trials. We must have a\ndifferent style of argument if anybody is to be converted or\nimproved by the discussion.\n\n-------\n\n{589}\n\n         Nellie Netterville.\n\n\n    Chapter XII.\n\nWhen first O'More unfolded the cloak in which he had brought\nNellie safely through the flames, she lay so white and still\nthat, for one brief, terrible moment, he almost fancied she was\ndead. The fresh air, however, soon revived her, and, opening her\neyes, filled with a look of terror which afterward haunted them\nfor months, she fixed them upon Roger, and whispered nervously:\n\n\"Where are the rest--the priest and all? Where are they?\"\n\n\"They are with their God, I trust,\" he answered solemnly. At that\nawful moment he felt that he could say nothing but the truth,\nterrible as he knew that truth must sound in the ears of the pale\ngirl beside him. His words, in fact, seemed to cut through her\nlike a knife, and she fell upon her knees, exclaiming: \"I only\nsaved--I only saved! O my God, my God! have mercy on their\nsouls!\" Then suddenly remembering that, if she were safe, she\nowed it entirely to Roger, she added earnestly, \"You have risked\nyour life for mine. How shall I thank you?\"\n\n\"By helping me once more to save it,\" he answered curtly.\n\"Nellie,\" he went on rapidly, for he knew too well that every\nmoment they lingered there was fraught with peril--\"Nellie, you\nare saved, and yet not safe yet! Your life, however, is in your\nown hands now, and with courage and good trust in Providence, I\ndoubt not we shall pull safely through.\"\n\nNellie seemed to gather up her mind for a great effort, and said\ncalmly:\n\n\"Only say what I must do, and I will do it.\"\n\n\"The case is this,\" said Roger shortly: \"Yonder tower,\" and he\npointed to the burning pile overhead--\"yonder tower must fall\nsoon, and, if we linger here, will crush us in its ruins. On the\nother hand, even if we could creep round to the opposite side of\nthe church, a thing in itself almost impossible, the fanatical\ndemons who guard the gates will probably shoot us down like dogs.\nThe cliff, therefore, is our best--almost our only chance.\nNevertheless I leave the choice in your own hands. Only remember\nyou must decide at once.\"\n\n\"The cliff, then, be it!\" said Nellie, with white lips but\nflashing eyes. \"God is more merciful than man. He will save us,\nperhaps; if not, his will be done--not mine. I will trust\nentirely to him--entirely to him and you.\"\n\nAlmost ere she had finished speaking, Roger had undone the rope\nwhich he carried round his waist, and was looking eagerly about\nhim for some means of securing it in such a way as to make it\nuseful to Nellie in her descent. Fortunately for his purpose, a\nthorny tree had planted itself, some hundreds of years before, in\na fissure of the rocks so close to the walls of the tower that,\nold, and gray, and stunted, as it now was, its roots had in all\nprobability penetrated beneath their broad foundation, and were\nquite as firmly settled in the ground. Upon this Roger pounced at\nonce, and having tried it sufficiently to make tolerably sure of\nits powers of endurance, he passed one end of his rope round the\nthickest and lowest portions of the stem, and made it fast with a\nsailor's knot.\n{590}\nThe other end he threw over the cliff, and then watched its fall\nwith a terrible, silent fear at his heart lest it should prove\nshorter than his need required. Down it went and down, and he\nstooped over to mark its progress until Nellie felt sick with\nfear, and turned away to avoid the giddiness which she knew would\nbe fatal to them both.\n\nAt last she heard him say, \"Thank God, it has reached the\nplatform!\" Then he turned round and anxiously scanned her\nfeatures.\n\n\"Nellie,\" he said, \"this thing is difficult, but not impossible.\nI have seen you bound like a deer down cliffs almost as steep, if\nnot so high. The great, the only real peril, is in the eyesight.\nLot's wife perished by a look. You must promise me neither to\nglance up nor down, but to keep your eyes fixed on the rocks\nbefore you. Hold well by the rope; take it hand over hand like a\nsailor, (I remember that you know the trick;) and leave the rest\nto me. There is really a path, though you can hardly see it from\nthis spot; and there are chinks and crevices besides, in which\nyou will easily find footing. You must feel for them as you\ndescend; and when you are at a loss, I shall be below to help\nyou. Neither will you be quite alone, for I am going to fasten\nyou by this cord, so that, if you should happen to let go, I may\nperhaps be able to support you.\"\n\n\"My God!\" said Nellie, white with terror, as he passed a strong,\nlight cord, first round her waist and then his own, in such a way\nthat there was length sufficient to enable them to act\nindependently of each other, while, at the same time, neither\ncould have fallen without almost to a certainty insuring the\ndestruction of both. \"My God, I cannot consent to this. Go by\nyourself; my fall would kill you.\"\n\n\"But you will not fall--you shall not fall,\" he pleaded\nanxiously, \"if only you will abide by my directions.\"\n\n\"Go alone, I do beseech you!\" she answered, with a shiver. \"You\ncannot save me, and I shall but insure your destruction with my\nown.\"\n\n\"Nay, then, I give it up,\" he answered, almost sullenly. \"We will\nstay here and die together, for never shall it be said of an\nO'More that, in seeking safety for himself, he left a woman thus\nto perish.\"\n\n\"Then, in God's name, let us try!\" said Nellie; \"only tell me\nwhat to do, and I will do it--if I can.\"\n\n\"Hold fast the rope, that is all. Never let one hand go until the\nother has grasped it firmly, and leave the rest to me. I will\nhelp to place your feet in safe resting-places as we go down.\nOnly trust me, and all will yet be well.\"\n\n\"I will trust to you and to God, and our Lady,\" said Nellie,\nunconsciously repeating the password of the morning. Her color\nwas rising fast, and her eyes had begun to sparkle with\nexcitement. O'More seized the propitious moment, and, almost\nbefore Nellie knew it, she had begun her perilous descent.\n\n\"Are you steady now--quite steady?\" he asked, in as low a voice\nas if he feared to startle the air with motion by speaking\nlouder. Yes! with the natural instinct of a mountain climber\nNellie had already found a rough indented spot in which her foot\nwas firmly planted, and he descended a step lower. Thus inch by\ninch they went, Nellie ever clinging to the rope, and O'More\nguiding her descent with a success he had hardly looked for, and\nwhich he felt to be almost miraculous.\n{591}\nHis heart at last beat high with hope; for he saw by the distance\nwhich they had descended that they must be nearing a sort of\nshelf or platform formed by a sudden bulging out of the lower\nstrata of the cliffs, and he knew that they were safe if they\ncould only reach that spot, the rest of the path being so well\nmarked that, even without his aid, Nellie could easily have found\nher way from thence to the sands beneath.\n\nBut the surge of the sea boomed louder and louder as she\napproached it, and at last, fairly forgetting Roger's caution,\nshe turned her head a little, and glanced downward. Then, for the\nfirst time, she became fully conscious of the terrible position\nshe occupied, suspended as it seemed by a very thread between\nearth and sky, and with the great, deep, awful ocean rolling\nhundreds of feet below her. Her head swam, her eyesight failed\nher, she had just enough presence of mind left to grasp the rope\nfirmly by both hands, when, feeling as if her senses were utterly\ndeserting her, she cried out:\n\n\"O my God, I am going! Save me, Roger, I am going!\"\n\n\"No, no!\" he cried, in agony, for he knew only too well the\ndanger of the thought. \"Hold fast--hold on; for Christ's dear\nsake, hold on! One step--two steps more, and you are safe.\nThere!\" he cried, in a voice hoarse with emotion, as he felt his\nown foot touch the platform; and seizing Nellie by the waist, he\ndrew her, hardly conscious of what he was doing, by main strength\nto his side. \"There, oh! thank God--thank God, you are safe at\nlast!\"\n\nHe was just in time. Nellie had that very moment let go the rope,\nand if he had not caught her, would inevitably have been dashed\nto pieces on the rocks below. As it was, he landed her safely and\ngently on the ledge where he himself was standing, and without\nventuring to loose her entirely from his grasp, laid her down,\nthat she might recover from her nervous panic.\n\n\"You are safe,\" he kept repeating, as if it required the\nassurance of his own voice to make certain of the fact. \"You are\nsafe!\" and then with an instinctive yet entirely unacknowledged\nconsciousness on his part, that _his_ own safety might\nperhaps be at least a portion of her care, he added--\"we are safe\nnow. You can stay here until you are quite yourself again; only\ndo not look up or down--at least not just yet, not until the\ngiddiness is gone. You forgot Lot's wife, or this never would\nhave happened.\"\n\nNellie was not insensible, though she looked so. She only felt as\nif she were in a dream. She understood perfectly all that Roger\nsaid; the shadow even of a smile seemed to pass over her white\nlips as he alluded to Lot's wife; but his voice fell with a\nmuffled sound, as if it came from a great distance, on her ear;\nand earth, and sky, and cliff, and ocean, all seemed blending and\nfloating in a wild fantasy through her brain. By degrees,\nhowever, a sort of awakening seemed to creep over her, but she\ndid not use it at first either to look up or speak. Possibly she\nfelt that words would be powerless to express her thoughts, and\nwas glad of any excuse for silence. Roger did not like to hurry\nher, and he therefore employed the next few minutes in scanning\nthe sea in search of Henrietta. She was there, exactly in the\nplace in which he had bidden her to wait for him; but she was\nwatching the burning tower overhead, and had evidently very\nlittle notion that any of its victims had escaped. From the spot\nwhere he was standing, he could easily have made her hear him;\nbut fearing that his voice might rouse up some hidden foe, he\nturned to Nellie for assistance.\n\n{592}\n\n\"Have you a handkerchief,\" he asked, \"or anything of that kind\nwhich you could give me for a signal?\"\n\nWithout answering, without even looking up, (so obedient had she\ngrown, poor Nellie!) she untied the scarlet kerchief, which, in\nher harmless vanity, she had that morning thrown over her head\nand knotted beneath her chin, as the last thing wanting to her\ncostume of a native girl, and gave it into Roger's hand. He waved\nit for some time without success; but at last Henrietta saw it,\nand began to row vigorously into shore.\n\n\"Now you may look,\" cried Roger joyfully, helping Nellie to stand\nup; \"now you may look; for you will see nothing but what it is\ngood for you to see. Henrietta Hewitson is waiting for us in the\nboat below, and the sooner we leave this resting-place the\nbetter.\"\n\n\"Henrietta Hewitson!\" cried Nellie, roused effectually to life\nagain by the mention of her name. \"His daughter! How kind, how\nnoble! Shall we not go to her at once?\"\n\n\"If you are able,\" he answered. \"The rest of the way is\neasy--easier far than the cliffs of Clare Island, which you\nclimbed with me yesterday.\"\n\n\"Easy! oh! yes, surely it is easy,\" cried Nellie wildly. \"O my\nmother--my mother!\" she sobbed, with a little gasp; \"I shall see\nher once again--and my grandfather! the poor old man will not be\nleft desolate, after all.\"\n\nRoger saw that she was growing every moment more and more\nexcited, and he cut the matter short by carrying her down to the\nbeach and laying her in the boat, as if she had been a baby.\nHenrietta received her with a look of remorse, as if she felt\nthat she herself must seem, somehow or other, responsible in\nNellie's eyes for the pain and misery she had been enduring for\nthe last few hours; and while she wrapt her tenderly and\naffectionately in a cloak taken from her own shoulders, Roger\nsent the boat, by a few vigorous strokes of the oar, to a safe\ndistance from the rocks near which they had embarked. This\nmanoeuvre placed them in full view of the burning tower, and he\ndropped his oar and gazed upon it as if irresistibly attracted by\nthe spectacle. The body of the church was by this time a\nsmouldering heap of ruins, but the tower, wrapt in its terrible\nrobes of fire, still stood bravely up as if in defiance of its\ncoming doom. For a single second it remained thus, unyielding and\napparently uninjured, than it began visibly to totter. Another\nmoment, and it was swaying backward and forward like a leaf in an\nautumn storm; and yet another, and, as if in a last wild effort\nto escape from the flames that swathed it, it plunged right over\nthe cliffs, the fragments of its ruined walls crashing and\ncrumbling from rock to rock till they fell with a roar like\nthunder into the waters underneath. Both girls, at the first\nsymptom of the catastrophe impending, had instinctively shut\ntheir eyes; but Roger, on the contrary, looked on as steadily as\nif he were keeping a count of every falling stone in order to set\nit down in his debt of vengeance against those who had done the\ndeed. Not a syllable, however, did he utter, until the last stone\nhad fallen, and the last fiery gleam disappeared from the cliff;\nbut then, as if unable any longer to endure in silence, he threw\nup his arms toward heaven, and exclaimed:\n\n{593}\n\n\"Men, women, and children all sent before their time to judgment!\nO God! what punishment hast Thou reserved in this world or the\nnext that shall be heavy enough for such a deed as this!\"\n\n\"Curse me not--curse not!\" cried Henrietta, with anguish in her\nvoice, \"The doom, God knows, is heavy enough already.\"\n\n\"Curse _you!_\" said the astonished Roger, \"_you_, to\nwhom I owe more than my own life a thousand times. Nay, Mistress\nHenrietta, what madness has made you fear it?\"\n\n\"I fear! I fear! Why should I not?\" sobbed Henrietta. \"The sin of\nthe parents shall be visited on the children, and he is my\nfather, after all!\"\n\n\"Your father! _your_ father!\" Roger muttered, trying to keep\ndown the storm of passion that was choking him. \"Well, well, he\nis, as you say, _your_ father, and so I must perforce be\nsilent.\"\n\n\"Alas! alas!\" Henrietta pleaded, \"if you did but know the\ncompleteness of his religious mania, you would also comprehend\nhow easily a man, merciful in all things else, can in this one\nthing be merciless.\"\n\n\"Nay,\" said Roger bitterly; \"it needs, I think, no great stretch\nof intellect to understand it thoroughly. A man, fresh from the\nsiege of Tredagh, where children were dashed from the\nbattlements, lest, 'like nits, they should become troublesome if\nsuffered to increase,' will, doubtless, merely consider the\nholocaust of human life which lies buried beneath yonder ruins as\na whole burnt-offering, smelling sweet in the nostrils of the\nLord, which he, as his high-priest, has been deputed to offer\nup.\"\n\nHe broke off suddenly, for a hand was laid upon his arm, and a\nwhite face lifted pleadingly to his. \"Speak not thus of her\nfather,\" whispered Nellie. \"Speak not thus; see how she is\nweeping!\"\n\n\"Her tears are his best plea for mercy, then,\" said he in a\ngentler tone, and seizing the oars, he began to row as vigorously\nas if he hoped to quiet his boiling spirit by the mere fact of\nbodily exhaustion. Nellie made no answer, and silence fell upon\nthem all.\n\nThe deed just done was not of a nature lightly to be forgotten,\nand they went quietly on their way, as people will, upon whom the\nshadow of a great terror still hangs heavily. Just, however, as\nthey entered the harbor of Clare Island, Nellie caught sight of a\nwell-known figure, and uttered a cry of joy. It was Hamish, and,\nin her impatience, she scarcely waited until the boat was\nfastened ere she was at his side. But there was no gladness in\nhis eye as he turned to greet her. He was deadly pale, and his\nleft arm hung powerless at his side. Nellie saw nothing of this\nat first, however, she was thinking so entirely of her mother.\n\n\"Is she come, dear Hamish?\" she cried. \"Where is she?\"\n\n\"In Dublin,\" he answered curtly.\n\n\"In Dublin--and you here?\" cried Nellie in dismay.\n\n\"Because she sent me,\" he replied.\n\n\"What is it, Hamish? What is it?\" faltered Nellie, struggling\nwith a sense of some new and terrible misfortune impending over\nher.\n\n\"She is sore sick--sick even unto death,\" Hamish reluctantly\nreplied. He could not bring himself to utter the terrible truth\nas yet.\n\nNellie stood for a moment mute with terror. She read upon her\nfoster-brother's face that worse news than even this was about to\nfollow; but when she would have asked what it was, courage and\nvoice completely failed her. She knew it, however, soon enough.\nFrom his seat by the door of the tower, Lord Netterville had\ncaught a glimpse of Hamish, and came down at once to greet him.\nExcitement seemed for one brief moment to have restored all his\nfaculties, and he cried out eagerly:\n\n{594}\n\n\"You here, good Hamish! I am heartily glad to see you! And what\nnews bring you from Netterville? How goes my lady daughter? Ill,\ndo you say--sore stricken? Nay, man, remember that she is still\nbut young. It cannot surely be an illness unto death?\"\n\n\"Yea, but it is, my lord,\" said Hamish, speaking almost roughly\nin his agony. \"Death, and nothing short of death, as surely as\nthat I am here to say it.\"\n\n\"Art thou a prophet?\" asked Roger, bending his dark brows upon\nhim, and half tempted to suspect a snare. \"Art thou a prophet,\nthat thou darest to speak thus confidently of the future?\"\n\n\"Sir,\" said Hamish, driven at last beyond his patience, and\nhardly knowing how to break his news more gently, \"it needs not\nto be a prophet to foresee that the widow of a royalist and a\nCatholic to boot, shut up in prison and condemned on a false\ncharge of murder, is in danger--nay, said I danger?--and is as\ncertain of her doom as if she were already in her coffin.\"\n\nNellie uttered a wild cry, the first and last that escaped her\nlips that day, and Lord Netterville repeated faintly, \"Murder!\"\n\n\"Ay, murder; and in another week she dies,\" Hamish answered, now\ndesperate as to the consequences of his revelation.\n\nNellie turned short round toward Roger:\n\n\"I must go!\" she said. \"I must go at once.\"\n\n\"Of course you must,\" he answered, in that helpful tone which had\nso often that morning already reassured her.\n\n\"She has sent me hither to conduct you,\" Hamish--with some latent\njealousy of the interference of a stranger--was beginning, when,\nunable any longer to conceal the bodily anguish he was enduring,\nhe uttered a moan of pain, and leaned back against the low wall\nof the pier.\n\nThen for the first time Nellie looked into his face, and saw that\nhe was as white as ashes.\n\n\"My God! my God!\" she cried in her perplexity. \"What is to become\nof us? He is dying too.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" Hamish mustered his failing strength to answer, \"It is\nnothing. They shot at me as I took boat from the beach, and hit\nme in the arm; but it is not broken, and if only I could stop the\nbleeding, I should be well enough to start at once.\"\n\nBut he grew paler and paler as he spoke, and the blood gushed in\ntorrents from his arm, as he tried to lift it for their\ninspection. Roger shouted to Norah to bring down a cordial from\nthe tower, and he then helped Nellie and Henrietta in their\nnervous and not very efficient endeavors to check the bleeding\nwith their kerchiefs. Hamish was by this time well-nigh\ninsensible, but a cup of wine revived him, and having ascertained\nthat he was merely suffering from a flesh-wound, Roger sent back\nNorah to rummage out some bandages which he remembered were among\nhis soldier stores. With these he stanched the blood, and\ncarefully bound up the wounded arm, assuring Nellie at the same\ntime that her faithful follower was merely suffering from loss of\nblood, and that in a few days he would be as well again as ever.\nNellie must be forgiven if at that moment she had no thought\nexcepting for her mother.\n\n\"A few days,\" she cried despairingly; \"then I must go back alone;\nfor my mother will be dead by that time.\"\n\n{595}\n\nHamish did not hear her. He was leaning back in that half-dreamy\nstate which often follows upon loss of blood; but Roger answered\ninstantly:\n\n\"You shall go at once; but certainly not alone.\" He turned round\nto look for Lord Netterville; the poor old man had sunk upon the\nground, and in his helplessness and perplexity was weeping like a\nchild.\n\n\"Lord Netterville!\" said Roger suddenly.\n\nLord Netterville dashed the tears from his eyes, and looked up\nanxiously in the young man's face.\n\n\"Lord Netterville,\" Roger repeated, giving him his hand and\nhelping him to stand up, \"you see how the case stands; your\ngranddaughter must go to her mother, and go at once. Any delay\nwere fatal. This poor fellow is totally unable to accompany her.\nWill you trust her to my care? I swear to you that she shall be\nas dear and precious to me as a sister, and that I will watch\nover her and wait upon her as if I were in very deed her\nbrother.\"\n\nWith a look of relief and confidence that was touching to behold,\nthe old man wrung the hand which Roger gave him, and then\nsilently turned toward Nellie. Roger did did not ask her if she\nwould accept him as an escort; he felt that after the events of\nthe morning she would need no protestations of loyalty at his\nhand, and merely said:\n\n\"In two hours we can start; but I shall have to go first to the\nmainland to look for horses.\"\n\n\"Nay, that shall be my business,\" said Henrietta suddenly. \"In\ntwo hours hence, at the foot of the round tower, you will find\nthem waiting; and I will bring you at the same time a letter to a\nfriend, who may, I think, prove useful to you in Dublin. Follow\nme not now,\" she added in a tone that admitted of no reply, as\nRoger made a movement as if he would have gone with her to the\nboat, \"follow me not now; I can best arrange matters if I go\nalone; but in two hours hence I shall expect you.\"\n\n\n    Chapter XIII.\n\nHenrietta was as good as her word, and, thanks to her energy and\nkindness, Nellie, with Roger for an escort, was enabled to\ncommence her journey that very afternoon, both she and her\ncompanion being mounted upon good swift steeds, which the young\nEnglish girl had made no scruple of abstracting for the purpose\nfrom her father's stable. She had done even more than this; for\nshe had conquered her pride and petulance sufficiently to write a\nletter to Major Ormiston, in which she entreated him, by the love\nhe once professed to bear her, to do all he could for Nellie, and\nto procure her every facility for access to her mother. This she\nhad given to Roger, hinting to him at the same time that her\ncorrespondent was high in favor of the Lord Deputy, and might\npossibly be able to induce the latter to commute the sentence of\ndeath hanging over Mrs. Netterville into one of fine or\nimprisonment, even if he could not or would not grant her a full\npardon. Of this hope, however, Roger said not a syllable to\nNellie, fearful, if it should come to naught, of adding the\nbitterness of disappointment to the terrible measure of misery\nwhich in that case would be her portion.\n\nThe journey to Dublin was a difficult and a long one, and if\nNellie had been allowed to act according to her own wishes, she\nwould probably have used up both herself and her horse long\nbefore she had reached its end.\n{596}\nFortunately, however, for the accomplishment of her real object,\nRoger took a more exact measure of the strength of both than,\nunder the circumstances, she was capable of doing for herself,\nand he insisted every night upon her seeking a few hours' repose\nin any habitation, however poor, which presented itself for the\npurpose.\n\nWith this precaution, and supported also in some measure by the\nvery excitement of her misery, Nellie bore up bravely against the\ninevitable fatigues and discomforts of the journey. The horses,\nhowever, proved less untiring. In spite of Roger's best care and\ngrooming, both at last began to show symptoms of distress, and\nthey were a long day's journey yet from Dublin when it became\nevident to him that his own in particular was failing rapidly.\nHenrietta had chosen it chiefly for its quality of speed; but it\nwas too light for a tall and powerfully-built man like Roger; and\nmore than once that day he had been compelled to dismount, and\nproceed at a walking pace, in order to allow it to recover\nitself. Night was rapidly closing in, and Nellie, who,\npreoccupied by her own anxieties, had not as yet remarked the\nstate of the poor animal, ventured to remonstrate with Roger upon\nthe slowness of their proceedings. Then for the first time he\npointed out to her the exhaustion of their steeds, acknowledging\nhis conviction that his own in particular was in a dying state,\nand that two hours more, if he survived so long, would be the\nutmost measure of the work that he could expect him to\naccomplish. Nellie was for a moment in despair, and then a bold\nthought struck her--why not ride straight for Netterville? They\nhad been for some hours in the country of the Pale, and they\ncould not be very far from her old home now. Every feature in the\nlandscape was becoming more and more familiar to her eyes, and\nshe was certain that, in less than the two hours which Roger had\nassigned as the utmost limit of his steed's endurance, they would\nhave reached her native valley. Once there, they would not only\nbe in the direct road to Dublin, but they would also have a\nbetter chance of finding horses than they could have in a place\nwhere they were entirely unknown. Netterville, it was true, was\nnow wholly and entirely, with its fields and stock, in the hands\nof the Parliamentarians; but she was certain of the fidelity of\nthe poor people there, and as certain as she was of her own\nexistence, not only that they would not betray her, but that they\nwould also do all they could to help and speed her on her way.\nThe plan seemed feasible; at all events, no other presented\nitself at the moment to Roger's mind, and accordingly, after\nhaving done all he could to relieve his horse, and prepare him\nfor a fresh spurt, they struck right across the country eastward\ntoward the sea. Nellie proved right in her conjectures. In even\nless than two hours from the moment in which they started, they\nreached the valley of Netterville--reached it, in fact, just in\ntime; for Roger had barely leaped from his horse's back ere the\npoor animal was rolling on the turf in the agonies of death.\nNellie then proposed that they should walk to the cottage of old\nGrannie, and dismounted in her turn. Her horse was not so\nexhausted as that of Roger, nevertheless it was even then unfit\nfor work, and would in all probability be still more so on the\nmorrow. Roger therefore thought it better to leave it to its fate\nthan to run the risk of attracting notice by bringing it with\nthem to Grannie's habitation.\n{597}\nHe hoped, as Nellie did, that they would have a good chance of\nfinding fresh steeds at Netterville next morning; and after\ncarefully hiding the two saddles in a clump of gorse, they set\nout on their way on foot. The old woman received Nellie with a\ncry of joy. No sooner, however, did the latter mention the\nbusiness which had brought her there, than the faithful creature\nstifled all her gladness at this unexpected meeting with her\nfoster-child, and turned to weep in good and sorrowful earnest\nover the woe and shame impending upon the house of Netterville,\nin the person of its unhappy mistress. While Nellie ate, or tried\nto eat, the simple fare set before her by her hostess, Roger told\nthe latter of the fate which had befallen their horses, and\ninquired as to the possibility of replacing them by fresh ones.\nGrannie shook her head despondingly. Royalists and\nParliamentarians alternately, she said, had seized upon every\navailable horse they could find in the country, until, as far as\nshe knew, there was not a \"garran\" fit for a two hours' journey\nwithin ten miles of Netterville. As to Netterville itself, if\nthere _were_ any horses left in its stables, (which she\ndoubted,) they must of necessity belong to the English soldier to\nwhose lot, in the drawing of the debentures, the castle and its\ngrounds had fallen; much, the old woman added with a chuckle, to\nthe disgust of the officer who commanded them at the time of the\nrecent murder, and who, having coveted the place exceedingly for\nhimself, was supposed to have pressed the matter heavily against\nMrs. Netterville for the facilitating of his own selfish wish.\n\nRoger listened to all this in silence, privately resolving to\nrisk his own detention, if discovered, as an outlaw, and to visit\nthe stable of Netterville next morning, in hopes of procuring a\nfresh mount. As nothing, however, could be done till then, he\nentreated Nellie to lie down and rest, after which he left the\nhut, there not being a second chamber in it, and throwing himself\non a bank of heather on the outside, was soon fast asleep. It was\nlong before Nellie could follow his example, but at last she fell\ninto that state of dreamless stupor which often, in cases of\nextreme exhaustion, takes the place of healthy slumber. Such as\nit was, at all events, it was rest--rest of body and rest of\nmind--a truce to the aching of weary limbs, and to the yet more\nintolerable weariness of a mind, wincing and shivering beneath a\ncoming woe. The first gleam of daylight roused her from it. There\nwas never any pleasant twilight now, between sleeping and waking,\nin Nellie's mind! With the first gleam of consciousness came ever\nthe pale image of her mother, and there was neither rest nor\nsleep for her after that. In the present instance, anxiety as to\nthe chance of being able to prosecute her journey at all, was\nadded to her other troubles; and, unable to endure suspense upon\nsuch a vital point even for a moment, she opened the door\nquietly, so as not to disturb old Granny, and looked out for\nRoger. He was nowhere to be seen, and she guessed at once that he\nhad gone up to the castle. Then a longing seized her to look once\nmore upon the old place where she had been so happy formerly;\nand, without giving herself time to waver, she walked hurriedly\nup the valley. She did not, however, venture to the front of the\nhouse, but resolved instead to take a path which, skirting round\nit, would lead her to the offices behind.\n{598}\nIt was, by one of those strange accidents which we call chance,\nbut for which the angels perhaps have quite another name, the\nvery path which her mother had always taken when visiting the\nsick soldier. The door of the room which he had occupied was\nslightly ajar as Nellie passed it; and, moved by an impulse for\nwhich she could never afterward thoroughly account, she pushed it\nopen without noise, and entered. The room was not uninhabited, as\nshe had at first supposed. A woman, evidently in the last stage\nof some mortal malady, lay stretched upon the bed, and a soldier\nof the Cromwellian type was seated with an open Bible in his hand\nbeside her. He had probably been employed either in reading or\nexhorting, but at the moment when Nellie entered, it was the\nwoman who was speaking.\n\n\"I tell you, soldier!\" Nellie heard her querulously murmur--\"I\ntell you, soldier, it is mere waste of breath, your preaching. So\nlong as that woman's death lies heavy on my soul, so long I can\nlook for nothing better in the next world than hell.\"\n\nAt that very moment Nellie noiselessly advanced, and stood in\nsilence at the foot of the bed.\n\nThe woman recognized her at once, and with a wild shriek flung\nherself out of the bed at her feet. The girl recoiled in horror\nand dismay. She had learned the whole story of her mother's\ncondemnation from Hamish ere she left Clare Island.\n\n\"Murderess of my mother!\" she cried, in a voice hoarse with\nanguish. \"Dare not to lay hands upon her daughter.\"\n\n\"Mercy! mercy!\" cried the woman, grovelling on the ground, and\nseeking with her white shrunken fingers to lay hold of the hem of\nNellie's garment. \"Mercy! mercy!\"\n\n\"Where shall I find mercy for my mother?\" Nellie asked, as white\nas ashes, and shaking from head to foot in the agony of her\nstruggle between conscience and resentment--the one urging her to\nforgive her foe, the other to leave her to her fate. \"Where shall\nI find mercy for my mother?\"\n\n\"You see, soldier--you see,\" moaned the poor wretch upon the\nfloor, \"the daughter cannot pardon me; why then should God?\"\n\n\"What would you have?\" cried Nellie, almost maddened by the\nmental conflict. \"What would you have? I cannot cure you. What\ncan I do?\"\n\n\"You can forgive,\" the woman answered feebly; \"then perhaps God\nwill pardon also.\"\n\n\"O my God! my God! give me strength and grace sufficient!\" cried\nNellie; and then, by an effort of almost superhuman charity, she\nstooped, put her arms round the dying creature's neck, and kissed\nher.\n\nThe woman uttered a cry of joy, and fell back heavily out of\nNellie's arms. A long silence followed.\n\nNellie looked at the dead, white face, lying quietly on the floor\nbeside her, and felt as if she were dying also, so utterly did\nher senses seem to fail her, and so dead and numbed were all her\nfaculties in the heavy strain that had been put upon them. A hand\nwas laid at last upon her shoulder. Nellie started violently. She\nhad totally forgotten even the existence of the soldier.\n\n\"Nay, fear not, maiden, nor yet grieve inordinately,\" he said, in\na voice of mingled pity and admiration. \"Thou hast acted in all\nthis business (I am bound to bear testimony to the truth) in a\nway worthy of thy mother's daughter.\"\n\n\"Thank God, at least, that I forgave her,\" Nellie murmured\nbeneath her breath, scarce conscious of what he was saying.\n\n{599}\n\n\"Nay, and in very deed,\" he answered, \"thy presence here has been\na crowning and a saving mercy for the poor wretch whom we have\nseen expire. Ever since I found her here last night, dying alone\nand in despair, I have been striving for her with the Lord, and\npraying and exhorting, but, as it seemed to me, all in vain,\nuntil thy kiss of peace fell like a balm more precious even than\nthat of Gilead on her soul, and restored it, I cannot doubt, (for\nI saw a light as of exceeding gladness settle upon her dying\nfeatures,) restored it to long banished peace.\"\n\n\"Thank God that he gave me grace to do it!\" Nellie once more\nwhispered. It seemed as if she were powerless to think of aught\nbesides.\n\n\"They who do mercy shall in due time find it!\" rejoined the\nsoldier, putting a small scrap of written paper into her hand.\n\"In this very room thy mother tended me, when my own comrades had\ndeserted me, fearing the infection; in this very room yonder\nwoman, having been expelled the other portions of the mansion,\nsince order has been taken for the separation of God's elect from\nthe sinful daughters of the land, took up her abode some three\ndays since; and in this very room I last night found her, dying\nof the malady of which, but for thy mother's care, I must have\nalso perished, and so moved by the prospect of eternal\nretribution which lay before her, that she of her own accord did\ndictate, and did suffer me to write down on the spot, a full\nconfession of her own guilt in the matter of the murdered\nTomkins, She told me then--and many times afterward in the course\nof the long night she did continue to aver it--that she herself\nit was who did the deed for which Mrs. Netterville stands\ncondemned to die; she having, in a drunken squabble. seized the\nman's pistol and shot him dead upon the spot. And she furthermore\navowed, with unspeakable groanings and many tears, that,\nterrified at the consequences of her own act, and moved besides\nby a fiendish desire of vengeance against thy mother, who had in\nsome way unwittingly, in times past, offended her, she not only\naccused her of the murder, but maintained that accusation\nafterward upon oath when examined before the High Court of\nCommissioners in Dublin. Now then, maiden, rise up and speed. Thy\nmother's life is in thy hands; for with that paper, writ and\nwitnessed by one who, however humble, is not altogether unknown\nas a zealous soldier in the camp of Israel--with that paper, I\nsay, to attest her innocence, they must of a certainty\nacknowledge it, and let her go.\"\n\n\"How shall I thank thee, O my God!\" cried Nellie, scarcely able\nto believe her ears that she had heard the soldier rightly.\n\n\"It is good to praise God always,\" he replied sententiously, \"but\nat this moment briefly. Thy present care must be to get to Dublin\nwith what speed thou mayest.\"\n\n\"Alas!\" said Nellie, \"how shall I get there? I have ridden day\nand night ever since I heard this unhappy news, and only\nyesterday evening our horses were so knocked up, that I and my\ncompanion had to find our way hither as best we could on foot.\"\n\n\"There are but two horses in these stables, and neither of them\nare mine to offer,\" said the soldier, evidently distressed and\nanxious at the dilemma in which his _prot\u00e9g\u00e9e_ was placed.\n\"Nevertheless, and the Lord aiding me in my endeavors, I will do\nwhat I can. Come with me to the courtyard--I doubt not but thou\nknowest the way well enough already.\"\n\n{600}\n\nYes, indeed! poor Nellie knew it well enough, and at any other\ntime she might have wept at revisiting on so sad an errand a spot\nhitherto pleasantly associated in her mind with many a childish\nfrolic, and many a petted animal, the favorites of the days gone\nby. Just now, however, she had no inclination to dwell on the\nmemories of the past. Joy at the proved innocence of her mother,\nand a wild fear lest she herself should arrive too late in Dublin\nto allow of her profiting by the disclosure, filled her whole\nsoul, and left no room there for sentimental sorrows. She found\nRoger already in the yard, engaged in hot discussion with an\nofficer of the English army, a coal-black charger, which the\nlatter was holding carelessly by the bridle, being the apparent\nobject of the dispute.\n\n\"Ay,\" muttered her conductor, as he glanced toward the group; \"it\nis, I see, even as I suspected, and I shall have to pay dearly\nfor Black Cromwell.\" Then leaving Nellie a little in the\nbackground, he went up to the English officer and said:\n\n\"Here is an unhappy maiden, Captain Rippel, bound upon an errand\nof life and death, and sorely in need of a good steed to bear\nher. The fate of a grave, God-fearing woman, even of Mistress\nNetterville herself, the late owner of this mansion, is dependent\non her speed, and, had I twenty horses in the stable, as I have\nnot one, I declare unto thee as God liveth and seeth, that she\nshould have her choice among them all.\"\n\n\"Yea, and undoubtedly,\" the other answered with a sneer.\n\"Nevertheless, since it is even as thou sayest, and that thou\nhast them not, I fear me, good master sergeant, that this young\ndaughter of Moab, who has been lucky enough to find favor in your\neyes, will be none the better for your good intentions.\"\n\n\"Sir, if you be a man--a gentleman--you cannot, you will not\nrefuse!\" cried the indignant Roger. \"Consider, this young lady is\nhere a suppliant where once she dwelt the honored mistress of the\nmansion, and you cannot of a surety say nay! Remember it is no\ngift we crave, for this purse contains double the value of your\nsteed, strong and of admirable breeding as undoubtedly he is.\"\n\nHe held up a purse as he spoke, the parting gift of Henrietta,\nfrom whom, however, he had accepted it merely as a loan, to be\nafterward repaid in some of the most valuable of the articles yet\nleft him in his tower. It was well filled and heavy; but with a\nlittle smile of scorn the officer waved it quietly on one side.\n\n\"And how am I to be certified, I pray you, that this young\nmaiden--who seems to have cast witchcraft on you both--is in\nreality Mistress Netterville, or any other indeed than a base\nimpostor?\" he asked with a most offensive leer. \"Scarce five days\nhave as yet elapsed since I came hither, sent by the Lord High\nDeputy himself, to put order in this garrison, and to separate\nthe elect of God from the sinful daughters of the land, and--\"\n\n\"Sir, do you dare!\" cried Roger, suddenly cutting short his\nspeech; and, raising his hand, he would have struck him to the\nground if the soldier had not placed himself hastily between\nthem, saying in a monitory tone to Roger:\n\n\"If thou wouldst not destroy the young maiden's hopes altogether,\nsir, leave this affair to me. Another look or word of thine, and\nit will utterly miscarry.\"\n\n{601}\n\nRoger felt the man was right. It was not by violence or angry\nwords that he could best serve Nellie. He checked himself at\nonce, therefore, and fell back, while the soldier said quietly to\nhis superior officer:\n\n\"Thou hast not, peradventure, captain, forgotten the offer which\nthou didst make to me some three days since, when first the way\nin which the Lord had disposed of our lots was made known to us\nat Netterville?\"\n\n\"Forgotten--no, in sooth--not I!\" the other answered roughly.\n\"Nor have I forgotten either with what manifest folly and\ningratitude thou didst reject it; better though it was by a\nhundred pieces of good gold, than that which one of thy comrades\ndidst thankfully accept from Major Pepper.\"\n\n\"Throw Black Cromwell and the white mare Daylight into the\nbargain, and I accept,\" the soldier answered quietly.\n\n\"What, part with Black Cromwell? Black Cromwell, who hath carried\nme unhurt through more battles than David himself ever fought\nagainst the Philistines?\" the officer demanded with well-affected\nastonishment. \"Verily and indeed, master sergeant, thou art, as I\ndo perceive, notwithstanding thy good odor for most punctilious\nsanctity--thou art, I say, but an extortioner after all. Had it\nbeen the mare alone, now, though she also is a very marvel for\nstrength and speed--I had never said thee nay; but to talk to me\nof parting with Black Cromwell is to prick me, so to speak, upon\nthe very apple of the eye.\"\n\n\"Nevertheless I have a fancy for him, and if I cannot get him, I\nwill still hold fast to Netterville, the inheritance which the\nLord himself hath of late assigned me in this new land of\npromise,\" the other steadily replied.\n\n\"There is the good horse. Battle of Worcester, he is stronger\nthan Black Cromwell, and would altogether suit the maiden\nbetter,\" his superior rejoined in a coaxing tone.\n\n\"Yea, but he hath an ugly trick of going lame ere the first mile\nis over,\" Sergeant Jackson responded with a knowing smile, and\nthen he added in a tone which was evidently intended to bring the\ndiscussion to an end, \"It will be all in vain to dispute this\nmatter any further. Captain Rippel. If you have in truth, as you\nseem to say, made up your mind to keep Black Cromwell for your\nown riding, I, on the other hand, am equally resolved not to part\nwith this house of Netterville, which will serve me well enough,\nI doubt not, as a residence, once I have brought my old mother\nhither to help me in its keeping.\"\n\n\"Nay, then, usurer, take the horse and thy money with it!\" cried\nthe officer, in a tone far less expressive of vexation than of\ntriumph at the result of the discussion. \"Take thy money and hand\nme over that debenture which, with the loss of such a charger as\nBlack Cromwell, is, I fear me, but too dearly purchased.\"\n\nWithout deigning to utter a single syllable in return, Sergeant\nJackson took the purse which the other in his affected\nindignation almost flung at his head, with one hand, while with\nthe other he drew forth from the breast-pocket of his coat a\npaper, being the identical debenture in question, and presented\nit to his officer. Captain Rippel snatched it hastily from him,\nran his eye over it to make sure that it was the right one, and\nthen, turning on his heel, sauntered out of the courtyard,\nwithout even condescending to glance toward the spot where Nellie\nstood anxiously awaiting the result.\n\n{602}\n\nSergeant Jackson instantly dived into one of the stables, and\nseizing a side-saddle, (Nellie's own saddle of the olden times,)\nhe led forth a strong, handsome mare, as white as milk, and began\nto saddle it in hot haste; while Roger, taking the hint, did the\nsame for Cromwell.\n\n\"I am afraid I have cost you very dear,\" Nellie said in a low,\ngrateful tone, as she stood beside the sergeant. \"Believe me, for\nnothing less than a mother's life would I have suffered you to\nmake such a sacrifice.\"\n\n\"Nay, maiden, call it not a sacrifice,\" he answered without\nlooking round, and giving a pull to the girths to make sure that\nthey were tight. \"Or if thou needs must think it one, remember\nthat, had not thy good mother saved my life, I should not have\nbeen here to make it.\"\n\nNellie's heart was too full to speak, and she suffered him to\nlift her in silence to her saddle. He settled her in it as\ncarefully and tenderly as if, instead of a simple soldier, he had\nbeen one of the old courtly race of cavaliers, from which she was\nherself descended, and then, with one last whispered word of\ngratitude for himself, and one last loving message for old\nGrannie, which he promised to deliver to her in person, Nellie\nrode forth from Netterville, and, without even giving it a\nfarewell glance, turned her horse's head toward Dublin.\n\n\n    Chapter XIV.\n\nThe city of Dublin, as it stood within its walls in the days of\nthe Protectorate, barely covered ground to the extent of an Irish\nmile, and was built entirely on the south side of the Liffey.\nThat side, therefore, only of the river was embanked by quays,\nand not even _that_ in its entirety; the space now occupied\nby the new custom-house and other buildings, to the extent of\nseveral thousand feet, being then mere ooze and swamp, kept thus\nby the continued overflowing of the tides.\n\nTo the north of the Liffey, however, there was a suburb, built,\nas time went on and the exigencies of an ever-increasing\npopulation required, outside the walls of the fortified city. It\nwas called \"Ostmantown,\" now \"Oxmantown,\" and occupied a very\ninsignificant space between Mary's Abbey and Church street;\nStoney Batter, Grange Gorman, and Glassmanogue, being merely\nvillages scattered here and there in the open country to a\nconsiderable distance northward. A bridge of very ancient date,\nthe bridge of \"Dubhgh-all,\" also at a later period styled the\n\"Old Bridge,\" formed the sole means of communication (except by\nboat) between the city and its northern suburb. Built upon four\narches, and closed in on the Dublin side by a strong gate-house\nwith turrets and portcullis, the Old Bridge, like all others of\nsimilar antiquity, was broad enough and strong enough to form a\nsort of street within itself; shops being erected upon either\nside, and traffic as busy and as eager there, as in the more\nlegitimate thoroughfares of the city.\n\nFrom Old Bridge men passed at once into Bridge street, (_Vicus\nPontis_ formerly,) a long, narrow thoroughfare, hemmed in on\none side by the city walls, and on the other by a tolerably\nhandsome row of houses. These houses were almost all built in the\ncage-work fashion of the days of Queen Elizabeth, and roofed in\nwith tiles and shingles. Many of them also possessed inscriptions\nwhich, cut deep into the wood above the doorway, stated the name\nand calling of the owner, with the addition frequently of some\npious sentiment or appropriate phrase from Scripture.\n{603}\nThis custom seems to have been a favorite one in Dublin, and in\nthe more antique portions of the city there existed houses, even\nto a very recent period of its history, upon which might still be\nread the names and occupations of the men who, more than two\nhundred years before, had resided within their walls.\n\nOn the day on which we are about to introduce Dublin to our\nreaders, there had been a considerable amount of stir and bustle\ngoing on among its inhabitants, and more especially among those\nof Bridge street. Rumors had, in fact, been rife since early dawn\nof an expected rising of the rebels (as the king's partisans were\nthen styled by their opponents) in the north; and men speculated\nin hope and fear, as their secret wishes moved them, on the\nprobability of the report. It received something like\nconfirmation in the afternoon, one or two regiments of recently\narrived English soldiers, armed from head to heel, and evidently\nready to go into action at a moment's notice, having been marched\nout of the city and sent northward. Later on in the day,\nmoreover, it became known that the Lord-Deputy himself, Henry\nCromwell, the best of Ireland's recent rulers, accompanied by a\nstrong escort, was proceeding in the same direction, and might be\nlooked for at any moment at the \"Ormond Gate,\" which shut out\nBridge street on the city side, just as the \"Gate-house\" closed\nit on that of the Old Bridge.\n\nBut if people stood at their doors and windows to do honor to the\ncoming of their king-deputy, there yet seemed to be another and\nstill stronger attraction for them at the end of the street\nopposite that by which he was expected to appear. Eyes were cast\nquite as often, though more furtively, in the direction of the\nOld Bridge as in that of the Ormond Gate; for, in the midst of\nother rumors, there had come a whisper, no one knew how or by\nwhom it had been first set agoing, that a person suspected of\nbelonging to the rebel party had just been arrested on the river,\nhaving attempted, by means of a boat, to elude the passage of the\nOld Bridge, and so penetrate unchallenged into the heart of the\ncity.\n\nThere followed, as a matter of course, much secret and some\nanxious speculation as to the rank and real object of the\narrested person, but no one ventured to make open inquiry into\nthe matter. Cromwell's brief reign of blood had stricken men dumb\nwith fear. To have shown the smallest interest in persons\nsuspected of belonging to the rebel party, would have been but to\nhave drawn down suspicion on themselves; and suspicion, in those\nhard times, was too nearly akin to condemnation to be heedlessly\nincurred. Instead, therefore, of going at once to the Gate-house\nand ascertaining the real facts of the case from its guardians,\npeople were content, while awaiting the appearance of the\nmilitary cavalcade from the castle, to question and conjecture\namong themselves as to the rank and real business of the arrested\nman. A flourish of trumpets before Ormond Gate put a stop at last\nto their gossipings. Heads and eyes, if not hearts and good\nwishes, were instantly turned in that direction; the gate was\nflung open, and Henry Cromwell, surrounded by a goodly company of\nofficers and private gentlemen, rode at a brisk pace through it.\nA moment afterward, and he had swept past all the gazers, and\npulled up opposite the Old Bridge. The guard at the Gate-house\ninstantly turned out to receive him, the portcullis was drawn up,\nand he was actually spurring his horse forward to the bridge,\nwhen a girl, in the habit of a western peasant, darted through\nthe soldiers and flung herself on her knees before him.\n{604}\nThe movement was so rapid and unexpected that, if the Lord-Deputy\nhad not reined up his steed until he nearly threw it on its\nhaunches, he must inevitably have ridden over her. A moment of\nsilent astonishment ensued. The girl herself uttered no cry, and\nsaid not a syllable as to the nature of her petition; but as she\nlifted up her head toward the Lord Henry, her hood, falling back\nupon her shoulders, revealed a face of ashy whiteness, and there\nwas a pleading, agonized expression in the dark eyes she raised\nto his, which told more than many words, of the inarticulate\nanguish of the soul within.\n\nHenry Cromwell was not of a nature to be harsh to any one, much\nless to a woman; but there had been information enough sent in to\nhim that morning to make him suspect a snare, and he turned\nsternly for explanation to the chief officer of the guard.\n\n\"What means this unseemly interruption, corporal?\" he asked, as\nthe latter was vainly endeavoring to induce Nellie to rise from\nher knees. \"Is this maiden a prisoner? or if not a prisoner, is\nshe distraught, that she thus ventures, bare-headed and dressed\nin such ungodly play-acting fashion, to rush into our very\npresence?\"\n\n\"A prisoner of only half-an-hour's standing is she, may it please\nyour excellency,\" the soldier answered promptly, \"she and her\ncompanion! They were seen attempting to cross the river in a boat\nborrowed from some of the natives on the other side, and as it\nseemed to me that their purpose must needs be seditious to demand\nsuch secrecy, I caused both to be apprehended, and have kept them\nhere to wait your honor's further directions in the matter.\"\n\n\"Ormiston,\" said the Lord-Deputy, turning to one of the younger\nof the group of officers behind him, \"remain you here, and\nexamine, with Corporal Holdfast, into this business. If there be\naught which seems important hid beneath this masquerading folly,\nfollow me at once to Glassmanogue, where I shall have business to\ndetain me for a couple of hours; but if it be only, as I do\nsuspect, the silly freak of a love-sick maiden, in that case I\nshall not look for you before to-morrow morning, when you will\nbring me, as I have explained already, the last despatches which\nmay have come from England.\"\n\nHaving thus somewhat summarily despatched poor Nellie's business,\nbut little dreaming of the great service he had done her in\nappointing young Ormiston her guardian, Henry Cromwell dashed\nover the bridge, and, followed instantly by his escort, galloped\nnorthward. The moment Nellie saw that her efforts to hold speech\nwith the Lord-Deputy himself would prove in vain, she had risen\nof her own accord, and, the hood once more drawn modestly over\nher head and face, had stood aside to let him pass, with a calm,\nsad dignity in her look and bearing which had its due effect upon\nthe rough soldier who had made her captive. He did not again\nattempt to touch, or even to address her, but standing near her\nsilently and respectfully, seemed to wait until of her own accord\nshe should return with him to the Gate-house. Thus unmolested,\nNellie forgot his existence altogether, and equally heedless of\nthe crowd, which, having gathered in the wake of the Lord-Deputy,\nwas now gazing curiously and compassionately upon her, she stood\nconsidering what her next move should be, when, in obedience to\nhis orders, Harry Ormiston\napproached her.\n\n{605}\n\nAs he took Corporal Holdfast's place beside her, Nellie lifted\nher eyes to his face, and recognized him instantly as the young\nofficer who had been riding with Henrietta on the day of their\nfirst meeting in the wilderness. A soft cry of joy escaped her\nlips, and Harry Ormiston broke down in his half-uttered greeting.\n_He_ also remembered her face--have we not already told our\nreader that it was by no means one easily to be forgotten?--but\nof the when or the where that he had seen it, he had no such\ndistinct a recollection. Silently, and with a look of timid hope\nstealing over that fair face, Nellie drew Henrietta's missive\nfrom her bosom and placed it in his hands.\n\nOrmiston glanced at the superscription, and with a flush of\nhonest joy mantling on his features, eagerly tore it open.\nScarcely, however, had he read three lines ere the scene among\nthe mountains, which had ended in his quarrel with his betrothed,\nrose before him like a vision, and instantly remembering Nellie\nas the fair girl who had been in some measure, albeit\nunwittingly, its cause, he turned sharply upon Corporal Holdfast.\n\n\"How is this, corporal? I fear me you have made some grave\nmistake! This young maiden whom you hold a prisoner is the bearer\nto me of a token from one whose zeal and faithfulness in the good\ncause cannot be suspected--even from a member of the household of\nthat brave and God-fearing Major Hewitson, who has set up his\ncamp on the very edge of the wilderness, and thus made of his\nsmall garrison a very tower of strength against the incursions of\nthe enemy.\"\n\n\"Nay, and if your honor says it, it must needs be true,\" the\nman--a bluff old soldier, with little pretensions to sanctity in\nhis composition--answered with suppressed impatience; \"and\ntherefore I can only marvel that a maiden, known and esteemed by\nthe family of worthy Major Hewitson, should not only have sought\nto cheat our vigilance by crossing the river privately in a boat,\nbut should have done so in the company of a man whom I myself can\ntestify to having been a chief of some repute in the army of the\nIrish enemy, having crossed swords with him at the battle of\n'Knocknaclashy,' as I think they call it in their barbarous\nlanguage, where he fought (I needs must own it) with a valor\nworthy of a better cause.\"\n\nMajor Ormiston turned, gravely but kindly, to Nellie.\n\n\"I fear me much,\" he said, \"that you have been but ill-advised in\nall this business. Why not have presented yourself openly at the\nbridge if the matter which has brought you hither will bear\ninvestigation? and why, more than all the rest, have you come\nattended by a person whose very company must needs render you\nsuspect yourself?\"\n\n\"O sir!\" said Nellie, weeping sadly, as she began to fear that\neven Henrietta's recommendation to mercy might perhaps avail her\nlittle; \"we had not the password, without which we never should\nhave been permitted to enter Dublin by the bridge; and our errand\nis, alas! of such a nature, that every moment lost is of deep and\nsad importance.\"\n\n\"_Our_ errand,\" Ormiston thoughtfully repeated. \"This\nerrand, then, is not entirely your own, but is in some way or\nother interesting also to the man by whom Master Holdfast tells\nme you are accompanied.\"\n\n{606}\n\n\"He should have said 'a _gentleman_,'\" Nellie answered, with\na slight rebuking emphasis on the latter word--\"a gentleman who,\nat his own great trouble, and, I fear me, risk, has enabled me to\naccomplish this journey; in which, however, he has no other\ninterest than such as any kind and noble heart might feel in the\nsorrows and perils of an unprotected girl.\"\n\n\"Where is he--this other prisoner?\" Ormiston asked, turning for\ninformation to the corporal.\n\n\"In the gate-house, sir, where we have him safe under lock and\nkey; for he was no prisoner to be left at large like this silly\nmaiden, who begged so hard to be allowed to see the Lord-Deputy\ngo by, that I found it not in my heart to deny her so small a\nfavor; for the doing of which, I trust I have not incurred the\ndispleasure either of your honor or of his highness the Lord\nHenry.\"\n\n\"Certainly not, honest Holdfast; you have acted both well and\nmercifully in all this business. And now lead the way to the\ngate-house, and trouble not your wits about this young maiden. I\nmyself will be her surety that she attempt not to escape.\"\n\nHe offered his hand very respectfully to Nellie as he finished\nspeaking, 'and she suffered him to lead her in silence toward the\nbridge. As they entered the gate-house, however, she quietly\nwithdrew her hand and glided from his side to that of Roger.\n\nOrmiston instantly recognized the latter as the dispossessed\nowner of the \"Rath,\" and an officer, beside, of some standing in\nthe recently disbanded army of the Irish. Courteously saluting\nhim, therefore, he informed him that he had been deputed by the\nLord-Deputy to inquire into the nature of the business which had\nbrought him to Dublin, adding an earnest hope on his own part\nthat it might prove to be in no way connected with political\naffairs.\n\n\"That, most assuredly, it is not,\" said Roger, pleased and\ntouched by the young officer's manner, and satisfied by\nHenrietta's letter, which Ormiston still held open in his hand,\nthat he was addressing the person for whom it had been intended.\n\"My business is one which solely concerns this young gentlewoman,\nand concerns her, in fact, so nearly, that if you cannot aid her,\nas Mistress Hewitson half hinted that you could, I trust, at all\nevents, you will give me as much of my liberty for this one day\nas may enable me to do so myself. I too am a soldier and an\nofficer. Major Ormiston, and you may trust me that I will not\nabuse your favor.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" said Nellie imploringly, \"you have not read the letter--if\nyou would but read the letter! Mistress Hewitson half promised\nthat you would help me!\"\n\nThus called upon, Ormiston ran his eyes over Henrietta's letter,\nwhich, concluding it to be on matters merely personal to himself,\nhe had been reserving for more private, and therefore more\nsatisfactory perusal.\n\nNellie watched him anxiously as he read on, and with a spasm of\nanguish at her heart she saw that, as he gradually took in the\nnature of its contents, his first look of eager joy disappeared,\nand was succeeded by one of deep and tender pity--pity which made\nitself felt in the very accents of his voice, as he exclaimed:\n\n\"Young Mistress Netterville! Good God! And I never even dreamed\nof the relationship! Alas! that you should have come so far, only\nto find sorrow and disappointment in the end.\"\n\n\"Oh! not dead! not dead!\" cried Nellie, terrified by his words\nand looks. \"Say, not dead--not dead--I do entreat you!\"\n\n{607}\n\n\"No, no!--not dead--_yet_,\" he answered nervously. He could\nnot bring himself to say that she was to die upon the morrow.\n\n\"Nay, Major Ormiston,\" Roger here interposed, for Nellie was\nsobbing in speechless anguish, \"if not dead all is well--or may\nat all events yet be well--for this most injured lady. I have\nhope still--hope in the honor and justice even of our enemy. See\nthis paper! It was writ by the soldier who hath lately received\nas his share in the Irish spoil the house and lands of\nNetterville, and who is ready to aver on oath that he took it\ndown word for word from the lips of the very woman who did that\ndeed for which Mrs. Netterville stands condemned to die.\"\n\nOrmiston glanced rapidly over the papers which Roger had drawn\nfrom his bosom and given to him.\n\n\"Yes, yes!\" he cried joyfully, \"I doubt it not in the least.\nSergeant Jackson is well known as a man of truth beyond\nsuspicion, and these lines, moreover, do but repeat the defence\nwhich the unhappy lady urged over and over again upon her trial,\ninsisting that the accusation against her was an act of private\nvengeance. But all this can be discussed hereafter. Time presses;\nand whatever is to be done to save her, must be done at once.\"\n\n\"The Lords Chief-Justices,\" suggested Roger; but Ormiston shook\nhis head with a little smile of scorn.\n\n\"Little likely _they_ to reverse a sentence pronounced in\ntheir own courts!\" he said. \"No, no! it is to the Lord-Deputy we\nmust appeal. I will ride after him at once, and in a couple of\nhours at the furthest you may look for me with the result. I\ntrust in God that it may be a good one.\"\n\nHe left the room without waiting for an answer, and in another\nminute they heard him gallop across the bridge. The next two\nhours were passed by Nellie in an agony of expectation which was\npainful to behold. She could not stay still a moment. Sometimes\nshe paced the narrow guard-room with rapid and impatient\nfootsteps--sometimes, regardless of the presence of the English\nsoldiery, she flung herself on her knees, weeping and praying\nalmost aloud in her agony. Every stir upon the bridge--every\nsound from the street beyond, seemed to announce the return of\nher messenger, and at these moments she would stand up, shivering\nfrom head to foot in such a fever of hope and fear, that Roger at\nlast became seriously alarmed, and remonstrated firmly and\naffectionately with her on her want of self-command. At last, to\nhis inexpressible relief, a bustle at the doorway announced\nOrmiston's return, and a moment afterward the latter entered the\nguardroom. Nellie stood up, as white as ashes, and utterly\nincapable of either speaking or moving toward him. Shocked at the\nmute anguish of her face, Ormiston took her hand in his; but when\nshe looked at him, expecting him to address her, he hesitated,\nlike one doubtful of the effect of the tidings he was bringing.\n\n\"For God's sake, speak at once!\" cried Roger. \"Anything is better\nfor her than this suspense! Say, is it life or death?\"\n\n\"Not death, certainly--at least I hope not,\" said Ormiston,\nvainly seeking in his own mind for some fitter words by which to\nconvey his meaning.\n\nThe blood rushed to Nellie's temples, and the pupils of her eyes\ndilated, but still she could not answer.\n\n\"You _hope?_\" Roger repeated sadly. He saw, though Nellie\ndid not, that there still existed some uncertainty in the matter.\n\n{608}\n\n\"There is a reprieve at all events,\" he said, in the same joyless\ntones in which he had before replied.\n\nThe color faded from Nellie's cheek, and the gladness from her\neye. \"Only a reprieve--only _that,_\" she muttered, in tones\nso hoarse and changed that the young men could hardly believe it\nto be hers--\"only that!\"\n\n\"But the rest will follow,\" said Ormiston, trying to reassure\nher. \"The Lord-Deputy will himself inquire into the business,\nand--\"\n\n\"Nay, then, she is safe indeed!\" Nellie interrupted him to say.\n\"With that confession, furnished by her chief accuser, her\ninnocence must be clear as daylight. O sir! she is safe--surely\nshe is safe!\" she added, trying to reassure herself by the\nrepetition of the word, and yet sorely puzzled by a something in\nOrmiston's eyes which looked more like pity than sympathy in her\njoy.\n\n\"Safe? I trust so--with all my heart and soul I trust so,\" he\nanswered gravely. \"Nevertheless, my dear young lady, I would\ncounsel you, as a friend, not to suffer your hopes to soar too\nhigh, lest any after disappointment should be too terrible for\nendurance.\"\n\n\"If she is reprieved, she will be pardoned; and if she is\npardoned, she will live,\" Nellie repeated slowly, like one trying\nyet dreading to discover the hidden meaning of his words.\n\n\"She will live,\" he amended gently; \"yes, certainly, if God hath\ndecreed it as well as man.\"\n\n\"Nay, if she is in God's hands only, I am content,\" said Nellie,\nwith a sudden return to confidence, which somewhat astonished\nOrmiston. \"I also have been in God's hands,\" she added, with an\nappealing look toward Roger, \"and can tell how much more merciful\nthey are than man's. Sir, I conclude from what you say that she\nis ailing; may I not go to her at once?\"\n\n\"If you are strong enough,\" he was beginning, but she interrupted\nhim with a burst of grief and indignation.\n\n\"How? not strong enough? and I have come all this way to see her!\nO mother, mother!\" she sobbed convulsively, \"little you dream\nyour child is near, bringing peace and pardon to your prison!\"\n\nRoger saw that Ormiston knew more than he liked to tell, and\nasked in a low voice:\n\n\"The poor lady, then, is very ill?\"\n\n\"Dying!\" the other answered curtly.\n\n\"Will her daughter be in time to see her, think you?\"\n\n\"In time; but that is all. She has burst a blood-vessel, as I\nhave just now learned, and this reprieve seems little better than\na mockery; for no one dreams that she could have survived for the\ntragedy of to-morrow.\"\n\n\"Then let Nellie go at once,\" said Roger promptly. \"She has\nridden night and day to see her mother, and sad as the meeting\nmay be, it would be sadder still if they met no more. Let her go\nat once.\"\n\nAnd so it was decided.\n\n----------\n\n{609}\n\n\n         Newman's Poems.\n\n     BY H. W. Wilberforce.\n\n\nThe little volume of poems published anonymously under this\nhumble title, [Footnote 179] produced an impression immediately\non its publication, not only among Catholics but among English\nreaders in general, which could hardly have been caused by a\nvolume of poems from any other writer of the day, with the\nexception, perhaps, of the Laureate. The explanation is to be\nfound in the initials J. H. N. at the end of the preface--a\nsignature long ago of world-wide celebrity.\n\n    [Footnote 179: _Verses on Various Occasions_. London:\n    Burns, Gates & Co. 1868. For sale at the Catholic Publication\n    House, 126 Nassau street, New York.]\n\nThere may be those who feel surprised to find that a man chiefly\nknown as having been, under God's providence and grace, the main\nauthor of the Oxford movement of 1833, should be found to have\npossessed and exercised extraordinary poetical gifts. It may\nperhaps be partly a lurking feeling of envy, partly a just\nperception how rarely any one man combines numerous unconnected\npowers, which makes the world at large reluctant to admit that\nany man has greatly distinguished himself in a line far removed\nfrom that specially his own. But that feeling, be its origin what\nit may, does not in reason apply to the case before us, because\nit would seem that the gifts which specially qualify a man to\nproduce a deep effect upon the hearts and consciences of his\nfellows, to be the founder and leader of any great school of\nthought, social, moral, political, or religious, are very much\nthe same as those required for the making of a great poet.\n\nThis is at first sight so obvious, that we incline to think the\nonly real argument against it would be, an appeal to experience.\nIt will be said, there is a small class of men who have won among\ntheir fellows (as if it were a title of honor formally secured to\nthem) the name of \"the poet,\" and no one of them has been, except\nin his own special art of poetical composition, among the great\nleaders of human thought. But this is easily accounted for. A man\nimmersed for years in public affairs of any kind, however richly\nhis mind may have been stored with poetical images, and however\nnatural it may have been to him to have sought for them a\npoetical expression, can rarely have had leisure to cultivate the\nmerely artistic part of poetical composition to the degree\nnecessary for success as a poet. It is hardly likely that in his\ncase there should combine the many accidental circumstances\nnecessary (over and above the possession of great poetical\nendowments) for the composition, publication, and general\ndiffusion of any considerable poetical work. And even if all\nthese should happen to meet, the mere fact of being very greatly\ndistinguished in any other line is of itself, we strongly\nsuspect, enough to prevent any man from being chiefly remembered\nas a great poet. The name of \"the poet Cowper\" is a household\nword in every English family. But if \"William Cowper, Esq., of\nthe Inner Temple\" (as his name stands on the title-page) had\nrisen to the woolsack, we believe that, even though he might have\nwritten the same poems, he would never have gained the title.\n{610}\nIf indeed mediocrity in everything else had sufficed to gain a\nhigh and permanent reputation for a man of equal mediocrity in\npoetical talents, we should now have talked of Cowper's friend as\n\"the poet Hayley.\" But that the highest poetical genius does not\nobtain the title for a man otherwise conspicuous, is proved by\nthe example of Shakespeare. Merely because he has left behind him\ndramatic works to which the world affords no rival, not even the\npreeminent poetical genius shown in his poems has caused the\nworld at large to speak and think of him as \"the poet\nShakespeare.\" Nor would Dryden, despite of his matchless lyric\npoems, have attained the title, if among his numerous plays he\nhad written Hamlet, Macbeth, and Lear.\n\nIt seems to us that these considerations are enough to answer the\nobjection from experience, which might perhaps be urged against\nour opinion, that the qualities which qualify a man to exercise a\ndeep influence on his fellows and make him a leader of the souls\nof men, are in fact the same as those which qualify him for\nsuccess as a poet.\n\nWe think this volume will convince most of those who read it that\nwe are right. The weighty and touching thoughts of these poems\nbear the stamp of the same mint from which issued those volumes\nof sermons, which, far more than any other work, have impressed a\npermanent stamp upon the generation of English readers which is\nnow tending, as Dr. Newman says of himself, \"toward the decline\nof life.\" It is impossible to read them without feeling that, if\nhis life had been one of mere literary leisure, his chosen\nemployment would probably have been poetry. As it is, he has\nevidently resorted to it, not when he was thinking of others, but\nwhen he sought to relieve the fulness of his own soul. In this\nworld he has written in prose; his poetry has been the record of\nhis inner struggles and emotions, and has been written for\nhimself and his God.\n\nAs long as any memory of the English nation and the English\nlanguage remains among men. Dr. Newman, we doubt not, will be\nremembered and reverenced; not indeed as one of the few whom\npoetry has made great, but as one of the great men who have\nwritten poetry. And so far from deeming it strange that such\nshould be the case with the great author of the movement of 1833,\nwe, for our part, should have thought it strange if, in a man of\nthe highest literary culture, the intense feelings in which that\nmovement originated had not relieved themselves by poetical\nexpression. We believe, indeed, that few if any great moral\nmovements have taken place in which something more or less of the\nsame kind has not been found. Perhaps the most remarkable\nexception was the change of religion in England in the sixteenth\ncentury; the leaders in which not only produced no great poetical\nwork, but did not leave behind them so much as a hymn. This was a\nstriking contrast, not only to the contemporary movement in\nGermany, and to that of the Methodists in the eighteenth century,\nbut also to that of the earlier Lollards. The explanation,\nhowever, is not far to seek. Lord Macaulay says, \"Ridley was\nperhaps the only person who had any important share in the\nEnglish Reformation, who did not consider it as a mere political\njob.\" Now, attractive as jobbing is to many very clever men, it\nis hardly qualified to inspire any poetical afflatus. Cranmer was\ntoo busy getting what he could for himself, to be musing over\npoetical images.\n{611}\nBesides, the Reformation in England appealed not so much to men's\ndeeper feelings, as to their natural and reasonable dislike to\nhave their property confiscated and themselves imprisoned,\nhanged, and cut up alive; and this last kind of appeal neither\nneeded nor encouraged poetical powers.\n\nTo return to the volume before us, the poems were so evidently\nwritten only for the author himself that it is our signal good\nfortune that they have ever been published. The greater part of\nthem first appeared in a series called the _Lyra\nApostolica_, in many successive numbers of the _British\nMagazine_, edited by the late Hugh James Rose, in which\nseveral of Dr. Newman's earliest prose writings were originally\npublished. It was afterward issued in the form of a small volume,\nthe first edition of which appeared in 1836. By far the greater\npart of it was supplied by Dr. Newman; the other poems, by five\nof his intimate friends. [Footnote 180]\n\n    [Footnote 180: These were John Bowden, \"with whom\" (Dr.\n    Newman writes in the _Apologia_) \"I spent almost\n    exclusively my undergraduate years.\" He died just before Dr.\n    Newman became a Catholic. His two sons are now fathers in the\n    London Oratory.--Hurrell, Froude, whose noble character and\n    high gifts Dr. Newman has sketched with admirable force,\n    truth, and beauty, in three pages of the _Apologia_,\n    which he sums up by saying: \"It is difficult to enumerate the\n    precise additions to my theological creed which I derived\n    from a friend to whom I owe so much. He made me look with\n    admiration toward the Church of Rome, and in the same degree\n    dislike the Reformation. He fixed on me the idea of devotion\n    to the Blessed Virgin, and he led me gradually to believe in\n    the Real Presence.\" He died February 29th, 1836,\n    \"prematurely,\" says Dr. Newman, \"and in the conflict and\n    transition-state of opinion. His religious views never\n    reached their ultimate conclusion, by the very reason of\n    their multitude and their depth.\"--John Keble, the author of\n    _The Christian Year_, of whom Dr. Newman writes\n    (_Apologia_, edition i. p. 75) words expressing deep\n    feelings shared by many who are now, by God's grace, members\n    of the Catholic Church. He died in 1865, and at this moment,\n    on his birthday, April 27th, the first stone of a new college\n    at Oxford, erected as a testimonial to him, and bearing his\n    name, is being laid by the Archbishop of Canterbury.--Robert\n    Isaac Wilberforce, second son of William Wilberforce. From\n    his earliest years his character seemed made up of truth,\n    purity, unselfishness, tenderness of affection, and\n    indefatigable diligence. As his great powers developed, they\n    showed themselves perhaps the more remarkable from their\n    combination with a degree of humility so extraordinary as to\n    be his chief characteristic. After a university career of\n    unusual distinction, he was elected fellow of Oriel College,\n    on the same day with Hurrell Froude, with whom he is classed\n    by Dr. Newman, in the _Apologia_, as one with whom he\n    was, \"in particular, intimate and affectionate.\" He became a\n    country clergyman, and afterward archdeacon; and in 1838\n    published (in combination with the present Bishop of Oxford)\n    the _Life of William Wilberforce_. His theological works\n    were all of later date. It is characteristic that he always\n    declared he would never have undertaken any of them if Mr.\n    Newman had not left the field unoccupied. In the opinion of\n    most persons, except himself, his equal in learning and\n    ability was not then left in the Church of England. In 1854,\n    he became a member of the Catholic Church, and died in 1857,\n    while studying at Rome for the priesthood.--Isaac Williams\n    was fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. He remained much\n    longer in Oxford, sharing Mr. Newman's intercourse and\n    counsels. In 1840, Mr. Newman dedicated the beautiful volume\n    on _The Church of the Fathers_ \"to my dear and much\n    admired Isaac Williams, the sight of whom carries back his\n    friends to ancient, holy, and happy times.\" He is, perhaps,\n    best known by his published poems; but he has also published\n    a series of devotional commentaries on the gospels, of great\n    beauty and to which many are deeply indebted. He died in\n    1865. Dr. Newman went to visit him in his country retirement\n    only a few days before. Our readers, we think, will feel an\n    interest in this brief memorial of a group of men so closely\n    connected with the collection in which many of these poems\n    originally appeared.]\n\nTo these are added, in the present volume, a few of earlier and a\ngood many of later date. All of them seem equally to have been\ncomposed without any view to publication, and considering that\ntheir illustrious author has always been remarkable for a dislike\nto put himself forward, and for an almost extreme susceptibility\nof feeling, some persons may wonder that he has ever been able to\npersuade himself to give them to the world. We do not share their\nwonder; for we long ago came to the conclusion that it is by men\nof the greatest natural reserve that the fullest confidences of\ntheir inner feelings are not unfrequently made. In the common\nintercourse of society such men display least of their real\nfeeling. But being distinguished from others by the depth and\nstrength of their thoughts and affections, more lasting\nconvictions and emotions, and greater self-knowledge, they can,\nupon any call of duty, speak out most unreservedly and sincerely;\nand the pain it gives them to make any revelation of their inner\nselves is such that, to do it completely, costs them little, if\nanything, more than to speak of themselves at all.\n{612}\nThis, all the world sees, has been exemplified in the\n_Apologia_, and in its measure it has been the same with the\n_Lyra Apostolica_, and with the present volume. The poems in\nthe _Lyra_ were, nearly all of them, the expression of the\nthoughts which crowded into the mind of Dr. Newman during a tour\nin the Mediterranean, between December, 1832, and July, 1833. The\npresent volume adds very greatly to their interest by giving the\nplace and day of their composition. Thus, the poem headed\n\"Angelic Guidance\" was written on the day on which he left\nOxford. In our days, in which a very few hours upon the Great\nWestern takes Oxford men to Falmouth without trouble or fatigue,\nthe date, \"Whitchurch, December 3d, 1832,\" is interesting.\nWhitchurch is a somewhat dreary and secluded village, at which\nthe direct road from Oxford to Southampton intersected the mail\nroad from London to Exeter and Falmouth. There was in those days\na coach to Southampton, to the top of which Mr. Newman mounted,\n(the present writer and other Oriel friends standing in the\nstreet, in front of the Angel Inn, to see the last of him.)\nBefore midday he reached Whitchurch, and there had to wait till\nnight for the Falmouth mail. We should be curious to know what\nhas become of the large inn at Whitchurch which was maintained by\nthis sort of traffic. It must long ago have been shut up. Mr.\nNewman's life had hitherto been almost entirely confined to one\nor two places, and now he was starting alone for distant lands,\nand began by waiting many hours at a lonely and (_crede\nexperto_) sufficiently dreary inn. His thoughts turned to the\nguardian angel who, as he already believed, bore him company. The\n_Apologia_ tells us how early in life his thoughts had run\nupon angels and their ministrations. He says of these lines:\n\"They speak of 'the vision' that haunted me. That vision is more\nor less brought out in the whole series of these compositions.\"\nWe need hardly say how much these circumstances add to the\ninterest of the poem, which appeared in the _Lyra_ without\nany explanation of the circumstances under which it was composed.\n\nIt is impossible to read these poems without feeling how much a\nman takes with him from home of the thoughts which are called out\neven by the most striking and memorable scene. The events going\non in England--the evident decay of what he still believed to be\nthe \"reformed church\"--formed the coloring medium through which\nhe looked at all he saw. Thus, at sea, the day he left Gibraltar,\nhe wrote the lines headed \"England:\"\n\n  \"Tyre of the West, and glorying in the name\n     More than in Faith's pure fame!\n   O trust not crafty fort, nor rock renown'd\n     Earn'd upon hostile ground;\n   Wielding Trade's master-keys, at thy proud will\n   To lock or loose its waters, England! trust not still.\n\n  \"Dread thine own power! Since haughty Babel's prime.\n     High towers have been man's crime.\n   Since her hoar age, when the huge moat lay bare,\n     Strongholds have been man's snare.\n   Thy nest is in the crags; ah! refuge frail!\n   Mad counsel in its hour, or traitors, will prevail.\n\n  \"He who scann'd Sodom for his righteous men\n     Still spares thee for thy ten;\n   But, should vain tongues the Bride of Heaven defy,\n     He will not pass thee by;\n   For, as earth's kings welcome their spotless guest,\n   So gives he them by turn, to suffer or be blest.\"\n\nThe _Apologia_ tells us that the golden lines, \"Lead, kindly\nlight,\" were composed when the \"orange-boat\" in which the author\nsailed from Palermo to Marseilles was becalmed in the straits of\nBonifacio.\n{613}\nIt is not mentioned, we think, that it was in the darkness of the\nnight. They are here headed, \"The Pillar of the Cloud:'\n\n  \"Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,\n       Lead Thou me on!\n   The night is dark, and I am far from home--\n       Lead Thou me on!\n   Keep Thou my feet: I do not ask to see\n   The distant scene,--one step enough for me.\n\n  \"I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou\n       Should'st lead me on.\n   I loved to choose and see my path; but now\n       Lead Thou me on!\n   I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears.\n   Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.\n\n  \"So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still\n       Will lead me on.\n   O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till\n       The night is gone;\n   And with the morn those angel faces smile\n   Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.\"\n\n\"Off Algiers,\" in sight of the grave of that great African church\nwhich produced St. Augustine, St. Cyprian, and Tertullian, is the\ndate of \"The Patient Church,\" in which, in spite of all\nappearances to the contrary, the writer, relying on the promise\nof Christ, looked forward to the ultimate victory of the church,\nand which begins:\n\n      \"Bide thou thy time!\n  Watch with meek eyes the race of pride and crime;\n  Sit in the gate and be the heathen's jest.\n       Smiling and self-possest,\n  O thou, to whom is pledged a victor's sway,\n       Bide thou the victor's day!\"\n\nOn December 28th, 1832, Mr. Newman caught his first sight of a\nGreek shore. It is highly characteristic that the first thought\nwhich it inspired to the most finished classical scholar of his\nday in Oxford, was not of Thucydides, not even of Homer, but of\n\"the Greek fathers:\"\n\n  \"Let heathens sing thy heathen praise,\n   Fall'n Greece! the thought of holier days\n       In my sad heart abides;\n   For sons of thine in truth's first hour.\n   Were tongues and weapons of his power.\n   Born of the Spirit's fiery shower.\n       Our fathers and our guides.\n\n  \"All thine is Clement's varied page;\n   And Dionysius, ruler sage,\n       In days of doubt and pain;\n   And Origen with eagle eye;\n   And saintly Basil's purpose high\n   To smite imperial heresy,\n       And cleanse the altar's stain.\n\n  \"From thee the glorious Preacher came,\n   With soul of zeal and lips of flame,\n       A court's stern martyr-guest;\n   And thine, O inexhaustive race!\n   Was Nazianzen's heaven-taught grace;\n   And royal-hearted Athanase,\n       With Paul's own mantle blest.\"\n\nAt Corfu, the narrative of Thucydides brought to his mind the\nthought which he worked out in the sermon on \"The Individuality\nof the Soul,\" published six years later; and in which he says:\n\"All who have ever gained a name in the world, all the mighty men\nof war that ever were, all the great statesmen, all the crafty\ncounsellors, all the scheming aspirants, all the reckless\nadventurers, all the covetous traders, all the proud\nvoluptuaries, are still in being, though helpless and\nunprofitable. Balaam, Saul, Joab, Ahitophel, good and bad, wise\nand ignorant, rich and poor, each has his separate place, each\ndwells by himself in that sphere of light or darkness which he\nhas provided for himself here. What a view this sheds upon\nhistory! We are accustomed to read it as a tale or a fiction, and\nwe forget that it concerns immortal beings who cannot be swept\naway, who are what they were, however this earth may change.\" The\ngerm of that sermon is contained in the lines headed \"Corcyra,\"\nJanuary 7th, 1833.\n\nThe _Lyra_ contains some beautiful and well-known lines:\n\n      \"Did we but see,\n  When life first open'd, how our journey lay\n  Between its earliest and its closing day.\n       Or view ourselves as we one day shall be,\n  Who strive for the high prize, such sight would break\n  The youthful spirit, though bold for Jesus' sake.\n\n      \"But thou, dear Lord!\n  While I traced out bright scenes which were to come,\n  Isaac's pure blessings, and a verdant home,\n       Didst spare me, and withhold thy fearful word;\n  Willing me year by year, till I am found\n  A pilgrim pale, with Paul's sad girdle bound.\"\n\nThey are headed, \"Our Future. What I do, thou knowest not now;\nbut thou shalt know hereafter.\" It gives them a new interest to\nfind that they were composed at Tre Fontane, the spot of the\nmartyrdom of St. Paul.\n\n{614}\n\nThe verses called \"Day Laborers,\" composed while waiting at\nPalermo for a passage home, (as is described in the\n_Apologia_,) show the author's deep sense of having a work\nto do. They are headed, \"And He said. It is finished:\"\n\n  \"One only, of God's messengers to man,\n   Finished the work of grace which he began;\n   ......\n   List, Christian warrior! thou whose soul is fain\n   To rid thy mother of her present chain;--\n   Christ will avenge his bride; yea, even now\n       Begins the work, and thou\n   Shalt spend in it thy strength; but, ere he save,\n       Thy lot shall be the grave.\"\n\nWe have insisted on the peculiar value of the poems written\nduring this short tour, (the only one of the kind in which the\nillustrious author has ever indulged himself,) because it adds a\nnew and special interest to compositions which, even when\npublished without any such interest, attained a wide and deserved\ncelebrity. He seems at the time to have felt that that tour was\nto be the only distraction of the kind in a life of toil; and\nthat he was enriching himself with images of beauty (worthy, as\nhe says, in itself rather of angelic than mortal eyes) which were\nto last him for many a long year:\n\n  \"Store them in heart! Thou shalt not faint\n     'Mid coming pains and fears.\n   As the third heaven once nerved a saint\n     For fourteen trial years.\"\n\nThat the remembrance has been fresh and keen, we see in the lines\non \"Heathen Greece\" written in 1856, and first published in that\nexquisite volume _Calista_:\n\n  \"Where are the islands of the blest?\n      They stud the AEgean sea;\n   And where the deep Elysian rest?\n      It haunts the vale where Peneus strong\n      Pours his incessant stream along,\n      While craggy ridge and mountain bare\n      Cut keenly through the liquid air.\n      And, in their own pure tints arrayed.\n      Scorn earth's green robes which change and fade.\n      And stand in beauty undecay'd.\n      Guards of the bold and free.\"\n\nIt is worth notice that the pregnant lines on \"The Sign of the\nCross\" were written before the author left Oxford, and while he\nwas as yet, as he expressly tells us, so ignorant of Catholic\ndoctrine that even when waiting at Palermo, just before he\nreturned home, he says: \"I began to visit the churches, and they\ncalmed my impatience, though I did not attend any services. I\nknew nothing of the presence of the blessed sacrament there.\"\n\nWe might linger equally upon many poems which equally deserve it,\nbut pass on to those written since the author was a Catholic.\nAmong these are not to be reckoned the translations from the\nLatin Hymns of the Breviary, which were made \"in 1836-8.\" There\nare a few which bear the date \"Littlemore,\" a date full of\ntouching recollections to the friends of the author. It is a\nhamlet locally separated from the parish of St. Mary's, of which\nhe was vicar, but belonging to it. He had built a church there\nfor the use of his parishioners, and retired there from time to\ntime for his own as well as their benefit. When he gave up his\nconnection with the Oxford movement, (as the _Apologia_\nshows,) he retired there altogether, and staid there till he\nbecame a Catholic in 1845. Of those written since the author\nbecame a Catholic the best known, probably, are \"The Pilgrim\nQueen,\" and \"The Queen of the Seasons.\" It is indeed cheering to\nfind a great genius, who had so long been more or less crippled\nby the chill, stiff system of Anglicanism, opening out, like a\nflower beneath the spring sun--beneath the genial teaching of the\nCatholic Church:\n\n{615}\n\n  \"But I know one work of his infinite hand.\n   Which special and singular ever must stand;\n   So perfect, so pure, and of gifts such a store,\n   That even Omnipotence ne'er shall do more.\n\n  \"The freshness of May, and the sweetness of June,\n   And the fire of July in its passionate noon.\n   Munificent August, September serene,\n   Are together no match for my glorious Queen.\n\n  \"O Mary! all months and all days are thine own.\n   In thee lasts their joyousness, when they are gone;\n   And we give to thee May, not because it is best.\n   But because it comes first, and is pledge of the rest.\"\n\nApart from the freedom of thought which the author has gained\nfrom the Church, (\"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall\nmake you free,\") there seems to us an ease and flow about the\nvery language and metre of these Catholic hymns which we do not\nfind equalled in the author's earlier poems, sublime as are their\nconceptions. But it is remarkable that the poem which unites both\nthese qualities in the highest measure, is that which was\ncomposed last, \"The Dream of Gerontius.\" Like the others it seems\nto have been written for the author alone, and to have been\npublished merely as an act of friendship to the editor of _The\nMonth_. Is it too much to hope that the high sense of its\nexceeding depth and beauty which has been shown by the whole\nEnglish world may not only encourage the author, as he tells us\nit did, to publish his collected poems in the volume before us,\nbut to compose more? For it is plain that as yet at least his\narms are not dimmed or his force abated.\n\n\"The Dream of Gerontius\" begins with the thoughts of one who\nfeels himself at the gate of death and the prayers of the\nassistants by his bedside. Then Gerontius says:\n\n  \"Novissima hora est; and I fain would sleep.\n   The pain has wearied me. ... Into thy hands,\n   Lord, into thy hands. ...\"\n\nAnd the priest says the commendation. Then follows:\n\n     Soul Of Gerontius.\n\n  \"I went to sleep; and now I am refreshed--\n   A strange refreshment: for I feel in me\n   An inexpressive lightness, and a sense\n   Of freedom, as I were at length myself.\n   And ne'er had been before. How still it is!\n   I hear no more the busy beat of time,\n   No, nor my fluttering breath, nor struggling pulse;\n   Nor does one moment differ from the next.\n   I had a dream; yes, some one softly said,\n   'He's gone;' and then a sigh went round the room.\n   And then I surely heard a priestly voice\n   Say, 'Subvenite;' and they knelt in prayer.\n   I seem to hear him still; but thin and low.\"\n   ......\n\nHe does not yet know whether he is living or dead. Then he finds\nhimself held,\n\n         \"Not by a grasp\n  Such as they use on earth, but all around\n  Over the surface of my subtle being.\n  As though I were a sphere, and capable\n  To be accosted thus, a uniform\n  And gentle pressure tells me I am not\n  Self-moving, but borne forward on my way.\n  And hark! I hear a singing; yet in sooth\n  I cannot of that music rightly say.\n  Whether I hear, or touch, or taste the tones.\n  Oh! what a heart-subduing melody.\"\n\nThen follow the songs of the guardian angel over the soul which\nhe was set to tend. After a long while Gerontius takes courage\nand says:\n\n        Soul.\n\n  \"I will address him. Mighty one, my Lord,\n   My guardian spirit, all hail!\n\n\n        Angel.\n\n         \"All hail, my child!\n  My child and brother, hail! what wouldest thou?\n\n  ......\n\n        Soul.\n\n         \"I ever had believed\n  That on the moment when the struggling soul\n  Quitted its mortal case, forthwith it fell\n  Under the awful presence of its God,\n  There to be judged and sent to its own place.\n  What lets me now from going to my Lord?\n\n        Angel.\n\n  \"Thou art not let; but with extremest speed\n   Art hurrying to the just and holy Judge;\n   For scarcely art thou disembodied yet.\n   Divide a moment, as men measure time.\n   Into its million-million-millionth part.\n   Yet even less than that the interval\n   Since thou didst leave the body; and the priest\n   Cried 'Subvenite,' and they fell to prayer;\n   Nor scarcely yet have they begun to pray.\"\n\nWe must not linger on the converse between the soul and its\nguardian angel, nor at the marvellous description of the demons\nin \"the middle region,\" their impotent rage--impotent against\none who has now no traitor within.\n{616}\nThen he comes within the reach of the heavenly choirs. We have\nthe hymns of the successive choirs. At length, as they approach\n\"the veiled presence\" of God, the soul hears again the voices it\nleft on earth, for in that presence the voices of prayer are\nheard:\n\n        Soul.\n\n  \"I go before my Judge. Ah! ....\n\n        Angel.\n\n     .... \"Praise to his name!\n  The eager spirit has darted from my hold.\n  And, with the intemperate energy of love,\n  Flies to the dear feet of Emmanuel;\n  But, ere it reach them, the keen sanctity\n  Which with its effluence, like a glory, clothes\n  And circles round the Crucified, has seized.\n  And scorch'd, and shrivell'd it; and now it lies\n  Passive and still before the awful throne.\n  O happy, suffering soul! for it is safe,\n  Consumed, yet quickened by the glance of God.\n\n        Soul.\n\n  \"Take me away, and in the lowest deep\n        There let me be.\n   And there in hope the lone night-watches keep,\n        Told out for me.\n   There, motionless and happy in my pain,\n        Lone, not forlorn,\n   There will I sing my sad, perpetual strain.\n        Until the morn.\n  There will I sing, and soothe my stricken breast,\n        Which ne'er can cease\n  To throb, and pine, and languish, till possest\n        Of its sole peace.\n  There will I sing my absent Lord and love;--\n        Take me away.\n  That sooner I may rise, and go above,\n  And see him in the truth of everlasting day.\"\n\nThen follow the words of the angel, and those of the souls in\npurgatory. At length the angel concludes:\n\n  \"Angels, to whom the willing task is given,\n   Shall tend, and nurse, and lull thee, as thou liest;\n   And masses on the earth, and prayers in heaven,\n   Shall aid thee at the throne of the Most Highest.\n\n  \"Farewell, but not for ever! brother dear.\n   Be brave and patient on thy bed of sorrow;\n   Swiftly shall pass thy night of trial here,\n   And I will come and wake thee on the morrow.\"\n\nAny one who has read this wonderful poem will complain that we\nhave omitted this, and this, and this, which especially deserved\nto be quoted. It is most true. It would be impossible to give any\nidea of its matchless weight and beauty, except by transcribing\nthe whole of it; and we have wished only to give a sample which\nmay direct to it the attention of any reader to whom it may yet\nbe unknown.\n\nThe preface contains a dedication of the volume of Mr. Badeley,\none of Dr. Newman's Oxford friends and followers, who before this\ntime knows far more of that world of spirits than even the gifted\neye of the most illustrious seer has ever pierced; for he had\nhardly received this dedication when he received his summons to\nit. He was the son of a Protestant physician at Colchester, who,\nmany years ago, was the medical adviser of a convent in that\nneighborhood, and created a good deal of suspicion among his\nfellow religionists, by bearing testimony to the supernatural\nnature of a cure of one of the nuns who was his patient. Mr.\nBadeley himself graduated with high honors at Oxford in 1823, and\nafterward studied the law, in which he attained a high reputation\nand great success. He directed his special attention to\necclesiastical questions, and hardly any case connected with them\ncame before the courts in which he was not retained. In this\npreface Dr. Newman bears testimony to the fidelity with which he\nfollowed the religious movement in which the volume originated\nfrom first to last. He was counsel to the Bishop of Exeter in the\ncelebrated Gorham case, and his argument upon it was published in\na pamphlet which attracted much notice. He also published a book\nagainst the alteration of the law of marriage. At last a new\nlight shone upon his path; he followed it faithfully, and it led\nhim into the Catholic Church. He was, perhaps, the only lawyer\nfrom whom was actually accepted, on his conversion to the church,\na sacrifice of his worldly interests, nearly equal to that made\nby many Protestant clergymen.\n{617}\nThe loss of practice has no doubt been risked by all who have\nbecome Catholics; by him, owing to the nature of his principal\nbusiness, it was in a great measure incurred, nor did he ever\nrecover what he had lost. But the time is short. It is but a few\nweeks since he was cheered by Dr. Newman's words, \"We are now\nboth of us in the decline of life; may that warm attachment which\nhas lasted between us inviolate for so many years, be continued,\nby the mercy of God, to the end of our earthly course, and beyond\nit;\"--and his earthly course is already over; the sacrifice is\ngone by. He is now able to estimate its real value.\n\n--------\n\n             Sonnet.\n\n\n  Sharp lightnings flash, tempestuous thunders roll:\n  I shudder--and yet wherefore? For the dead\n  Sleep undisturbed in consecrated bed.\n  And thou, who didst yield up thy sweet, young soul\n  So mildly to thy Maker, and console.\n  By dying acts, the hearts which love thee best,\n  Must, even on this first night, sublimely rest\n  In thy still sepulchre, by yon green knoll.\n  Yet one, I know, will tremble as she hears\n  The storm above her darling; and each dart\n  Of the forked lightning will to anguish start\n  A legion of dread shapes and tender fears;\n  For who can sound the fountains of her tears,\n  Choice instincts, lodged in her maternal heart?\n\n--------\n\n{618}\n\n\n   The Second Plenary Council of Baltimore. [Footnote 181]\n\n    [Footnote 181: _Concilii Plenarii Secundi Baltimorensis,\n    Acta et Decreta_. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co.]\n\nThe good city of Baltimore witnessed, in October, 1866, the most\nnumerous and imposing ecclesiastical assemblage ever gathered in\nthe United States. Forty-seven archbishops and bishops, with two\nmitred abbots, convened in Plenary Council, under the presidency\nof the Most Rev. Archbishop of Baltimore, delegate of the\nApostolic See. For two weeks they met daily in consultation,\ntheir labors being interrupted only by the solemn sessions\nprescribed by the Pontifical. After a free but harmonious\ninterchange of ideas, they adopted practical resolutions, which\nthey embodied partly in decrees, partly in petitions to the Holy\nSee. Their work done, it was not published to the world, but sent\nto the mother and mistress of all churches for revision,\ncorrection if necessary, and final recognition or approval. And\nnow, almost two years after the celebration of the Council, the\nACTS and DECREES, as revised and approved by the Holy See, are\npublished under the authority of the same most reverend prelate\nthat as delegate apostolic had presided over the deliberations of\nthe council. The work is thus complete: the new legislation takes\nits appropriate place in our canon law; an epoch is marked in the\nhistory of the American church.\n\nFrom the beginning of the church, the celebration of councils has\nbeen looked on as a most efficient means, under God, of\npreserving discipline, arriving at proper conclusions on\npractical matters, and promoting the common good. The very first\nquestion that arose in the infant Christian community was decided\nin the Council of Jerusalem, where the apostles and the ancients\nconsulted together. Every succeeding age saw councils meet to\ndecide ecclesiastical questions. Indeed, the history of the\nchurch may be said to be a history of councils. Gradually, as\necclesiastical discipline assumed regular outlines, and was\nsettled according to fixed rules, proper arrangements were made\nfor the regular meeting of prelates for consultation and mutual\nconsolation and enlightenment. It would be foreign to the\npurposes of this paper to dwell on the ancient discipline in this\nregard; but a short exposition of the actual law and practice of\nthe church will enable the reader properly to appreciate the\nimportance of the work of the late Plenary Council.\n\nThe Council of Trent (Sess. xxiv. _De Reform_, c. 2) decreed\nthat the ancient practice of holding councils should be renewed,\nand fixed a regular period for their celebration. Each archbishop\nwas to call his suffragans together every three years, and these\nwere strictly obliged to obey the summons. The object of these\nmeetings was \"to regulate morals, correct excesses, settle\ncontroversies and do all other things permitted by the sacred\ncanons.\" St. Charles Borromeo celebrated several such councils,\nwhich were not only productive of immense good to the church of\nMilan, but have remained as a pattern on which the proceedings of\nall subsequent councils have been modelled. But councils of\nbishops were not in favor with the civil rulers, whose aim it was\nto fetter, and, if possible, to enslave the church.\n{619}\nThey prevented the execution of the salutary decree of Trent,\nwhich, with a few exceptions, remained almost a dead letter from\nthe time of St. Charles to the present century. To the church of\nthe United States belongs the credit of having revived the custom\nof holding councils. Not long after the establishment of the\nhierarchy, the first Provincial Council of Baltimore was\nconvened, and was followed in regular succession by others, held\nevery three years, according to the prescriptions of the fathers\nof Trent. When new archiepiscopal sees were erected, Rome,\nanxious that the American church should retain as far as possible\na uniform discipline, suggested the holding every ten years of a\nplenary council, to be composed of all the bishops of the various\necclesiastical provinces of the country, under the presidency of\na delegate to be nominated by the Holy See. Accordingly, the Most\nRev. Francis Patrick Kenrick, of illustrious memory, then\nArchbishop of Baltimore, was appointed delegate apostolic, and\nconvened the first plenary council in his metropolitan church, in\nMay, 1852. The second should have been held in 1862, but the\ncivil war then raging made it necessary to defer it. As soon as\npeace was restored, measures were taken to convene the prelates,\nand, as we have seen, the council was actually held in 1866.\n\nThe title \"plenary\" sounds odd to some ears, and has, if we\nremember aright, provoked some little discussion in the public\nprints. The term national is frequently given to the council in\ncommon parlance, and would probably have been its official title\nalso but for the caution of the Holy See. Rome, enlightened by\nwisdom from above and rich with the experience of ages, looks on\na tendency to nationalism in the church as one of the greatest\ndangers that can arise, almost, indeed, as the forerunner of\nschism. When she was about to propose to the American prelates\nthe decennial convening of a council of all the bishops of the\nvarious provinces of the country, the question of the official\ntitle at once arose. _National_ was not liked,\n_general_ was too ample, _provincial_ too restricted. A\nlearned ecclesiastical historian suggested _plenary_, the\ntitle given to the general councils of the African church in the\nfifth century--councils rendered famous by the genius of St.\nAugustine, and their explicit condemnation of Pelagianism. The\ntitle was adopted. It avoids the narrowness of nationalism, while\nit fully expresses the idea of a _full_ council of\n_all_ the prelates of the American church.\n\nThe object of a plenary council is plainly indicated by the Holy\nSee. Strictly speaking, provincial councils could provide all the\nnecessary legislation. But there would be danger of a loss of\nuniformity. Even among the best persons, the old adage, that\nwhere there are many men there are many minds, is verified. To\nprevent this divergence of views from manifesting itself too much\nin practice, it has been deemed advisable to call occasionally\nall the bishops together, that their united counsels may adopt\nsuch measures as will keep the American church one not only in\nfaith and in the essential points of discipline, but even in the\nprincipal among the secondary matters of the latter branch. It is\nnot necessary to descant on the advantages of such uniformity.\nThe faithful, if they do not expect it, are at least edified and\nconsoled by it; and, for the great purposes which the church is\ncalled on to carry out in this country, it brings into practical\neffect, as far as is possible, the great motto, _Viribus\nunitis_. To gain it were well worth the sacrifice even of fond\npredilections and of cherished usages.\n\n{620}\n\nThe plenary council, then, is to look to the wants of the whole\nAmerican church, and to do for it what a provincial council does\nfor an ecclesiastical province. Canon law is necessarily couched\nin general terms, and cannot be applied in the same way\neverywhere. A great portion of it, in fact, consists of decisions\ngiven for particular localities under peculiar circumstances, of\nwhich the principle only is or can be of general application. It\nthus happens not infrequently that the general regulations have\nto be modified to meet other wants, other times, other\ncircumstances. This is one of the first duties of local councils.\nThey propose, and, with the approval of the supreme pastor, enact\nthose regulations to which their wisdom and experience may point\nas necessary to carry out the real spirit of the general law. In\nthese they do not contradict, much less abrogate; on the\ncontrary, they enforce the observance of the canons. We know\nthere is an impression abroad that \"canon law does not oblige in\nthis country;\" but a more erroneous or more mischievous idea\ncould scarcely have been propagated. If it be said that all the\ncircumstances contemplated by the canons do not exist here, and\nthat such laws as presuppose these circumstances are not, on that\naccount, applicable here, the proposition is correct; but, if it\nbe said that the law itself does not oblige, the proposition is\nsimply monstrous. We do not know whom it would affect worse, the\nhigher or the lower orders of the clergy, the religious or the\nseculars. All would be very much in the same position; all would\nsoon be glad to return to the reign of law. If \"canon law does\nnot oblige in this country,\" what becomes of the impediments of\nmatrimony? Where do the religious orders find the charter of\ntheir privileges? On what does an aggrieved clergyman rely for\nthe right of appeal? Where is the proof that every Christian of\neither sex, that has come to the years of discretion, is obliged\nto approach worthily, at least once a year at Easter, the holy\nsacrament of the blessed eucharist? The origin of the erroneous\nidea appears to be, that, the organization of the church in this\nmissionary country not being yet completed, certain privileges,\ngenerally granted by the Holy See, have been withheld; and, as\none case may easily occur to the clerical reader, we shall take\nthe liberty of using it to exemplify our meaning. The nomination,\ninstitution, and consecration of bishops are inherently and\nradically the exclusive right of the Holy See. No matter by whom\nit may have been exercised at any time, if it was not in virtue\nof a permission expressly or tacitly granted by the successor of\nSt. Peter, the exercise was a schismatical act. This no Catholic\ncan deny. By canon law the right of presentation of three names\nto the pope has been granted, not to all the clergy of the\ndiocese, but to the cathedral chapter, a body in the composition\nof which the diocesan clergy, by the same law, exercised but\nlittle influence. In this country there are no cathedral\nchapters; in fact, it is impossible thus far to erect them\naccording to the canons. The right of presentation of the three\nnames has been accorded by Rome to the bishops of the province\ninstead. This is an instance in which a privilege granted by the\ncanons to a body which has no existence among us has been\ntransferred by the supreme authority to another body that can\nexercise it.\n{621}\nWe are not now either blaming or praising the arrangement; that\nwould be beyond our province. We are merely stating what the law\nis, and endeavoring to help to dispel an error which may be, if\nit has not been, productive of evil. As canon law, then, does\noblige in this country, numerous questions must necessarily arise\nin the application of its ordinances to our circumstances and\nwants. The whole social fabric here is very different from that\nof Europe when the decretals were issued. It thus becomes\nnecessary to adopt such measures as may save the principle of the\nlaw, and, at the same time, avoid the inconvenience of a too\nliteral understanding. This is one of the first and most\nimportant works of a council. It involves a patient and careful\nstudy of the law; a thorough knowledge of the circumstances of\nthe country; a prudent foresight, which may be able to discern\nwhat measure is most likely to be practically successful. We may\ninstance the question of the tenure of church property. If there\nwere in practice real religious freedom among us, if the church\nwere allowed to hold her property according to her own laws,\nthere would be no difficulty. The actual canon law would provide\nfor the security of the tenure, for the good use of any revenues\nthat might accrue, and for any rights or legitimate influence the\ndonors might reasonably expect to be allowed. But, at least in\nmost of the states, the wisdom of the legislature has interfered,\nsimply to prevent the Catholic Church from executing her own\nlong-tried, satisfactory laws on the subject. To save the vital\nprinciple, the security and the independence of church property,\nit has been necessary to adopt various expedients, which may be,\nwe do not doubt are, the best that could be devised under the\ncircumstances, but, considered in themselves, are far from\nsatisfactory. They, of course, are only temporary; and it is\nardently to be desired that the time will soon come when wiser\ncivil legislation will permit the execution of the mild and\nequitable provisions of the canons.\n\nIt is easy to see that a wide field is thus opened for the wisdom\nand industry of the fathers of a plenary council. But \"the\ncorrection of abuses\" is also expressly assigned by the decree of\nTrent as one of the objects of their labors. To err is human, and\nit is only too easy to fall away from the strict observance of\nthe canons. Such has ever been the experience of the church. In\nthis country, thank God, positive abuses are rare, if they exist\nat all. There is a general desire to become acquainted with the\nlaw of the church and to observe it as closely as circumstances\nwill allow. But necessity has, in the past, introduced many\ncustoms which no longer have its sanction or excuse. Yet it is\nfound hard sometimes to leave the old paths and take the broad\nhighways of the canons or the rubrics. Sometimes doubts arise as\nto whether the exceptions formerly allowed are still permitted.\nThus, there is ample matter for wise and cautious legislation,\nneither so lax as to allow abuses to grow up, nor so strict as,\nby substituting the letter for the spirit, to make the law kill\nrather than give life.\n\nThere must of necessity arise in the course of time many most\nimportant practical questions, which can be nowhere better\ndecided than in council. Mutual advice, comparing of ideas, and\ndiscussion naturally lead to wise conclusions. In a country like\nours, where so many cases arise which are without precedent, the\nnecessity of frequent counsel among the prelates is obvious.\n{622}\nAnd doubtless the regular celebration of councils has contributed\ngreatly to that success which has especially marked the external\ngovernment of the church in America. Fewer mistakes have been\nmade here, perhaps, than anywhere else in the same time, while\nthe successes have been great, nay, brilliant. The wisdom of the\nold has been handed down to the young; the experience of one\ngeneration has been used for the benefit of that succeeding; and\nthere has been an uninterrupted unity of practical views from the\ndays of Carroll to the present. Thus, England, Dubois, Brut\u00e9,\nKenrick, Hughes, though dead, still live. Not merely their works\nremain behind them, but their spirit still speaks in the halls of\nthe archiepiscopal residence, and in the sanctuary of the\nmetropolitan church of Baltimore.\n\nAnother special duty has been assigned by the Holy See to our\nAmerican councils--that of proposing the erection of new\nepiscopal sees, and the names of candidates to fill either them\nor the older ones that may be canonically vacant. The erection of\nnew sees is a special feature of the church in new countries.\nEvery council of Baltimore has proposed the creation of new\nbishoprics, and, in most cases, the propositions have been\nfavorably considered by the Holy See. The growth of the church\ncan thus be traced through the acts of the various councils, and\nthe steps can be counted, one by one, by which, from one bishop\nat Baltimore, the American hierarchy has progressed to its\npresent development. Its growth has been more rapid than even the\nmaterial progress of the country; and as we look at the far West,\nsure to become the happy home of millions of Catholics,\nimagination is scarcely bold enough to call up the numbers by\nwhich the bishops will be counted in future councils. We have\nalready alluded to the duty of selecting candidates to fill\nepiscopal sees. It is an important and a difficult task,\nrequiring the exercise of some of the highest qualities that\nshould be possessed by those who are, in the highest sense,\n\"rulers of men.\" The Holy See has been so impressed with its\nimportance and difficulty that it has earnestly urged that the\nbishops of the province should meet every time that there is a\nsee to be filled. When, however, the vacancy occurs about the\ntime of a council, or when the fathers ask for the erection of\nnew sees, the question of candidates to be recommended must be\nconsidered in its sessions.\n\nFrom this cursory glance at the work of a plenary council, it\nwill be seen that the two weeks given to the celebration of the\none lately held could have been by no means a time of rest. On\nthe contrary, the conscientious performance of this work required\nthe employment of every available moment. Every preceding council\nof Baltimore had devoted itself to the attainment of the\ndifferent objects which we have indicated. The measures adopted\nwere timely and wise, and the legislation forms the groundwork of\nour particular church law. Nor will we wonder at the success\nattained when we think of the great names that adorned those\ncouncils, of the illustrious prelates whose learning, prudence,\nforesight, zeal, and piety instructed and edified the past\ngeneration, and laid the broad and solid foundations on which the\ngrand structure of the American church is rising. All honor to\nthese great men! They were \"men of great power, and endued with\ntheir wisdom, ... ruling over the present people, and by the\nstrength of wisdom instructing the people in most holy words. Let\nthe people show forth their wisdom, and the church declare their\npraise.\"\n{623}\nBut the American church had grown out of its infancy, and it was\ntime to commence to build on the foundations so deeply and so\nskilfully laid. It would have been impossible, even had any one\ndesired it, merely to re-enact in the second plenary council what\nhad been done before--merely to pass a few general decrees,\nrecommend the erection of new sees, provide for the filling of\nthem and of those already existing and vacant by apostolic\nauthority, and then separate. Had the council confined itself to\nthis, it would have failed of performing its allotted work. These\nconsiderations had their due weight with the most reverend\nprelate, who most fitly was chosen for the high and important\noffice of delegate apostolic. He determined upon a comprehensive\nplan, the execution of which by the council should, by meeting\none of the chief present wants, impress its celebration and its\nwork in indelible characters on the history of the American\nchurch. As early as April, 1866, this plan had been distributed\nto the archbishops and bishops, the heads of religious orders,\nand all others who of right were to be present at the council. He\nnext convoked a body of theologians to initiate the preparatory\nstudies. They were taken from the religious orders as well as\nfrom the secular clergy; many of them were or had been professors\nof theology or canon law; some were favorably known for high\noffices they had already held or for well-deserved reputation for\nlearning. The _coetus_ met daily as long as the greater part\nof its members could remain in Baltimore, and in that time the\nmain points were gone over carefully and thoroughly, and the\nrecommendations of the theologians thereon submitted to the most\nreverend archbishop. Some divines who could not be present sent\ntheir contributions in writing, so that we do not say too much\nwhen we assert that the best talent of the country was employed\nin these initial steps. The many occupations, however, in which\nthe greater part of the _coetus_ were engaged at home\nrendered a protracted stay of all impossible, and the remainder\nof the work was necessarily confided to a fewer number. The most\nreverend delegate apostolic, himself a most indefatigable worker,\nwatched over all the proceedings. Every paper was submitted to\nhis final revision before it went to the printer. Indeed, as he\nwas the promoter, so he was in reality the principal of the\nlaborers in the great work, to which he brought learning,\nimproved by conference; judgment, matured not only by age, but by\nlong practice in every branch of the ministry; a ready pen, whose\nlabors, in other departments, for the cause of our holy religion,\nhad already procured for him a high and well-deserved reputation.\nAnd we are sure his colleagues will not blame us if we say that,\nunder and after the archbishop, Very Rev. James A. Corcoran,\nD.D., of the diocese of Charleston, deserves to be especially\nremembered for his industry, his erudition, his talents. The\ngraceful style in which so many of the decrees are couched is so\npeculiarly his own that it can never be mistaken; and it will\nmake the second plenary council remarkable for what, perhaps,\nwould scarcely be expected in this remote country--a Latinity\nthat would grace even the most finished documents that come from\nRome herself. The work thus went on until the drafts of the\ndecrees formed a large volume, which, for greater convenience,\nwas printed.\n{624}\nThe inspection and the examination of it by the fathers and the\ntheologians of the council were thus rendered more easy; indeed,\nit would be difficult to conceive how, without this preparation,\nthe work could have been done at all.\n\nAs each bishop was entitled to bring two theologians, there was a\nvery large attendance of the clergy of the second order. To these\nmust be added many vicars-general, the heads of religious orders,\nand the superiors of the greater seminaries. All these clergymen\nwere divided into congregations, after the pattern of the Milan\ncouncils of St. Charles Borromeo. Each congregation was presided\nover by a bishop, with a vice-president and a notary. This last\nofficer kept a minute of the proceedings of the congregation, and\ndrew up its final report. The whole matter of the proposed\ndecrees was distributed among these congregations, and thus the\npreparatory work was subjected to a searching, minute\ninvestigation. It may be here interesting to the general reader\nto give a short account of the mode in which the business of a\ncouncil is managed. We learn from the acts that there were four\ndifferent meetings at the Second Plenary Council:\n  1. Private congregations.\n  2. Public congregations.\n  3. Private sessions.\n  4. Public sessions.\nThe \"private congregations\" were the meetings of the committees\nor congregations of theologians, each in a separate room. The\n\"public congregations\" were held in the cathedral, and there\nassisted at them all the \"_synodales_\" that is, all who had\na right to be present at the synod, from the Most Reverend\nPresident to the youngest theologian. At these congregations the\ntheologians \"had the floor,\" the bishops confining themselves to\nasking questions, or proposing difficulties. The \"private\nsessions\" were meetings of the prelates alone. The officers of\nthe council were also present, but merely to record the acts. The\nwork of the council was really done in these private sessions. In\nthem the decrees were passed, and the acts show that there were a\nclose scrutiny and a thorough investigation of the measures\nproposed. The \"public sessions\" were solemn ceremonies in the\ncathedral. After pontifical high Mass, the decrees already passed\nwere solemnly read and promulgated. They thus became a law as far\nas the action of the council could make them such. All that they\nneeded was the approval of the Holy See.\n\nIn this manner the decrees of the Second Plenary Council of\nBaltimore were prepared, examined, discussed, matured, until now\nthey are published as the law of the American church. In looking\nover them one is astonished at the variety of matter on which\nthey treat. Faith, and the errors opposed to it now so prevalent,\nthe church and her government, the primacy of the Roman pontiff,\nthe powers, rights, and duties of archbishops and bishops, the\nrights and duties of the clergy, church property, the sacraments,\nthe sacrifice of the Mass, and all the proper conducting of\ndivine worship, uniformity in the celebration of festivals, and\nother points of discipline, the _status_ of religious, the\neducation of youth, good books, the Catholic press, zeal for the\nsalvation of souls, the spiritual welfare of the blacks, secret\nsocieties--these are some of the subjects which, as even a\ncursory examination shows us, are treated in these decrees. These\nare, indeed, what the original plan intended them to be. They\ngive a clear and lucid exposition of canon law as adapted _by\nauthority_ to the circumstances of this country.\n{625}\nThey supply a want long felt, and they will remain for all time\nto come the guide and the rule of action of all ecclesiastics,\nfrom the hoary missionary bowed down with age and labors to the\nyoung priest whose elastic step leads him joyously from the\nseminary walls to his first appointment, from the mitred prelate\nto the humblest of the great army of missionaries that are\nbringing to our countrymen the good tidings of peace. They are\nclear and comprehensive; they were carefully prepared, every\nquotation, even though it were of a few words, was verified; and\nthey are in every sense authoritative. Prescinding altogether\nfrom their binding force, they were carefully prepared\noriginally; next, they were literally sifted by the theologians\nof the council; afterward they were discussed, and sometimes\nmodified by the fathers; lastly, they were subjected to the\nscrutiny of Roman theologians, and were finally approved with\nvery few emendations. They have thus undergone the trial of a\nthreefold criticism, and deserve proportionate attention and\nrespect. But, what is far more important, they are binding as\nlaws, and the S. Congregation _de Propaganda Fide_ has\nexpressed its wish that they be faithfully observed by all whom\nit may concern. They have been, moreover, made by authority the\ntext of a course of canon law in our ecclesiastical seminaries.\nThe future clergy of the country are thus to be formed on them.\nTo the volume that contains them they are afterward to look for\nenlightenment and instruction in the performance of the duties of\nthe ministry. Nothing more need be, indeed little more could be,\nsaid in their praise.\n\nThe Acts and Decrees have been published in a goodly volume, in\nimperial octavo, by the well-known firm of John Murphy & Co.,\nBaltimore. We need not say that the material part of the book is\nhighly creditable to the publishers. The good quality of the\npaper, letter-press, and binding is commensurate with the\nimportance of the work and the magnitude of the occasion which\nbrought it forth. The volume contains all the official documents,\nfrom the first letter of Rome appointing Archbishop Spalding\ndelegate apostolic, to the last communication of the Cardinal\nPrefect of Propaganda in regard to the decisions of the Holy See.\nA copious and well-arranged index gives access to the mass of\nmatter scattered through the work, thus rendering as easy as\npossible a reference to any given point. We congratulate Mr.\nMurphy on the honor done him by the privilege of placing his\nimprint on the title-page of so great and important a\npublication. It is a fitting reward for many services rendered to\nCatholic literature through a long and useful business career.\n\nWe hail this volume as the beginning of a new period in our\nAmerican church, the period--_detur venia verbo_--of the\nreign of law. It marks an improvement, a step in advance, a\nprogress. But the progress is legitimate, because it commenced\nwhere all such movements must commence, if they be Catholic, with\nthe proper authority. A work begun, carried on, and brought to\ncompletion as this has been, is--we need not say--a _safe_\nguide; and one for which, we may be permitted to add, every lover\nof our holy religion should feel deeply grateful to those through\nwhose zeal and labors it has been accomplished. By it this young\nchurch now takes her place with the most ancient and best\nregulated churches of the Old World: a light is given to our\nfeet, lest inadvertently we stumble in the darkness: a sure guide\nis afforded, alike to young and old, to prelate and subject, to\ncowled monk and surpliced priest.\n\n--------\n\n{626}\n\n     Translated From The French.\n\n     An Italian Girl Of Our Day.\n\n\n     Concluded.\n\n\nTo any one who has read this sweet and pious correspondence I\nneed not point out how strongly toward the end it inclines to\nheaven. Was it a presentiment of death? It may have been. We\ncannot deny to certain souls the grace of having heard from afar\nthe call of God. For me, I think I see in this case the natural\nmovement of a very pure love in a lofty soul. There are souls\nthat see God everywhere. She of whom I speak was one of these,\nand, from her infancy, all that was beautiful on earth had been\nfor her but a veil designed to temper the brightness of the\nEternal Beauty. Thus in the new and unknown regions of earthly\nlove, through the first wonder and the first dreams, she soon\nfound again the divine countenance; but this time more radiant\nthan ever, more vivid, more irresistible; and that chaste flight\nwhich had carried her to the hopes of earth passed beyond and\nbore her away to heaven.\n\nThat a person has not had the happiness to feel this heavenly\nattraction, is no reason that he should either wonder at it or\nattempt to deny it. It is in the logic of our heart, and I\nbelieve there are few souls that in various degrees have not felt\nits power. It was known to ancient philosophy, whose greatest\nglory it is to have expressed by the mouth of Plato, its king,\nthe progression of love from bodies and from souls to ideas and\nto God; and St. Augustine, who bore in his heart the gospel of\nJesus Christ, has not rejected this part of the ancient heritage.\nWho has not read that conversation at Ostia, in which two holy\nsouls, beginning with the love that united them on earth, came at\nlast to touch heaven? \"We were speaking sweetly together, ... and\nwhilst we converse and look up to heaven, we reach it with the\nwhole aspiration of our heart.\" [Footnote 182] It is this\nsoaring, this upward flight that I speak of; this it is, I\nbelieve, which carried the soul of the saintly young bride to the\ndesire of that eternal region where all desires are satisfied.\n\n    [Footnote 182: St. Augustine's _Confessions_.]\n\nThe heavenly instinct had not deceived her. Two days after that\non which she wrote the last letter we have given, a death-bearing\nblast was breathed upon her, and she was seized with a slight\nfever which at first gave no uneasiness except to the\never-anxious heart of a mother. Yet on the very first day she had\nsaid to her, \"Take my little desk and keep it in memory of me.\"\nThese words were startling, coming from a person so\nclear-sighted. The illness suddenly assumed an alarming\ncharacter, and the physicians recognized it as the miliary fever,\na terrible epidemic which was then desolating Tuscany, and which\nseemed to pick out only choice victims. The young patient had\ndivined her danger; she at once asked for the sacraments, and\nreceived with a humble and tender love the last visit of that\nSaviour whose blood never fails us, from our cradle, which it\nsanctifies, to our death-bed, where it\nstrengthens and consoles us.\n\n{627}\n\nThe patient now felt herself better. \"Great and happy day!\" she\nsaid; \"if I am restored to health, never shall I forget it. What\nstrength there is in the holy viaticum! My dear mother, how sweet\nand consoling is our religion! Ah! believe me, if any one feared\ndeath, he could do so no longer after having received the blessed\nEucharist.\" Then she called her betrothed. \"Gaetano,\" she said,\n\"if it is the good pleasure of God to unite us on earth, he will\nrestore me; but if he has other designs in our regard, then, my\nGaetano, we must be resigned and adore his holy will, must we\nnot?\" The young man could not answer.\n\nShe continued: \"In my English prayer-book there is an act of\nthanksgiving for the reception of the holy viaticum: take the\nbook and read it to me.\" And a voice, tremulous with sorrow,\nbegan to read the following admirable prayer:\n\n  \"Glory and thanksgiving be to thee, O Lord! who in thy\n  sweetness hast been pleased to visit my poor soul. Now let thy\n  servant depart in peace according to thy word.\n\n  \"Now thou art come to me, I will not let thee go; I willingly\n  bid farewell to the world, and with joy I go to thee, my God.\n\n  \"Nothing more, O dear Jesus! nothing more shall separate me\n  from thee: in thee I will live, in thee I will die, and in thee\n  I hope to abide for ever.\n\n  \"I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ; for Christ is\n  my life, and to die will be my gain.\n\n  \"Now I will fear no evils, though I walk in the shadow of\n  death, because thou art with me, O Lord! As the hart pants\n  after the fountains of water, so does my soul after thee: my\n  soul thirsts after the fountain of living water. Oh! when shall\n  I come and appear before the face of my God?\n\n  \"Give me thy blessing, O divine Jesus! and establish my soul in\n  everlasting peace; such peace as only thou canst give; such\n  peace as it may not be in the power of my enemy to destroy.\n\n  \"Oh! that my soul were at rest in thy happiness, and in the\n  enjoyment of thee, my God, for ever!\n\n  \"What more have I to do with the world? And in heaven what have\n  I to desire but thee, my God?\n\n  \"Into thy hands I commend my spirit. Receive me, sweet Jesus!\n  In thee may I rest; and in thy happiness rejoice without end.\n  Amen.\"\n\nWhen the reader's voice had ceased, the young patient wished to\ntake some repose. But she still seemed collected, and continued\nto pray.\n\nHer brother was expected to arrive from Florence. \"Settle the\nroom,\" she said to her mother, \"and put back upon my table the\nthings that were taken off it when it was prepared for an altar.\nI do not wish that poor Antonio should perceive, on entering,\nthat I have received the last sacraments; but remember, dear\nmother, always look upon that little table as a sacred thing, for\nit has borne the body of Jesus Christ.\" All that day she held her\nmother's hand, and spoke of nothing but the happiness of having\nreceived the holy communion. Toward evening she remembered that\nshe was to have visited such and such poor persons that day. This\nthought troubled her, and she could be calmed only by the\nassurance that before night some one should carry to those poor\npersons their accustomed succor. From this time she began to\nconverse with Jesus Christ, speaking to him with an ardor which\nthe violence of her sufferings rendered more intense. \"O Jesus!\nthis bed seems to me of fire--but no, I will not complain.\n{628}\nThou willest that I should serve thee in suffering, and in\nsuffering I will serve thee. Thou knowest that I should not\ngrieve to die if my death did not cause such great affliction to\nthose who love me. If thou seest that I should make a good\nChristian wife, I would say, 'O Lord! heal me!' But what is it\nthat I am asking? No, not my will, but thine be done!\" In the\nmiddle of the night, seeing her mother's shadow still bending\nover her pillow, she exclaimed, \"O the heroic love of mothers!\"\nShe thought so much of the least things that were done for her.\n\"My poor father,\" she said, \"how good he is; what care he takes\nof me; for my sake he deprives himself entirely of sleep. He has\ncalled in three physicians, and he wishes one of them to remain\nnight and day near my room. It is too much, my God! Mother, what\nsay you of my Gaetano? Ah! now indeed I feel how happy I should\nhave been with him; for the more I know him, the more I feel that\nhe loves me, as you love me.\" She asked to have prayers recited\nby her bedside, and began herself in a low tone the prayers for\nthe agonizing. Her mother interrupted her. \"Rosa, my child, why\nthese sorrowful prayers? You will recover, my child; do not\nalways be thinking of death.\" She answered, \"Ah! but if all day I\nhave not been able to think of anything but death; if Jesus\nwishes to take me, must I not be ready?\" She suffered terribly;\none moment nature prevailed, and she uttered a complaint. Her\nbetrothed said to her, \"Rosa, think of what our Lord suffered.\"\n\"Thanks, Gaetano; ah! how that thought consoles me!\"\n\nThe dawn of the following morning only brought an accession of\nthe malady. Three skilful physicians saw all their efforts\npowerless against its violence. One of them, who loved Rosa as\nhis own child, wept. The patient became delirious. \"Let us go!\nlet us go!\" she cried; \"dear mother, adieu! my home is not here,\nmy home is above! Let us go! let us go! adieu!\" She repeated\nthese words, sometimes in French, sometimes in Italian. She\ncalled her father, when he was absent, talking to him as if she\nsaw him beside her; when he was present, looking for him and\ncalling him still. She wept over the misfortunes of a poor widow\nwhom in her dreams she saw left destitute; the next moment it was\na little orphan that she cradled in her arms, and that drew tears\nfrom her eyes. Nothing could calm her delirium, which was still\nfull of these charitable memories and images. At one time she\nseemed to see the ladder of Jacob, and she exclaimed: \"But I--am\nI pure enough to go up with these angels? may I go forward? may I\njoin their choirs, I who was preparing for earthly espousals?\"\nShe then recovered her consciousness, and asked for a chapter of\nthe _Flowerets_ of St. Francis on holy perseverance, during\nthe reading of which she cried out suddenly, as if struck with\nhorror, \"O the evil spirits! the evil spirits!\" Her mother\nhastened to her, threw her arms round her, and pressed her to her\nheart, saying, \"Listen to your mother, Rosa, my dear child. Why\nthese cries? why these terrors? You need not fear the evil\nspirits, my child; and they are not devils that surround your\nbed, but the angels of heaven. Have you not always loved God?\nhave you not loved the poor? have you not been a good and\nobedient child?\" But her countenance grew stern. \"Hush,\" she\nsaid, \"tempt me not to pride.\" And her face was overspread with\nthe shadow of a profound and austere humility.\n\n{629}\n\nHer delirium returned, and now with a violence that neither words\nnor remedies could calm. As a last resource, her mother said to\nher, \"Rosa, my child, I am quite exhausted. If you could calm\nyourself a little, I might lean my head on your hands and sleep.\nCalm yourself, my child, for my sake.\" And saying this, she\naffected to fall asleep. From that moment the poor child was\nsilent; love was stronger than delirium.\n\nA long stupor followed; an ivory paleness overspread her\nfeatures; the veil of death was upon her brow. The victim was\nready. But there is no victim without sacrifice, and no sacrifice\nwithout pain. Jesus trembled and wept, and was sorrowful even\nunto death in the Garden of Gethsemane. The hour of cruel\nsacrifice was come for this young Christian. She felt the cold\niron of the sword, but again divine love remained victorious.\nSuddenly she wakes, opens her large, terrified eyes, while the\nblood rushing from her heart in an impetuous tide, crimsons her\nface and lights up her eye. She seems to come out of a dream, and\nnow for the first time to understand all. \"It must be, then!\" she\ncried, \"it must be! I must die! I must leave my father's house! I\nmust leave my betrothed! No, no! I am to live with him, I am to\nmake him happy!\" A flood of tears bathed her countenance; a cry\nof anguish burst from her soul. \"Adieu, Gaetano, adieu! we shall\nsee each other no more!\" It was a terrible struggle in that poor\nheart. The joyous preparations for her wedding had suddenly given\nplace to the dismal preparations for the grave. The bride seemed\nto entwine her dying fingers in her nuptial wreath and to clasp\nit convulsively--but, if it be God's will?\n\nHer mother put to her lips a picture of our Lady of Good Counsel,\nwhich the young girl had near her bed. Instantly she became calm,\njoined her hands, bowed her head, and remained perfectly silent.\nWhat was passing at that moment in the superior part of that\nbeautiful soul? The eye of God alone, infinitely holy, can read\nsuch secrets. What we know is that, after this long silence, the\ndying girl pronounced in a clear, firm voice, the words, \"Thy\nwill be done.\" And from that moment the name of Gaetano was never\nupon her lips.\n\nShe recited the Litany of the Blessed Virgin. At the invocation,\n\"Gate of heaven, pray for us,\" she pressed her mother's hand and\nsmiled. Did she then see the eternal gates opening?\n\nThe Prior of San Sisto, her confessor, was by her bedside. She\nasked for extreme unction, and answered distinctly to all the\nprayers. An extraordinary grace of peace and resignation seemed\nfrom that moment to have entered her soul. She needed consolation\nno longer; it was she who now consoled and encouraged all around\nher. Her poor mother, wild with grief, threw herself upon her\nbosom. \"I still hope,\" she said, sobbing; \"yes, my Rosa, I still\nhope that you will recover; but if this be not God's will, oh!\npray to him, supplicate him to call me also to himself. I will\nnot, I cannot live without you!\" But Rosa said, \"No, mother, you\nmust not wish for death. You have too many duties to accomplish\nupon earth; remember the mother of the Machabees.\" Then\nstretching out her hand and laying it on the head of the\nsorrow-stricken woman, she said, \"I bless her who has so often\nblessed me! O Blessed Virgin! change the sorrow of this poor\nmother into the consolation of the poor, the afflicted, and the\nsick; and do thou, O my God! grant that we may all adore unto the\nend thy holy decrees.\" She drew from her finger a little ring,\nand said to her mother, \"Keep that in remembrance of me;\" and\nplacing in her hands the ring of her betrothal, she said, \"Give\nthat to--you know whom--it is a noble soul.\" But she spoke not\nhis name.\n\n{630}\n\nThe end drew near; her family and friends surrounded her bed;\nevery one was weeping. She said smiling, \"You are all around me,\nI am very happy; thanks.\" Then suddenly, \"Who wishes to have my\nhair?\" No one ventured to answer. A long, half-reproachful look\nwas cast on the weeping faces around. A voice cried, \"_I_\ndo.\" Rosa recognized it and said, \"My mother shall have it.\"\n\nShe motioned to the Prior of San Sisto to come to her, and said\nto him in a whisper, \"I beg of you to return this evening to my\npoor mother and do all you can to console her.\" From this time\nshe seemed to retire to the feet of God, henceforth to speak to\nhim alone. She said, \"I suffer, my Jesus, but all for thy love! I\ndo not fear hell, because I love thee too much. I am on fire, I\nam in flames! O Jesus! burn me, consume me in the flames of thy\nlove!\" It was now with difficulty that these holy ejaculations\ncame from her oppressed bosom. Again, however, and for the last\ntime, she rallied. Death had a hard struggle with her vigorous\nand innocent youth. This time the dying girl spoke the very\nlanguage of the saints, and her farewell to earth was worthy of a\nSt. Catharine of Sienna. \"O Lord!\" she said, \"bless all men!\nbless this city of Pisa! bless her people! bless her bishop and\nher pastors! bless the Catholic Church! bless her sovereign\nPontiff! bless her ministers and her children! Have pity on poor\nsinners; enlighten heretics; be merciful toward those who believe\nin thee, merciful also to those who believe not. Pardon all; be a\nloving Father to the good and to the wicked. Have pity on my\nsoul, O Immaculate Virgin! Give to all thy peace, O Jesus!--that\npeace--\" She was silent. A film gathered over her eyes; they saw\nno longer the things of earth, but a better light began to dawn\non them. \"Yes, yes,\" she murmured, \"I see now; I begin to see--O\nthe heavenly Jerusalem! O the angels! oh! how many angels! How\nbeautiful! Yes, certainly, willingly, my God! Where am I? who\ncalls me? where then? Let us go! let us go, my God! Let us go\nforward! _Andiamo! andiamo! avanti!_--\" The words died on\nher lips; she made the sign of the cross, kissed the crucifix,\nand while mortal eyes still sought her upon earth, she was\nfollowing the Lamb in the eternal choirs of the virgins.\n\nSuch is this beautiful death, every detail of which we have\nlearned from her who, after having assisted at the sacrifice, did\nnot die, but, like Mary, had to come down living from Calvary.\n\nWill I be pardoned if I add some reflections on these letters and\nthis narration? I said when commencing them that, as it seemed to\nme, they glorified Christianity in the two-fold transfiguration\nof love and of death. It seems to me yet clearer, now that I have\nfinished them, that this is indeed their characteristic and their\nmerit.\n\nYes, it is the glory of Christianity to have rendered possible,\nnay frequent, this sanctity of love which ancient philosophy\npursued in its dreams, but which it had never either contemplated\nor exemplified. It is the glory of Christianity to have so well\nschooled, so well regulated the heart of man, to have made that\nheart at once so virginal and so strong, as to be capable of\nloving more, and better than ever, all that is lovable on earth,\nand at the same time capable of always loving it less than God.\n{631}\nIt is the glory of Christianity to have made a young girl--not a\nphilosopher, not a poet, but a simple and pious girl--to realize\nunconsciously in her heart that sublimest conception of human\nwisdom; the continual, incessant passage of love from the shadows\nof being and of beauty, to the infinite being and the infinite\nbeauty, from \"divine phantoms,\" to use the expression of Plato,\nto the eternal reality. It is the glory of Christianity to have\nin all things opened to man a road toward God; to have taught him\nto make all his affections serve as so many steps whereby he may\nascend to the absolute love: \"In his heart he hath disposed to\nascend by steps.\" [Footnote 183] In fine, it is the glory of\nChristianity to have worked this prodigy, that a holiness so\nextraordinary, a perfection so superhuman, neither destroys nor\nfetters the pure affections of earth; so that the saints did not\nattain to the loving God alone by stifling in their hearts all\nlove for their fellow-beings; but, on the contrary, they learned\nto love all mankind more than themselves, by first loving God\nabove all.\n\n    [Footnote 183: Psalm lxxxiii. 6.]\n\nWhoever, after seeing this, will meditate on the nature of the\nhuman heart, and on its history when abandoned to itself, will be\nforced to admit that here is indeed a transfiguration.\n\nAnd as regards death, I find this transfiguration to be, if\npossible, more striking still. Death learned upon the cross that\nits highest office is to be the auxiliary of love. There an\nindissoluble fraternity was established between these two great\nforces; and _there_ love received its mission to transform\ndeath into sacrifice. The ideal statue of the dying Christian is\nnot then the ancient gladiator, falling, resigned but passive,\nhis head bowed, his dim eye fixed on the earth which is fast\nescaping from him, impatient for the approach of nothingness,\nplunging willingly into eternal night. No; his ideal is the\nCrucified, dying erect, above the earth, \"_exaltatus a\nterra_\" in the attitude of the priest at the altar, pardoning\nall men, loving them to his latest breath, acquiescing in his\ndeath, nay, willing it, making himself the solemn deposit of his\nsoul into the hands of his Father, at once the subject and the\nking of death, at once priest and victim.\n\nSuch is the Christian fraternity of Love and Death.\n\nHence it is, that through the differences of ages, of conditions,\nof minds, all holy deaths resemble one another; it is still love\nruling death and transforming it into sacrifice. We have just\nportrayed the last hours of a betrothed bride who died in\nsacrificing to Jesus Christ her nuptial crown; ere while we\nfollowed through tears of admiration the account of another\ndeath, grander, more celebrated, more striking. [Footnote 184]\n\n    [Footnote 184: These lines were written a few days after the\n    death of the Rev. Father de Ravignan. We give them to-day\n    just as the first emotion dictated them, persuaded that time\n    cannot take from the virtues of the saints their eternal\n    actuality.]\n\nNow, what similitude could we expect to find between the last\nhours of a holy religious, an illustrious orator, a great and\nheroic soul, and those of a simple young girl, strong only in her\ninnocence? And yet I venture to compare these two deaths, and the\nlonger I consider them the more do I find that they resemble each\nother, that they are blended together in one ruling sentiment;\nthey are both a sacrifice, and a sacrifice conducted by love.\nSacrifices very different, victims very unequal, I admit. What\npeace in the death of the holy Father de Ravignan; or rather,\nwhat triumph of the Christian will over death! How he rules it!\n{632}\nHe speaks of \"this last affair which is to be conducted, like all\nothers, with decision and energy;\" he gives the directions for\nthe sacrifice; he offers it himself! When did he more truly live\nthan on that bed of death? when was he more wakeful than in that\nseeming sleep! Then was he so strong and vigorous that he seemed\nto dominate death itself; in this resembling, as far as is\npossible to man, Christ upon the cross, whom, say the doctors,\ndeath could not approach except by his express order. What love,\nin fine, in his every word and in those desires of heaven, for\nthe impatience and the ardor of which he reproaches himself! For\nmy part, I fancy I see him welcoming death, for which he had been\npreparing himself for more than thirty years, with that grave,\nsweet smile whose charm was so extraordinary.\n\nThe young bride of Pisa is far from this severe grandeur. There\nare tears, there are regrets in her last farewell. There is one\nearthly name that lingers on her lips even to the confines of\nheaven. She does not command death--she obeys it; and yet here,\ntoo, I see an altar, a victim a sacrifice. Here, too, I see the\nwill, more tremulous, more surprised, indeed, than in the great\nreligious, but still armed by love, ending by _conducting\nitself the last affair_, and by absorbing death in its\nvictory. Once again, what becomes of death in such deaths? where\nis it? It seems to disappear: \"Death, where is thy victory? Where\nis thy sting? It is swallowed up!\"\n\nLet our souls become inebriated with hope at the recital of holy\ndeaths; let us yield ourselves without fear to the attraction\nwhich they give us for the life to come. Undoubtedly, the true\nsecret of dying well is to live well; and our imperfection does\nnot allow us to treat death as may the saints. But surely the\nlove which transfigured their death, is at least begun in our\nsouls; it may increase, and, the hour come, may transform for us\nalso the supreme defiles into regions of light and peace.\n\nAmong the paintings which have been found in the catacombs of\nRome, there is one that has always struck me as having a profound\nmeaning: it is a jewelled cross, from all sides of which spring\nstems of roses, which bloom around it, and cover its severe\nnudity. [Footnote 185]\n\n    [Footnote 185: Two of these crosses, adorned with gems and\n    flowers, have been discovered among the frescoes of the\n    cemetery of St. Pontianus, whose origin seems to have been\n    anterior to the third century. One of them surmounted an\n    altar; the other, which decorated a baptistery, is one of the\n    most valued monuments of Christian archaeology. Throughout\n    its entire height, and on both arms, it is covered with\n    precious stones, richly figured, alternately square and oval.\n    The two arms support flambeaux, with the flame clearly\n    outlined; from them also depend two little chains, at the\n    extremity of which are suspended the traditional Alpha and\n    Omega. From the foot of the cross to the arms spring on both\n    sides stems of roses covered with leaves and flowers.\n    Directly under this painting was the baptismal font, formed\n    from a stream whose waters, ever smooth and limpid, seem even\n    now, after the lapse of fourteen centuries, to await the\n    immersion of the catechumens.\n\n    The discovery in a baptistery of this cross enveloped in\n    splendor, light, and love, authorizes our conjectures as to\n    the signification it must have had in relation to the\n    neophytes. This precious fresco is carefully reproduced in\n    the great work of M. Perret on the Roman catacombs.]\n\nIt is very rarely that the cross is found in the catacombs.\nPerhaps for the tender faith of the neophytes it was dreaded-the\nsight of that instrument of torture which was yet odious to\nthe whole world, and was dragged daily through the streets for\nthe punishment of slaves. It was, doubtless, to assist the\ntransition from horror to love that the Christian instinct had\ncovered that cross with precious stones and blooming roses, red\nstill with a blood shed by Divine love for the salvation of\nmankind. Be that as it may, this symbol seems to me to express\ngloriously the transfiguration of death by Christianity. Ah!\nneophytes that we are, neophytes of death and a life to come, let\nus regard the dying moment as a cross which Jesus and his saints\nhave covered for us with encouragement and hope.\n{633}\nWhen the children of the first Christians wondered to see a\ngibbet on the altar, their fathers pointed to the jewels and\nroses, and told them of the Redeemer's love. If death terrifies\nus in its austere nakedness, let us look at the love which can\ntransfigure it, and can make our last hour the happiest, and\nabove all, the most precious in our life.\n\nRosa Ferrucci was mourned. The whole public press of Tuscany told\nof her death; poets chanted it; inscriptions were composed in her\nhonor,--the Italian scholars excel in this art so little\ncultivated among us;--I transcribe one which I think touching:\n\n       CHASTE YOUTHS, TENDER VIRGINS,\n            DECORATE WITH TEARS\n        THE TOMB OF ROSA FERRUCCI,\n              SWEETEST GIRL,\n           IN THE POLITE ARTS\n     VERSED BEYOND THE CUSTOM OF WOMEN;\n                  WHO,\n       ON THE VERY EVE OF MARRIAGE,\n  WHILST UNACCUSTOMED JOYS FILLED HER SILENT BREAST,\n          COMPLETED HER YOUTHFUL LIFE\n                 SECURE.\n\n\n_Secura!_ beautiful word--word full of peace! and yet less\neloquent than one single word which I once read on a fragment of\nmarble taken from the Roman catacombs, [Footnote 186] and which I\nnow bring to the tomb of her who has passed from earthly\nespousals to the nuptials of the Lamb. The case here also was\nthat of a young Christian maiden. Was she affianced like Rosa\nFerrucci? Was it the hand of a betrothed spouse that closed her\ntomb? The word we speak of, does it indicate her virginal glory,\nor was it her name? The little stone saith not. All that we know\nis, that the hand which carried into the consecrated galleries\nthe mortal remains of the young Christian, after having marked\nthe place of her repose, took a fragment of marble, laid it\nagainst the opening, fastened it by a little clay, and choosing a\nword among those which the Gospel had just given or explained to\nthe world, engraved these six letters:\n\n        \"Chaste,\"\n\n  [Footnote 186: This fragment is now preserved among the\n  _monumenta vetera Christianorum_ in the Belvedere gallery\n  of the Vatican.]\n\n-------------\n\n     Memoirs Of Count Segur.\n\n\nTo record the actions and opinions of one who labored efficiently\nin the attainment of American independence is an agreeable task.\nThe deeds of soldiers are always interesting to the historian and\nattractive to the reader. The philosophical principles that led\ngay young men from the brilliant capital of France to the distant\nregions of a new world, in order to practically assist in the\nassertion of human liberty, cannot be ignored, much less\nneglected, in our all-investigating age. Count Segur participated\nin the stirring scenes over which the genius of Washington\npresided, and he has transmitted to us the treasure of his\nexperience in the first volume of his memoirs. As he lived in the\ntimes preceding the great Revolution which overthrew so many old\nforms of power and honor throughout Christendom, and as his\nfacilities for obtaining a correct knowledge of the state of\nsociety and of systems in his day were extensive, his\nintroductory pages are very instructive.\n{634}\nThis will appear from one comprehensive sentence of his own: \"My\nposition, my birth, the ties of friendship and consanguinity,\nwhich connected me with all the remarkable personages of the\ncourts of Louis XV. and Louis XVI.; my father's administration,\nmy travels in America, my negotiations in Russia and in Prussia;\nthe advantage of having been engaged in intercourse of affairs\nand society with Catharine II., Frederick the Great, Potemkin,\nJoseph II., Gustavus III., Washington, Kosciusko, Lafayette,\nNassau, Mirabeau, Napoleon, as well as with the chiefs of the\naristocratic and democratic parties, and the most illustrious\nwriters of my times;--all that I have seen, done, experienced,\nand suffered during the Revolution; those strange alternations of\nprosperity and misfortune, of credit and disgrace, of enjoyments\nand proscriptions, of opulence and poverty; all the different\noccupations which I have been forced to occupy, and the various\nconditions of life in which fate has placed me--having induced me\nto believe that this sketch of my life would prove entertaining\nand interesting; chance having made me successively a colonel, a\ngeneral officer, a traveller, a navigator, a courtier, the son of\na minister of war, an ambassador, a negotiator, a prisoner, an\nagriculturist, a soldier, an elector, a poet, a dramatic author,\na contributor to newspapers, an essayist, a historian, a deputy,\na counsellor of state, a senator, an academician, and a peer of\nFrance:\"--Certainly a catalogue of sufficiently varied offices,\nwinding up rather prosperously!\n\nThe family of Segur was ancient and honorable. In the field and\nin the cabinet his forefathers had distinguished themselves, and\nour author helped to extend his ancestral reputation. Highly\ngifted by nature, his ample opportunities of cultivation and\nacquirement made him familiar with the various branches of\nscience then taught. He became deeply imbued with those\nphilosophical notions that had begun to spread themselves abroad\nunder the reign of Louis XV., and continued to gather might until\nthey brought his successor to the block, and even still keep\nEurope in a state of unrest. From 1753 to 1774, when Louis XV.\ndied, young Segur had occasion to learn as much as his youthful\njudgment would enable him, concerning the wretched state of\nsociety around the court of that weak and degraded prince. It was\nunder his reign, or rather that of his mistresses--for their\ninfluence had more to do with the government than the\nking's--that the storm was brewed which swept away with terrible\nforce so many corrupt systems of legislation and social life. The\nphilosophers began to point their weapons against ancient\ncustoms. Parliamentary decrees came to the assistance of the\nlatter, but \"their acts of rigor against philosophical writings\nproduced no other effect than to cause them to be sought after\nand read with a greater avidity. Public opinion became a power of\nopposition which triumphed over every obstacle; the condemnation\nwas a title of consideration for its author; and under the reign\nof an absolute monarch, liberty having become a fashion in the\ncapital, exercised a greater sway in it than the monarch\nhimself.\" Who can fail to see that such results will always\ninevitably follow similar proceedings! Human nature has something\nimperatively logical in it, and it will act according to its\nlaws, which are nothing else than the laws of Providence.\n{635}\nThere is a deep philosophy in what he says: \"Power was still\narbitrary, and yet authority lost its influence; public opinion\nescaped despotism by railing at it; we did not possess liberty,\nbut license.\" (P.17.) The lethargy of one weak mind produced all\nthis confusion. The parliament, clergy, philosophers, and\ncourtiers, all joined for different purposes in the same common\ncry against the shameful indolence of the court. The revolution\nwhich was silently moving through public opinion was scarcely\ndreamed of by anybody. Rash measures of resentment, always the\nresort of weak and tyrannic minds, only served to irritate what\nhad been provoked, and the folly of the king was shown in small\nacts of petty tyranny. But death came to remove him and his\nturpitude from the French throne. Segur narrates it: \"In the\nmonth of April, 1774, as Louis XV. was going to hunt, he met a\nfuneral, and, being fond of asking questions, he approached the\ncoffin and inquired who it was they were going to bury? He was\ntold it was a young girl who had died of the small-pox. Seized\nwith a sudden fear, he returned to his palace, and was two days\nafterward attacked with that cruel malady, the very name of which\nhad alarmed him. The hand of death was upon him; his flesh became\ncorrupted; mortification ensued, and carried him off. His corpse\nwas covered with lime, and conveyed to St. Denis without any kind\nof ceremony.\" (P. 32.)\n\nHe proceeds to philosophize upon the desertion of the royal\nfallen shadow by his most subservient flatterers, and observes\nthat in proportion as they had been slavish to his whims and\ntheir own interests during his life, so did they evince their\nindifference to him when departed. They turned immediately to the\nrising sun, and offered him their adulatory worship. Still, the\nprinciples which had been set to work in former years continued\nto advance even under the benignant reign of Louis XVI., who\nfinally atoned for the faults of his predecessors.\n\nThe author sums up succinctly the condition of the tottering\nsociety, daily becoming weaker: \"The object of every one was to\nrepair the old edifice; and, in this simultaneous attempt of all,\nit was levelled with the ground. Too much light was brought to\nthe work by many, and a conflagration ensued. The consequence of\nthis has been, that, for the last fifty years, our harassed lives\nhave been to each of us a dream, alternately monarchical,\nrepublican, warlike, and philosophical.\" (P. 63.) The misfortune\nis, that this dreaming has not yet ended in France, or, indeed,\nin any part of Europe except Switzerland.\n\nBut we must hasten to the events which drew him into connection\nwith the American war. He became a soldier, and, after fighting\nseveral duels, found himself carried away by the enthusiasm which\nfilled his countrymen at the sound of the first cannon-shot fired\nin defence of the standard of liberty. \"I recollect,\" he says,\n\"that the Americans were then styled insurgents and Bostonians;\ntheir daring courage electrified every mind, and excited\nuniversal admiration, more particularly among young people. The\nAmerican insurrection was everywhere applauded, and became, as it\nwere, a fashion; and I was very far from being the only one whose\nheart beat at the sound of liberty just waking from its slumbers,\nand struggling to throw off the yoke of arbitrary power. On my\narrival at Paris, I found the same agitation prevailing also\nthere in the public\nmind.\n{636}\nNobody seemed favorable to the cause of England; all openly\nexpressed their wishes for the success of the Bostonians.\"\n\nEager as were these young enthusiasts to fight in America for the\ncause of liberty, many obstacles interposed to prevent or defer\nthe carrying out of their intentions. The French government was\nnot in a very prosperous financial state at the time, as the\ncountry had scarcely recovered from the mad speculations of the\nScotchman Law during the preceding reign. Besides, England was\nthen powerful: her fleets swept the sea, and she had just\nconveyed across the Atlantic 40,000 mercenaries, to cut the\nthroats of American freemen and stifle the rising spirit of\nliberty. Private aid was, indeed, freely afforded to the\ncolonists; arms and ammunition were conveyed across the ocean in\nspite of embarrassing neutrality laws, and many enterprising\nofficers were allowed to resign their positions in the French\nservice and serve under Washington. When the American deputies,\nSilas Deane, Arthur Lee, and Benjamin Franklin, arrived in Paris,\nand were received with such cordiality at the French court, a new\nstimulus was given to the general desire of assisting the\nrevolutionists. The appearance of those republican delegates\nproduced a sensation in that brilliant capital. \"Nothing could be\nmore striking than the contrast between the luxury of our\ncapitol, the elegance of our fashions, the magnificence of\nVersailles, the still brilliant remains of the monarchical pride\nof Louis XIV., and the polished and superb dignity of our\nnobility, on the one hand; and, on the other hand, the almost\nrustic apparel, the plain but firm demeanor, the free and direct\nlanguage of the envoys, whose antique simplicity of dress and\nappearance seemed to have produced within our walls, in the midst\nof the effeminate and servile refinement of the eighteenth\ncentury, some sages contemporary with Plato, or republicans of\nthe age of Cato and Fabius.\" (P. 101.)\n\nNo less impressive than their unpretending exterior, the honesty\nand artless sincerity of the American deputies gained the hearts\nof the French people, and enlisted in their cause the generous\nenthusiasm of the warlike portion of the nation. Numerous offers\nof service were made, and among the most distinguished were\nLafayette, then a young man, the Count de Noailles, and Count\nSegur. The two latter were obliged by their parents to desist\nfrom the enterprise, which they had already arranged to carry out\nby crossing the ocean; but Lafayette succeeded in purchasing a\nvessel, which he armed and manned at his own expense, and, taking\nwith him some experienced officers, sailed from a port in Spain\nand reached America, where he met with a reception due to his\nmerits and noble purpose. A brave and experienced soldier, M. de\nValfort, afterward chief instructor of Napoleon Buonaparte,\naccompanied the Marquis and rendered efficient service during his\nstay in the New World.\n\nSome time was now spent by young Segur in attending to the events\nwhich Voltaire and his colaborers were bringing about in the\nworld of literature. He was a visitor at the family residence of\nSegur, whose mother was a woman of note in the metropolis. The\ncount himself narrates several interesting incidents respecting\nthe arch-infidel, with whom he appears to have been on intimate\nterms. With regard to his death there is one thing worth\nrecording. Immediately after his triumphal entry into Paris,\ndeath came upon him. Segur says that he recanted his former\nerrors.\n{637}\n\"The clergy, no longer venturing to oppose him, now hoped to\nconvert him. At first Voltaire yielded; he received the Abb\u00e9\nGauthier, confessed himself, and wrote a profession of faith,\nwhich, without fully satisfying the priests, greatly displeased\nthe philosophers. After escaping the danger, he forgot his fears\nand his prudence. A few weeks after, upon being taken extremely\nill, he refused to see a priest, and terminated, with apparent\nindifference, a long life.\" There is a different version of the\nlatter half of the story. It is related that he cried most\npiteously for a priest; but his philosophical friends refused to\naccord him his request, and he died with imprecations most\nhorrible upon their heads for denying his dying wish.\n\nPolitical changes at length enabled the count to embark for\nAmerica, and become an actor in the great drama of freedom, of\nwhich he had been long an earnest spectator at a distance. War\nwas declared between France and England. The French, under Arthur\nDillon and Count Noailles, directed by D'Estaing, captured the\ntown of Grenada; after which the latter sailed for Savannah,\ndesigning to seize that important position. Notwithstanding the\nvalor of the French and Americans in the successive assaults upon\nthe works, they were obliged to retire with loss, rendered still\nmore lamentable by the fall of the brave Pulaski, who fought in\nAmerica for the liberty which had been crushed in his own land. A\nconcise and accurate narrative of the principal events that\npreceded the surrender of Cornwallis to the united arms of\nAmerica and France, occupies a considerable space in the memoirs\nbefore us. The bravery of the French, very naturally, obtains a\nprominent notice until the moment of capitulation arrives. \"The\nEnglish troops then defiled between the two allied armies, drums\nbeating, and carrying their arms, which they afterward deposited\nwith their flags. As Lord Cornwallis was ill, General O'Hara\ndefiled at the head of the English troops, and presented his\nsword to the Count de Rochambeau; but the French general,\npointing to Washington at the head of the American army, told him\nthat, the French being only auxiliaries, it was for the American\ngeneral to receive his sword and give him his orders.\" (P. 237.)\n\nStrange incidents happen in all wars. About this time, the French\ngeneral, De Bouill\u00e9, made an attack on the Dutch islands of the\nWest Indies, lately captured by the British. \"Having during the\nnight landed his troops in the island of St. Eustatia, he\nadvanced at break of day to attack the principal fortress of the\nisland, whose garrison was then engaged in manoeuvring on the\nplain. The vanguard of M. de Bouill\u00e9 was composed of an Irish\nregiment in the service of France: deceived by the sight of their\nred coats, the English thought they saw a part of their own\ncountrymen, and suffered themselves to be approached without\nsuspicion. Undeceived too late, they vainly fought with courage;\nthey were routed on all sides, and pursued with so much ardor\nthat French and English entered pell-mell into the fortress,\nwhich remained in our possession.\" How many foreign battle-fields\nhave found the Irish in the vanguard of armies, yet what avails\ntheir valor to their own country!\n\nIn 1782, Count Segur got permission to set out for America, and a\nfrigate, La Gloire, of thirty-two guns, was placed at his\ndisposal to carry important despatches to Count Rochambeau from\nhis government.\n{638}\nHe had as fellow-passengers the Duke de Lauzun, the Prince de\nBroglie, the Baron Montesquieu, Count de Lom\u00e9nie, an Irish\nofficer named Sheldon, Polawski, a Polish gentleman, and others\neager to assist the inhabitants of a new world fighting for\nliberty, of which men were allowed to dream in the Old World.\nEnthusiastic as he had previously felt upon the subject, he could\nhardly restrain himself, now that he was on his way to accomplish\nhis most cherished hopes.\n\nA letter dated from \"Brest Roads, onboard La Gloire, May 19th,\n1782,\" contains some remarkably philosophical passages; and when\nwriting his memoirs, forty-two years afterward, he could find no\nfitter language to convey the sentiments which then agitated his\nmind. \"In the midst of an absolute government, everything is\nsacrificed to vanity, to the love of fame, or what is called\nglory, but which hardly deserves the name of patriotism in a\ncountry where a select number of persons, raised to the first\nemployments of the state by the will of a master, and on the\nprecarious tenure of that will, engross the whole legislative and\nexecutive power; in a country where public rights are only\nconsidered as private property, where the court is all in all,\nand the nation nothing. A love of true glory cannot exist without\nphilosophy and public manners. With us, the desire of celebrity,\nwhich may be directed to good or evil, is the prevailing motive,\nwhile promotion depends not upon talents, but upon favor.\" A most\npernicious course, and certain to produce disastrous consequences\nin any organization! He proceeds to expose the facility with\nwhich men adapt themselves to any absolute system in which the\nambitious and selfish portion of the community find adulation and\nsycophancy the readiest ladders to power and eminence, while the\ntruly meritorious find their virtue an obstacle to favor, if not\nan occasion of suspicion and fear. If the French nation continued\nwithout change under the system of government such as Count Segur\nrepresents that of his day, it would be more difficult to account\nfor the phenomenon than the revolution which destroyed it.\n\nThe intelligent appreciation of right and freedom that incited\nthose Frenchmen to dare the perils of the ocean preparatory to\nthe more serious dangers of the battle-field for the sake of\nliberty, we should not too easily forget in the present age. It\nwas no whimsical adventure that led them over the waves to engage\nin the pursuit of chimerical gratification. \"In separating at\nthis time from all I hold dear, I do not make so painful a\nsacrifice to prejudice, _but to duty_. ... Being a soldier,\nI leave my family, my native place, and all the charms of life,\nin order strictly to fulfil the duties of a profession, perhaps\nthe noblest of any, when engaged in a just cause.\"\n\nAn interesting narrative of the voyage, in company with the\nfrigate L'Aigle, of forty guns, and bearing a treasure of two\nmillion and a half livres for the aid of the Americans, is given\nin a few pages of the memoirs. They fell in with an English\nfrigate of seventy-four guns, and a memorable engagement ensued.\nThis vessel was the Hector, formerly a Frenchman, taken by the\nEnglish at the defeat of De Grasse. In the midst of the\nengagement, Vallongue, the French commander, cried out to the\nEnglish captain to strike his colors. \"Yes, yes,\" said the latter\nironically, \"I am going to do it;\" and completed his answer by a\nterrible broadside. So near were the vessels that the men used\npistols; and even the rammers of the guns were wielded as clubs.\n{639}\nFor three quarters of an hour La Gloire bore the brunt of the\nunequal conflict; but, at length, aided by L'Aigle, they so\ndisabled the English vessel that they expected soon to capture\nher. Next day, however, other sails appearing in sight, they\nabandoned the Hector, which afterward sank, and the crew was\nrescued by an American ship. An incident of the battle may be\nrelated, as showing the coolness and gayety of the French\ncharacter, even amidst the most appalling scenes:\n\n\"The Baron de Montesquieu was standing near us, (on the deck;) we\nhad of late been amusing ourselves with rallying him in regard to\nthe words _liaisons dangereuses_, which he had heard us\npronounce, and, in spite of all his inquiries, we had still\nevaded explaining to him that such was the title of a new novel,\nthen much read in France. While we were thus conversing together,\nour ship received the fire of the Hector, and a bar-shot--a\nmurderous junction of two balls united by an iron bar--struck a\npart of the quarter-deck, from which we had just before\ndescended. The Count de Lom\u00e9nie, standing at the side of\nMontesquieu, and pointing to the shot, said very coolly, 'You\nwere wishing to know what those _liaisons dangereuses_ were?\nThere, look, you have them.'\"\n\nSoon after this event they approached Delaware Bay, where they\ncaptured an English corvette. Being ignorant of the channel,\nhowever, they were necessarily delayed, and they were placed in a\nmost critical position by the appearance of an English fleet,\nwhose superior force seemed to leave them no chance of escape.\nThis they effected, nevertheless, with the greatest difficulty,\ncarrying with them the gold which they had been obliged to throw\ninto the river when pursued by the English, but which they\nafterward fished up and secured. They then proceeded on the way\nto Philadelphia, and the Count gives amusing incidents that\noccurred on the route. Sometimes well treated by the inhabitants\nfavorable to the cause of freedom, they were also subjected to\nmuch annoyance by the tories and the timid or vacillating between\nboth sides. A certain Mr. Pedikies is particularly mentioned as\nhaving received them coolly and suspiciously, while promises,\nbribes, and threats were necessary to oblige him to afford them\nany aid. The contrast evident between the Americans and his own\ncountrymen, is noticed by the writer in an aspect very favorable\nto the former. What especially attracted his attention was, the\nabsence of different classes in society and of all poverty. \"All\nthe Americans whom we met were dressed in well-made clothes, of\nexcellent stuff, with boots well cleaned; their deportment was\nfree, frank, and kind, equally removed from rudeness of manner\nand from studied politeness; exhibiting an independent character,\nsubject only to the laws, proud of its own rights, and respecting\nthose of others. Their aspect seemed to declare that we were in a\nland of reason, of order, and of liberty.\" (P. 320.) He describes\nthe face of the country, its boundless resources of agricultural\nwealth, and stores of future happiness and power. Philadelphia,\nthen the capital of the country, attracted his admiration, and he\nenters upon a disquisition concerning the Quakers, who inspired\nhim with a very high esteem for their principles of peace and\nrectitude. He says that \"most of them were tories,\" and cannot\nblame them, because their religion forbade its members to engage\nin war. \"Friend,\" said one of them to General Rochambeau, \"thou\ndost practise a vile trade; but we are told that thou dost\nconduct thyself with all the humanity and justice it will admit\nof.\n{640}\nI am very glad of this; I feel indebted to thee for it; and I am\ncome hither to see thee, and to assure thee of my esteem.\"\nAnother discovered a very ingenious mode of avoiding\nparticipation in the deeds of war, even by paying taxes to\nsupport it, and at the same time of complying with the law of\nCongress imposing taxation. The day upon which the collectors\ncalled, he placed a certain sum of money apart where they might\nfind it, and thus he would not _give_, but allowed it _to\nbe taken_. At Newport, he became acquainted with a venerable\nmember of the same sect; and the Frenchman became an ardent\nadmirer of Polly Leiton, the beautiful and modest daughter of his\nhost. She made no pretence to conceal her abhorrence of war, and\ncandidly addressed the Count in terms not at all complimentary to\nhis military notions. \"Thou hast, then,\" she said, \"neither wife\nnor children in Europe, since thou leavest thy country, and\ncomest so far to engage in that cruel occupation, war?\" \"But it\nis for your welfare,\" he replied, \"that I quit all I hold dear,\nand it is to defend your liberty that I come to fight the\nEnglish.\" \"The English,\" she rejoined, \"have done thee no harm,\nand wherefore shouldst thou care about our liberty? We ought\nnever to interfere in other people's business, unless it be to\nreconcile them together and prevent the effusion of blood.\" \"But\nmy king has ordered me to come here and engage his enemies and\nyour own,\" said Segur. To this she replied that no king has a\nright to order what is unjust and contrary to what God ordereth.\n\nHaving transacted important business with M. de Luzerne, at\nPhiladelphia, and fully acquainted himself with the state of\naffairs and eminent men of the times, he set out for the camp of\nWashington and Rochambeau, on the banks of the Hudson. In the\nnarrative of his journey thither, he shows himself a keen\nobserver, and highly appreciates the character of the\ninhabitants, as well as the magnificent aspect of the country\nthrough which he passed. Schools, churches, and universities met\nhim at every town; while kindness, comfort, happiness, were\neverywhere displayed. The modest tranquillity of independent men,\nknowing no power above them but the influence of law, and that\nlaw the expression of their own will; the vanity, servility, and\nprejudices of European society unknown; the general spirit of\nindustry and the honorable occupation of labor common to all;\nsuch phases of life, so strange to the traveller, attracted his\ndeepest attention.\n\nThe inns at which he stopped on his way were generally kept by\ncaptains, majors, colonels, generals, who conversed with equal\nfacility upon military tactics and agricultural projects, and\nwere no less entertaining in their stories of campaigns against\nthe English than in their success in clearing forests and raising\ncrops on the sites of Indian wigwams. This very naturally\nsurprised the inquisitive Frenchman; but, while it presented to\nhim a new phase of human society, it approved itself very highly\nto his judgment. Two things, however, he found to condemn; or, as\nhe himself says, shocked him more than he could express. One was\n\"a vile custom, the moment a toast was given, of circulating an\nimmense bowl of punch round the table, out of which each guest\nwas successively compelled to drink; and the other was, that,\nafter being in bed, it was not unusual to see a fresh traveller\nwalk into your room, and without ceremony stretch himself by your\nside, and appropriate a part of your couch.\"\n\n{641}\n\nTrenton and Princeton recalled to him the memory of brilliant\nexploits performed in the cause of liberty by Washington and\nLafayette; but at Pompton he would have fallen into the hands of\nthe Britishers, had he not been warned of his danger by an old\nwoman sitting at her door, engaged by a spinning-wheel. Having at\nlength crossed the majestic Hudson, which he eloquently\ndescribes, he was cheered by the sight of the American tents, and\nsoon reached the headquarters of Rochambeau, at Peekskill. He\ntook command of a veteran regiment of Soissonnais, which had been\nawaiting him, and he was received with the greatest enthusiasm.\nIt had been formerly named Segur, from his father, who had\ncommanded it at the famous battles of Lawfeld and Rocoux. In both\nthese battles the old warrior was wounded at the head of his\nregiment, once by a musket-ball through his breast, and again by\nanother shot that shattered his arm. Although he felt annoyed at\nthe absence of active operations in the field, still he found\namusement enough among his numerous countrymen, with whom he was\nnow associated. One young officer of artillery particularly\nattracted his attention. This was Duplessis-Mauduit, who had most\nsignally distinguished himself in several engagements, and who\ncarried his attachment to liberty and equality so far as to be\nhighly displeased if any one called him _Sir_ or\n_Mister_. He would be called simply Thomas\nDuplessis-Mauduit.\n\nHis appreciation of the character of Washington is in accordance\nwith the estimation in which that great man was and is held by\nall. \"Too often,\" he says, \"reality disappoints the expectations\nour imagination had raised, and admiration diminishes by a too\nclose view of the object upon which it had been bestowed; but, on\nseeing General Washington, I found a perfect similarity between\nthe impression produced upon me by his aspect and the idea I had\nformed of him. His exterior disclosed, as it were, the history of\nhis life; simplicity, grandeur, dignity, calmness, goodness,\nfirmness, the attributes of his character, were also stamped upon\nhis features and in all his person. His stature was noble and\nelevated; the expression of his features mild and benevolent; his\nsmile graceful and pleasing; his manners simple, without\nfamiliarity. He did not display the luxury of a monarchical\ngeneral; everything announced in him the hero of a republic.\"\n\nExpecting to find an army without organization, and officers\nwithout suitable military knowledge, he was surprised to find\nwell-drilled battalions, and officers fully competent in all\ndepartments of their service. He dined frequently with\nWashington, and gives instructive descriptions of the habits of\nthose Revolutionary heroes. The toasts most frequently given\nafter dinner at headquarters were, \"The Independence of the\nUnited States;\" \"The King and Queen of France;\" \"Success to the\nallied armies.\" The generous spirit of brotherhood that united\nthe two nations in those days seems to have become unknown in our\ntimes; while she that was then the cruel enemy has now become the\nflattered friend. Who will deny that nations sometimes act the\nlife of individuals? Washington's opinions on this point are\nworth recording: \"He spoke to me of the gratitude which his\ncountry would ever retain for the King of France, and for his\ngenerous assistance; highly extolled the wisdom and skill of\nGeneral de Rochambeau, expressing himself honored by having\nobserved and obtained his friendship; warmly commended the\ndiscipline and bravery of our army; and concluded by speaking to\nme, in very handsome terms, of my father, whose long services and\nnumerous wounds were becoming ornaments, he said, to a minister\nof war.\" (P. 253.)\n\n{642}\n\nThe Americans and French were closely besieging the British at\nthis time in New York, and although the prudence of the generals\nrestrained the impetuosity of the allies, who eagerly sought to\nattack the enemy in their defences, it was not possible to\nprevent the execution of some daring exploits. But the armies\nsoon separated, the French marching toward Newport and\nProvidence, thence to Boston. They were ordered to the West\nIndies, where the decisive blow was to be struck at the English,\nand, as it eventually turned out, the independence of the States\nsoon after followed.\n\nWe cannot but admire the wisdom displayed in this book of\nmemoirs, written eighty-five years ago, amidst scenes and times\nthat could afford material from which the future greatness of the\ncountry could be predicted only by a very sagacious mind. He\nclearly foresaw, in the rising colonies then about to emerge into\na powerful nationality, all the resources which, by judicious and\nliberal legislation, led to the wonderful prosperity with which\nour country is blessed. The religious toleration and equality\nwhich reigned everywhere he highly eulogized, and accounts very\nphilosophically for the necessity of such a state of things. It\nmust be borne in mind that Count Segur was a follower of\nVoltaire, although of a Protestant family. For this reason the\ningenuousness with which he testifies to the origin of this\nreligious toleration is more deserving of notice. At page 371, he\nsays: \"The multiplicity of religions rendered toleration\nindispensable among them, and, what will, perhaps, appear\nsingular, _the example of this toleration was set by the\nCatholics_. No church, therefore, was privileged or considered\nthe established church; the ministers of each religion were paid\nby those who professed it, and there existed between them not a\nfatal spirit of jealousy, a source of discord, but a laudable\nemulation of charity, benevolence, and virtue.\" It is pleasing to\nrecord this generous tribute of respect to the liberal spirit\nwhich influenced the religious denominations of those\nRevolutionary times. It is true that in all religious sects there\nare some members who are ever ready to clamor for persecution,\nand eager to adopt forcible measures to compel their unwilling\nneighbors to believe according to their own special measure of\nbelief. And it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to name one\nreligious party that has not, when sufficiently strong to do so,\nbeen led into the commission of acts which succeeding generations\nwould willingly have effaced from the record of their\npredecessors. For instance, what intelligent Presbyterian of the\npresent day would not willingly blot from the page of her history\nthe deeds that stain the Scotch Church in the days of her\ninfluence? Buckle, one of the deepest non-Catholic writers of the\npresent age, says that her real character was \"one of the most\ndetestable tyrannies ever seen on the earth.\" \"When the Scotch\nKirk was at the height of its power, we may search history in\nvain for any institution which can compete with it, except the\nSpanish inquisition. Between these two there is a close and\nintimate analogy. Both were intolerant, both were cruel, both\nmade war upon the finest parts of human nature, and both\ndestroyed every vestige of religious freedom.\" (Vol. ii. p. 322.)\n{643}\nIt is more truthful to admit the opinion of Mr. Buckle than to\nattempt to controvert his facts of proof by which he establishes\nhis position. We only advert to this as elucidating the principle\nthat, although there may be individual Presbyterians and\nindividual Catholics who feel a disposition to recur to the\nunchristian acts of some of their predecessors, yet it cannot be\ndenied that they are exceptional. The general spirit of\ntoleration which Count Segur so justly appreciates, is too deeply\nimplanted in the institutions of the Republic to be blown away by\nany foul blast of weak bigotry.\n\nAnother subject upon which he wisely commented is equally\nimportant to show his great foresight. After aptly describing the\nreasons from which he presaged the future greatness of the\nnation, he observes that \"the only danger to be apprehended\nhereafter for this happy Republic, (which then consisted of three\nmillions of inhabitants,) is the state of excessive opulence of\nwhich its exclusive commerce seems to hold out the promise, and\nwhich may bring luxury and corruption in its train.\" (P. 374.)\nHas not this already come to pass? Again he asks: \"Is not that\ndifference which is observable between the manners and situation\nof the North and South calculated, in fact, to create an\napprehension for the future of a political separation, which\nwould weaken and perhaps even dissolve this happy union, which\ncan only retain its strength while it remains firm and intimate?\"\nThe past few years have proven the justness of his views.\n\nWe cannot better conclude than by transcribing his relation of an\nincident which evinced the bravery of his friend Lynch, an\nofficer of the staff of Count d'Estaing, at the storming of\nSavannah: \"M. d'Estaing, at the most critical moment of that\nsanguinary affair, being at the head of the right column,\ndirected Lynch to carry an urgent order to the third column,\nwhich was on the left. These columns were then within grape-shot\nof the enemy's entrenchments; and on both sides a tremendous\nfiring was kept up. Lynch, instead of passing through the centre\nor in the rear of the columns, proceeded coolly through the\nshower of balls and grape-shot, which the French and English were\ndischarging at each other. It was in vain that M. d'Estaing, and\nthose who surrounded him, cried to Lynch to take another\ndirection; he went on, executed his order, and returned by the\nsame way; that is to say, under a vault of flying shot, and where\nevery one expected to witness his instant destruction. 'What!'\ncried the general, on seeing him return unhurt, 'The devil must\nbe in you, surely. Why did you choose such a road as that, in\nwhich you might have perished a thousand times over?' 'Because it\nwas the shortest,' answered Lynch. Having uttered these words, he\nwent with equal coolness and joined the party that most ardently\nengaged in storming the place.\"\n\nIt has been a pleasure, as well as an instruction, to accompany\nin his thoughts and actions one of those many noble and brave\nforeigners who aided, by their services, in the establishment of\nour independence, and forced a powerful foe to relinquish her\ngrasp upon a nation struggling for liberty.\n\n--------\n\n{644}\n\n\n     Notre Dame De Garaison.\n\n\nIn the province of Aquitaine, a short distance from the village\nof Monl\u00e9on, among the hills of _Les Hautes Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es_, is a\nvalley bearing the name of Garaison, where stands a votive chapel\nin honor of the Blessed Virgin. It is a favorite place of\npilgrimage for all the country around, which has been approved of\nby Popes Urban VIII, and Gregory XVI., who have enriched it with\nindulgences. It was erected in consequence of the apparition of\nour Blessed Lady on the spot, about the year 1500, to a young\nshepherdess who was guarding her flock in the valley. The legend\nis as follows, somewhat abridged. It is supported by most\nunobjectionable witnesses at the time of the event, by tradition,\nand the unanimous voice of the country around; by public\ndocuments, and by the effects which followed and which still\nexist. As for me, however, this is of little moment, these\nlegends not being matters of faith. It is sufficient for me to\nknow that the spot in question is one dear to Mary and peculiarly\nfavored by Heaven. It has been sanctified by the sighs of\ncontrition, by the pure confessions, the fervent communions, and\nthe sudden and miraculous conversions of those who have gone\nthither in honor of the Mother of our Lord.--But the legend:\n\nA young girl of twelve years of age, Angl\u00e8se de Sagazan, was\nguarding her flock near a large hawthorn which shaded a fountain\nof living water. The deep shade and the soft murmur of the\nfountain invited repose, and, opening her basket of provisions,\nthe young shepherdess seated herself by the spring to dip her dry\nbrown bread in the clear, cold water. Suddenly a lady of majestic\nmien, with a serene countenance and gracious regard, clothed in a\nlong, white robe, which fell in graceful folds to her feet, stood\nbefore the astonished maiden, who, dazzled by her appearance,\nremained immovable and speechless. Then our gracious Lady, who\nloveth the poor and the humble, declared to her that she had\nchosen this spot as a place of benediction, whereon she wished a\nshrine erected in her honor, around which her children might\ngather with more than ordinary assurance. This apparition\noccurring three days in succession, the maiden related to her\nfather what had happened. He, in turn, reported the occurrence\namong his neighbors, who were quite incredulous, but yet, through\ncuriosity or inspired by God, flocked to the fountain, where was\nstill to be heard the voice of the Virgin, though no one saw her\nbut the pure eyes of the shepherdess. The people went to seek the\ncur\u00e9, and returned to the fountain with banners, chanting hymns\nin honor of Mary. They erected a large cross on the spot. After\nthat the water of the fountain seemed miraculously changed, and\nthe sick went thither to be healed. The sudden restoration of\nmany to health made the spot celebrated in a short time. The\nnumber of miracles increasing, the present elegant vaulted chapel\nwas erected by the voluntary offerings of grateful pilgrims, and\nthere the benediction of Heaven descended upon the votaries of\nMary.\n{645}\nAt this day wonderful are the prodigies wrought on soul and body\nat the shrine of our Lady of Garaison. Ages ago God healed many\nwho, at the troubling of the waters, descended to the\nangel-guarded Pool of Siloam. His ways are not as our ways. ...\n\nI made a pilgrimage to Notre Dame de Garaison in June, 18--. The\nevening before, I went to shrift, by way of preparation, and the\nnext morning left at an early hour with a party of friends, who\ncompletely filled our private diligence. There were five of us,\nand two servants, besides the driver and his more efficient wife.\nI might call her the driver and him the postilion. Quite a\nprocession we should have made in honor of our Lady of Garaison!\nWe ought to have gone plodding along the highway in sandal shoon\nand penitential garb, with pilgrim staff and scallop-shell,\nknocking our breasts as we went, as did the votaries of the\nmiddle ages. But in these days, when stout old Christian flies\nalong the celestial railroad with his burden of sin carefully\nstowed away in the baggage-car, I, a feeble pilgrim, may be\nexcused for seeking as comfortable a seat as could be found in\nour rickety old diligence. As I got in, I caught a satisfactory\nglimpse of a large basket, in which were light, crispy\n_pistolets_, heaps of deep-red cherries, flasks of water,\nand bottles of mild _vin rouge_, which our servant had\nthoughtfully provided for our outer man. And they were not\ndisdained in our drive of thirty miles. Such due attention having\nbeen paid to our bodily wants, we were quite at leisure to\nabandon ourselves to our spiritual musings or our devotions! Who\ncould wish to have his soul constantly disturbed and pestered by\na jaded and craving body? It is quite contrary to the religious\nas well as philosophic spirit of this enlightened nineteenth\ncentury, and though I was somewhat ascetic, and rather inclined\nto the sterner rules of medieval times, the thought almost\nreconciled me to my corner, where I braced my weary back, and to\nthe aforesaid basket, whence I fortified my body.\n\n\"_Ciel!_\" I exclaimed, as I found myself _en diligence_\nand the stone cross of St. Oren's Priory fast disappearing, \"have\nI returned to the middle ages, or am I dreaming?\" I could not\nhelp rubbing my eyes, and wondering what some of my more\nenlightened American friends would think, if they could see me\nseriously, deliberately setting off on a pilgrimage (even in a\ncarriage!) of thirty miles, to pay my devotions at a shrine of\nthe Virgin Mary! But yes--my head was quite sound, though filled\nwith the vows I wished to offer in a spot peculiarly dear to our\nLady. This was the first visit I ever made to one of these places\nof popular devotion, and so, apart from my religious motives, I\nfelt some curiosity to see this mountain chapel, away almost upon\nthe confines of Spain.\n\nThe roads are fine in that part of France, and bordered by\nmagnificent shade-trees. Owing to recent rains, we had no dust.\nWe passed waving wheat-fields, luxuriant vineyards hedged with\nhawthorn, and away on the neighboring hills was many an old\nch\u00e2teau with its venerable towers, and hard by an antique church.\nI found everything novel, and consequently interesting. Going and\nreturning we stopped at most of the villages.\n{646}\nIn every one we found an old vaulted stone church, with thick\nwalls and doors, ever open to the passer-by. In each were several\nchapels, adorned with oil paintings, bas-reliefs, and statues of\nthe saints, and in every church were the stations of _Via\nCrucis_ well painted, and the little undying lamp of olive oil\nburning near the gilded tabernacle--announcing the presence of\nthe Divinity--the Shekinah of the new Israel--and recalling the\nbeautiful lines of Lamartine:\n\n  \"P\u00e2le lampe du sanctuaire,\n   Pourquoi dans l'ombre du saint lieu,\n   Inaper\u00e7ue et solitaire,\n   Te consumes-tu devant Dieu?\n\n  \"Ce n'est pas pour diriger l'aile\n   De la pri\u00e8re ou de l'amour,\n   Pour \u00e9clairer, faible \u00e9tincelle,\n   L'oeil de celui qui fit le jour.\n\n  ......\n\n  \"Mon oeil aime \u00e0 se suspendre\n   A ce foyer a\u00e9rien;\n   Et je leur dis, sans les comprendre.\n   Flambeaux pieux, vous faites bien.\n\n  \"Peut\u00eatre, brillantes parcelles\n   De l'immense cr\u00e9ation,\n   Devant son tr\u00f4ne imitent-elles\n   L'\u00e9ternelle adoration.\n\n  \"C'est ainsi, dis-je \u00e0 mon \u00e2me,\n   Que de l'ombre de ce bas lieu\n   Tu br\u00fbles, invisible flamme,\n   En la pr\u00e9sence de ton Dieu.\n\n  \"Et jamais tu n'oublies\n   De diriger vers lui mon coeur,\n   Pas plus que ces lampes remplies\n   De flotter devant le Seigneur.\" [Footnote 187]\n\n       [Footnote 187: In the absence of a suitable poetic version\n       of the above, we subjoin--for such of our readers as are\n       not familiar with the language of the original--the\n       following prose translation of it, from Digby's _Ages of\n       Faith_:\n\n       \"Pale lamp of the Sanctuary, why, in the obscurity of the\n       Holy Place, unperceived and solitary, consumest thou\n       thyself before God? It is not, feeble spark! to give light\n       to the eye of him who made the day: it is not to dispel\n       darkness from the steps of his adorers. The vast nave is\n       only more obscure before thy distant glimmering. And yet,\n       symbolic lamp, thou guardest thy immortal fire, thou dost\n       flicker before every altar, and mine eyes love to rest\n       suspended on this aerial hearth. I say to them, I\n       comprehend not; ye pious flames, ye do well. Perhaps these\n       bright particles of the immense creation imitate before\n       his throne the eternal adoration! It is thus, say I to my\n       soul, that, in the shade of this lower place, thou\n       burnest, a flame invisible, a fire which remains\n       unextinguished, unconsumed, by which incense can be at all\n       times rekindled to ascend in fragrance to heaven!\"]\n\nIn these churches there was always an altar to the Virgin, too,\nadorned with lace and flowers, and streaming with gay ribbons and\npennons, after the taste of the country. In one we found a\nwedding party, and were in season to hear the _Ego conjungo\nvos_ of the cur\u00e9 over a very modest and subdued-looking pair.\n\nWe often passed huge crosses of wood or stone erected by the\nwayside, to which were attached the instruments of the Passion. I\nnoticed among the passers-by that the women made the sign of the\ncross and the men raised their hats. I did not find the villages\nvery agreeable. The houses were of stone, with tiled roofs, and\nhad a cold, forbidding look. The paved streets were narrow, with\nno sidewalks, and anything but cleanly. I thought of our fresh\nNew England villages, their white cottages and green blinds, and\nfront yards filled with flowers and shrubbery. But those of\nFrance were more antique and more picturesque--at a distance.\nFlocks of sheep dotted the country, each guarded by a\nshepherdess, who wore a bright scarlet _capuchon_, which\ncovers the head and falls below the waist. It is picturesque, if\nnot graceful, and at a distance the wearer looks like one of her\nnative but overgrown _coquelicots_. They were generally\nspinning, after the manner of the country, with the distaff under\none arm and twirling the spindle in the hand, thus laying their\nhands to the spindle and their hands hold of the distaff after\nthe manner of Old Testament times. How they contrive to spin with\nthese two instruments is past my comprehension, but they do\nsucceed admirably.\n\nEvery now and then we met a donkey groaning under the weight of\nhis ears and of a huge cage, or _panier_, as large as\nhimself on each side, filled with live poultry or fruit and\nvegetables. Perched on the top between these queer saddle-bags\nwas a bright-eyed, sunburnt _paysanne_, most patiently\nthwacking Old Dapple marketward. The oxen looked as if they fared\nbetter; they were sleek and clean, that is, what I could see of\nthem, for they were almost entirely encased in great coverings,\nas if they were elephants.\n{647}\nTheir drivers wore a blouse of blue cotton, and wooden shoes with\nmost impertinently turned-up toes. They are worn (the shoes) both\nby men and women. They make a terrible clatter; you would think\nthe Philistines upon you; but they are very durable.\n\nThe country reminded me of the interior of New England. The hills\nwere finely wooded, more so than I had expected in that old\ncountry. On leaving Monl\u00e9on, we entered a valley, narrow at\nfirst, but which gradually opened, forming a basin of\nconsiderable extent, with green meadows and shady thickets. It is\nbounded and crowned by hills, and a few hours distant are the\nPyrenees. This valley is solitary--secluded, but not wild or\nuncultivated. Perhaps there is a score of houses in it. From\nabout the centre rise the turrets of Notre Dame de Garaison. The\nwhole country was once covered with magnificent oaks which had\nbeen planted by the old chaplains, but the vandals of a later day\nhad cut away whole forests.\n\nThe rain poured down in torrents when we entered the valley of\nGaraison, but that did not prevent us from admiring the locality\nso favorable to devotion. Far from any city, free from noise, the\nchapel is buried among the hills and forests of Aquitaine, a spot\nchosen by God in which to reveal his presence and power! What a\ndelicious solitude! We drove to a little _auberge_--Hotel de\nla Paix!--erected for the accommodation of pilgrims. In the\nolden time they were sheltered in a monastery, which was\ndevastated during the Revolution, and now, when great festivals\ndraw crowds of people, the women often remain in the house all\nnight. Leaving our carriage at the hotel, we immediately went to\nthe church in spite of the rain, passing through a long avenue of\nmajestic oaks.\n\nThe principal entrance to this sacred retreat is quite imposing.\nThe front is decorated with a statue of the Virgin, holding the\ndead Christ in her arms--the bodies of natural size, and the work\nof a skilful hand.\n\nThe buildings form a vast enclosure, in the centre of which is\nthe chapel, having on the north and south two courts which\nseparate it from the rest of the edifice. I was surprised to find\nso fine an establishment so far away from any city. We passed\nthrough a cloister shaded by cypresses to the chapel. Over the\ndoor and at the sides are niches, in which are statues. The\nvestibule, as in all these old churches, is very low. Here my\nattention was attracted by a great number of small paintings\nwhich cover the walls and vault, forming a complete mosaic. These\n_ex-voto_ are not remarkable as works of art, but precious\non account of the miraculous events which they retrace. They\nrepresent the persons who have been cured of their infirmities by\nthe intercession of Mary; to each is attached a label bearing the\nname of the person and the date of the cure. These paintings were\nleft untouched at the Revolution, though the venerable guardians\nof this sanctuary were driven from their cherished solitude; and\nthe sacred vestments, the holy vessels, the silver lamps, the\njewels, and other _ex-voto_ of all kinds, which had been\noffered the Virgin in gratitude for grace received, were carried\naway; the fine statues of the twelve Apostles were destined to\nthe flames, but were rescued by the people of Monl\u00e9on, whose\nchurch they now adorn.\n\nFrom the vestibule we passed into the nave. One feels an\ninexpressible emotion of piety and devotion on entering this\nbeautiful church.\n{648}\nI went immediately to the grand altar to pay my devotions to our\nLady of Garaison, while the servant took my letter of\nintroduction to M. le Sup\u00e9rieur, who was fortunately at liberty.\nI found him a tall, fine-looking gentleman, instead of a hoary\nold hermit, and as polite as a Parisian. He wore a flowing\n_soutane_, confined at the waist by a fringed girdle, and on\nhis head was a sort of skull-cap, such as the priests wear in\nthat country--I imagine, to protect their tonsured heads from the\ncold. He conducted me over the whole establishment. In his room I\nsaw the skull of the shepherdess to whom the Virgin appeared. She\ndied a nun, and more than a century old. After her death, her\nbody was given to the chapel, which had been erected during her\nlife, and to which she had been permitted to resort from time to\ntime. The fountain is under the grand altar; but the water is\nconducted into a basin in a vault to the east of the chapel.\nEvery one says the waters still perform wonderful cures. The\nsuperior said it was not owing to any mineral qualities; and as I\nwas not able to analyze them, I contented myself with drinking\nquite freely of them, bathing therein my forehead, and inwardly\npraying God to heal every infirmity of body and soul. On the\nbasin is a bas-relief representing the Virgin's appearing to the\nshepherdess.\n\nThe arches and walls of the sacristy are covered with the\nfrescoes of a by-gone age, but which have not lost their\nbrilliancy of color. They represent the descent of the Holy Ghost\nupon the Apostles; angels bearing to our Saviour the instruments\nof the Passion, etc.\n\nOver the grand altar of the church, in a niche, is a statue of\nNotre Dame de Garaison, the mother of sorrows, holding in her\narms the inanimate body of her divine Son. There are four small\nchapels, two on each side, separated by walls which advance to\nthe principal nave, and are there converted into pilasters to\nsupport the vault. In them are some oil paintings, two of which\nare very fine, the angel guardian and a Madonna. The niches,\nwhich were robbed in 1789, have been newly furnished with gilded\nstatues of the twelve Apostles, large as life, and bearing the\ninstruments of their martyrdom; and one of our Saviour in the\nmidst. On the vault are painted the patriarchs and prophets of\nthe old law. These gilded statues and altars give a most\nbrilliant appearance to the lightly vaulted Gothic chapel.\n\nIn the south court is a fountain. Mary stands with her divine\nbabe in her arms, sculptured in white marble. The water spouts\nout at her feet through four small masks, and falls into a basin\nof pure white marble, whence it flows into another still larger.\nThe statue has been a little injured by exposure to the weather;\nbut still it reminds one that Mary is the channel through which\nthe grace of God comes to us--that through her flow the waters of\nbenediction and of grace upon man!\n\nThe refectory is vaulted and paved. In it is a whispering\ngallery, common in the monasteries of the middle ages, so one\ncould communicate from one corner to the other opposite in the\nlowest tone. I am sure the knight of the couchant leopard was no\nmore surprised or awed by the midnight procession he witnessed in\nthe little chapel of Engaddi, than was I at a late hour in the\nevening, when, while I was still rapt in prayer, and quite\nunconscious of what was going on around me in this still mountain\nchapel, I found the altar suddenly illuminated, and a door opened\nto a long procession of white-robed priests and about a hundred\nyoung men:\n\n  \"Taper and Host and Book they bare,\n   And holy banner flourished fair\n   With the Redeemer's name.\n\n{649}\n\nThey passed around the chapel, chanting _Tantum Ergo_, and\nthen returned to the altar to give the benediction of the Blessed\nSacrament. The richly gilded chapel was radiant with reflected\nlight, and the strains of _O salutaris Hostia!_ seemed to\nfloat upward in celestial tones, as they issued from lips\npurified by solitude and prayer. I never felt more devotion at\nthis solemn rite than there, in the shadow of the Pyrenees. I\nforgot my fatigue, and yielded to heartfelt emotion. Exiled from\nmy native land, to which I might never return, and among those\nwho were almost entire strangers to me, I felt myself folded to\nthe bosom of divine Providence, and that the All-Father would\nhave me consider every part of his world as my home, and all\nthose souls, which he has breathed into human forms, as my\nbrethren and sisters.\n\nIt was a late hour when I fell asleep on my hard bed at the Hotel\nde la Paix. Coldly looking down upon me from a rude frame was,\nfor my guardian saint, a picture of _Napoleon le Grand;_\nbut, though he had routed many a formidable host, he did not put\nto flight a single sweet fancy or holy thought that thronged my\nbrains, waking or sleeping.\n\nAt an early hour I was again before the altar of Our Lady.\nPriests were celebrating the holy mysteries at every altar when I\nentered the chapel. At seven o'clock, M. le Sup\u00e9rieur offered the\nHoly Sacrifice for my intentions, at which I communicated. ...\n\nMy devotions ended, I rambled around the garden and through the\ncloisters, drank again from the fountain, and then prepared for\nmy departure. I had gone to Garaison with a deeper intent, more\nserious purpose, than is my intention to unveil here. I bore in\nmy heart a burden--a burden common to humanity--which I laid down\nat the feet of Mary, thinking, as I did so:\n\n  \"Oh! might a voice, a whisper low,\n   Forth from those lips of beauty flow!\n   Couldst thou but speak of all the tears,\n   The conflicts, and the pangs of years,\n   Which at thy secret shrine revealed\n   Have gushed from human hearts unsealed!\"\n\nI left that chapel in the strong embrace of the everlasting\nhills, and with sunlight flooding its walls like a glory. Turning\nto give it a last look, at the last turn in the valley, it seemed\nlike a lily rising up in the green meadows--fit type of her to\nwhom it is dedicated.\n\nSince that time I have visited many a shrine of _la belle\nFrance_, but I turn to none with a more grateful heart than\nNOTRE DAME DE GARAISON.\n\n-----------\n\n{650}\n\n\n      Count Ladislas Zamoyski.\n\n      Translated From The French\n      Of Ch. De Montalembert.\n\n\nThe nineteenth century, which is already drawing to a close, will\nin the course of its history present nothing more grand, more\ntouching, more deeply impressed with the stamp of moral beauty,\nthan Poland--vanquished, proscribed, abandoned by the world.\n\nThis nation in mourning and in blood, which yet will not\ndie--this race of indomitable men and women, which survives all\ntortures, all treasons, and all catastrophes, what a spectacle\nand a lesson does it present! Its existence is at once a defiance\nand an appeal: a defiance to adverse fortune, and an appeal to\nwhat seems the too tardy justice of an avenging God. Abandoned\nand calumniated by successful iniquity, by selfish opulence, by\nthe ever-ready worshippers of success, a sight intolerable to\ntheir conquerors, and a reproach to the powerful of the world--there\nthey abide, like Mardochai before Aman, firmly resolved\nto forget not, to despair not, nor to capitulate; incomparable\ntypes of suffering, of sacrifice, of unwearying patience, of\nlofty patriotism; invincible martyrs and confessors, not only of\nfaith, but of right, of country, and of liberty!\n\nIn the centre of this group of proscribed and oppressed, like\nsome great oak struck by lightning in the midst of a burning\nforest, stands out in bold relief the noble figure of Count\nLadislas Zamoyski.\n\nEre yet the waves of forgetfulness and indifference have effaced\nhis noble memory, let us endeavor to recall and rescue from\noblivion some traits of an existence which, by every title,\nbelonged to ourselves; for in France he was born, (during a\njourney of his parents there,) and in France he died, [Footnote\n188] having passed here the greater part of the thirty-seven\nyears which he spent in exile, without having at any time\nreturned to his true country.\n\n    [Footnote 188: January 11th, 1868.]\n\nHere it would seem appropriate to speak of the ancestors of the\nillustrious dead. But how can we fitly portray to this generation\nthe splendor and power of those ancient houses of Poland and\nLithuania, whose immense possessions, countless adherents, and\nextent of influence find no parallel in our own country, even at\nthe most aristocratic periods of its history? It was a Zamoyski\nwho headed the embassy which came to offer the crown of Poland to\na brother of Charles IX.; [Footnote 189] and some one of this\nrace is ever to be found dominant in their country's annals. They\nmay have had equals, but I know that in their native land none\never assumed to be their superiors.\n\n    [Footnote 189: For an account of this embassy, see the\n    excellent work of the Marquis de Noailles, _Henri de Valois\n    et la Pologne in 1572_.]\n\nNothing is more _a propos_ to our immediate subject than the\nlegend of their device and bearings. A King of Poland, whose\npeople had some cause for discontent, being engaged in a conflict\nwith the Teutonic chevaliers, saw on the field of battle a\nZamoyski dying, his breast pierced with three lances. The king\napproached to aid and comfort him. \"_To mnicy [Transcriber's\nnote: blurred.] boli!_\" exclaimed the dying hero. \"_It is\nnot that which pains me!_\" or in other words, \"_A wound does\nless harm than a bad prince or a bad neighbor_.\"\n\n{651}\n\nThese three words and three lances have ever since been the\narmorial bearings of the Zamoyski family. Reflecting upon them,\nwe find in them a singular appropriateness to that one of the\nline whom we have best known; that illustrious and wounded hero\nwhom we have had so long before our eyes with the deadly steel in\nhis heart, and on his lips a word of proud resignation or\nintrepid disdain.\n\nFortunate are those great races who, before they are submerged by\nthe rising tide of equality and modern uniformity, can give forth\none last flash of glory, and furnish to the historian some great\nheart enthusiastic for a good cause and a noble faith; some\nvigorous lover of right and duty, capable of signalizing himself\nby a generous death, like our own Duke de Luynes, or by an entire\nlife of devotion and sacrifice, like Count Ladislas Zamoyski. For\nreason as we will, so long as men are men, they will be always\nand everywhere moved by a something--I know not what--a kind of\nrealization of completeness, which nobility of birth imparts to\ngreat virtues or great misfortunes.\n\nLadislas Zamoyski, in his 28th year, was an officer of the\nlancers in the Polish army, and aide-de-camp to the Grand Duke\nConstantine; he was desirous above all things to serve his\ncountry as a soldier and a citizen, when the military\ninsurrection of Warsaw broke out, at the end of November, 1830.\n\nIt was, as has often been repeated, the advance-guard of the\nRussian army, directed against the France of July, which turned\nback against the main body. Although the count had taken no part\nin the insurrection, the high rank of his family and the\nprecocious maturity of his mind enabled him to profit by the\nparticular position which he held near the prince, whose\narbitrary and unwise acts had contributed more than anything else\nto provoke the revolt. He obtained from the brother of the\nemperor the order which separated the Polish troops from the\nRussian, and gave a sort of method to the military movement,\nwhich soon expanded into a national revolution. Believing himself\nfreed now from all allegiance to the grand duke, the young count\ntook part in all the exploits of the campaign of 1831--a campaign\nwhich has left imperishable recollections in the minds of all who\nwere living at that time.\n\nFor ten months all Europe stood breathless, gazing with deep and\nvaried emotions on those fearful turns of fortune. Every incident\nproduced vehement agitations at the French tribune, in the\nstreets of Paris, and even in the reviews held by the French\nking. There was something both of heroic and legendary interest\nin this conflict, so disproportioned yet so prolonged, between a\nhandful of brave men on the one side, and the colossal resources\nof Russia on the other--a conflict where the veteran comrades of\nDombrowski and Poniatowski were led on by youths inflamed with\nholy zeal for their country's liberty, where the first place was\nso long held by the Generalissimo Skrzynecki, true paladin of the\nmiddle ages, who always put in the orders of the day for his army\nprayers to the Holy Virgin as Queen of Poland, and who, brave in\nthe field and devout at the altar, was so pre-eminently hero,\nChristian, and Catholic. I know not how upon this point the young\nPoles of our own day stand; but I know they would be faithless to\nthe most noble examples of the heroes of 1831 if they should\nsuffer themselves to be enervated by religious indifference, or,\nsadder still, should they ever trail through the depths of\natheism and modern materialism that banner which their ancestors\nnever separated from the cross of Jesus Christ.\n\n{652}\n\nWhen, finally, the countless masses which Russia threw upon\nPoland had dislodged the insurgents from all their positions;\nwhen the attempts at intervention made by the French government\nwere rendered nugatory by the icy and cynical indifference of\nLord Palmerston; [Footnote 190] when Europe resigned herself to\nbe a tranquil spectator at the sacrifice of a nation, Ladislas\nZamoyski, firm to the end, in the front rank of combatants,\nholding then the grade of colonel, laid down his arms with the\nlast division of the Polish army, that of Ramorino, defeated in\nGallicia. He crossed then the frontiers of that country which he\nwas destined never more to see, and came, wounded and suffering,\nbut not less resolute than in the first days of his manhood, to\nput himself at the disposal of his uncle, Prince Adam\nCzartoryski, the venerable chief of the Polish emigration, as he\nhad been president of their national government.\n\n    [Footnote 190: See the correspondence between Prince\n    Talleyrand and Lord Palmerston on the Polish question, July,\n    1831, in the documents submitted to the English parliament by\n    order of the Queen, in 1861.]\n\nIt was then that we saw him for the first time among us. Young,\ntall, commanding, active, and untiring, he carried in his\ndeportment and in those glorious wounds the credentials of his\nmission. Always occupied with the cause of his country, but with\na serenity and stability far beyond his years, he attracted to\nhimself all attention. A solitary and embarrassed wanderer in a\nworld which was so soon to grow heartlessly indifferent to\nPoland, he entered calmly and resolutely upon that obscure,\nlaborious, and uncongenial path which honor and duty had traced\nfor him.\n\nI must be permitted here a just homage to that first Polish\nemigration of 1831, which, preceded by the members of the\nnational government, by the Count Platen and General Kniacewicz,\nand grouped about Prince Czartoryski, the Generals Dembinski,\nDwernicki, Rybinski, and the former ministers, Malachowski and\nMorawski, have given us, for nearly forty years, such noble\nexamples of fortitude and devotedness, of modest dignity and\nmagnanimous resignation. How many of these yet remain to whom I\ncan address this last testimony of an admiration which I shall\nalways account among the most salutary and most lasting emotions\nof my life? I owe to them a great good--the power to know and to\ncomprehend the grandeur and beauty of a vanquished cause!\n\nForced by circumstances to immolate everything in the worship of\ntheir assassinated country, not one hesitated before this stern\nrequisition. Rich and poor, old and young, citizens and soldiers,\nall were called on for sacrifices painful and unexpected, and\nnone shrank back; indeed, to many the privations they were\nobliged to endure formed a strange contrast to their previous\nhabits of prodigality and almost oriental luxury. Ladislas\nZamoyski was conspicuous in this career, so new to himself and\nhis comrades. The subsidies which his friends forced him to\naccept were invariably reserved for some general object, or\ndivided among his less fortunate companions, saying: \"_I learn\nevery day to do without something._\" One thing only did he\nguard carefully--his _beloved sword_, as, with juvenile\n_na\u00efvet\u00e9_, he was accustomed to call it, in the warm hope\nand belief that it might yet serve his country.\n\n{653}\n\nThe French refugees, whom the Edict of Nantes expelled from their\nhomes, represented liberty of conscience odiously persecuted, and\nby this title they won the active sympathies of all the\nProtestant nations. The Irish emigrants, who, about the same\ntime, were the victims of an intolerance as bitter and\ninconsistent in Protestant England, found in France and Spain\nplaces freely opened to them, and which they honorably filled.\nThe French emigration of 1792 represented not only loyalty to a\nmonarchy, but an entire social order, whose end no one believed\nso near--an order which still reigned in nearly the whole of\nEurope; to this they owed, at least during the first years of\ntheir exile, the aid and support of all the powers affected or\nthreatened by the Revolution. It was quite otherwise with the\nPolish emigration of 1831, which, nevertheless, personified, at\none and the same time, liberty both political and religious, and,\nmore than all, a grand people, erased, by injustice, by a crime\nwithout a parallel, from the list of nations, and unanimous in\nprotesting against that decree. They received from perplexed and\ndivided Europe not one of those consolations and encouragements\nwhich it was their right to expect.\n\nFrance and England had generous alms to solace needs purely\nmaterial, but nothing more. Ruled by a double fear--that of the\nMuscovite preponderance from without, and that of dangers from\ndemagogues within--no statesman, even the most liberal, was able\nor willing to espouse the Polish cause. It was a sadder thing\nstill that a misapprehension prevented their receiving a sympathy\nwhich otherwise would have been first offered. Beyond the little\ncircle of liberal, free-hearted Catholics--a circle then very\nlimited--the Polish refugees, victims of the most bitter\npersecutor of the church in the nineteenth century, met no\nresponse from the religious world. It was a time when Catholic\nEurope, monarchical and aristocratic, was miserably prostrate\nbefore the Austria of Prince Metternich and the Russia of the\nEmperor Nicholas. Consequently, at Paris, and, above all, at\nRome, there was to be caught not one glimpse of salvation. There\nexisted among the defenders of the throne and the altar an\nanimosity to the Poles truly revolting, unjustifiable traces of\nwhich even yet remain. It was the heaviest cross, for a multitude\nof Christian souls, which the Polish emigration hid in its bosom.\nI have the right to speak of it, for no one, perhaps, on this\nsubject, has received more mournful confidences, and no one, I\nventure to believe, has done more to induce among Catholics a\nhappy change--a change commencing with the good and fatherly Pope\nGregory XVI., and precisely on occasion of Count Ladislas\nZamoyski, whom he was pleased, at my request, to encourage to\nvisit him in Rome. [Footnote 191]\n\n    [Footnote 191: Until 1837, no Pole was allowed to enter Rome,\n    without a passport vis\u00e9 by Austria, Prussia, or Russia;\n    consequently, this excluded the exiles of 1830.]\n\nBut how time and efforts must fail in making reparation for this\nstrange misunderstanding! and how much it must have aggravated\nthe sorrows inseparable from prolonged exile--those sorrows\nwhich every noble heart must comprehend, even without having\nexperienced them, and which inspired, in a sad, gifted soul, the\nlast ray of its genius!\n\n\"He passed, a wanderer on earth. May God guide the poor exile! I\nmove among the crowd; they gaze at me, and I at them, yet each to\neach is unknown. The exile is alone everywhere,\" [Footnote 192]\n\n    [Footnote 192: _Paroles d'un Croyant_. 1833.]\n\n{654}\n\nCount Zamoyski, always sincerely attached to the faith of his\nfathers, even before the death of a beloved mother had developed\nin him a fervent piety, lived long enough to witness this happy\nchange in Catholic opinion. He had the consolation of seeing the\nentire church moved, at the voice of its chief, by the\nincomparable sufferings of Poland. In France, at least, every\nCatholic worthy the name addressed prayers without ceasing to the\ndivine mercy, that the country of St. Hedwige and Sobieski might\none day resume her place, free among the nations. This harmony\nbetween the irrepressible aspirations of his patriotism and the\ndaily increasing fervor of his religious sentiments threw over\nthe last years of his life a warm and consoling light.\n\nBut before arriving in port, how stormy the voyage! Bound by soul\nyet more than by the ties of blood to his uncle, Prince Adam\nCzartoryski, he had been twenty-five years his lieutenant, his\ncoadjutor, and the sharer of his fortunes; like him, too,\nencountering continually repulse, deception, and injustice,\nwithout being embittered or discouraged.\n\nBelgium, always hospitable, took full possession of her\nnationality in the same year, 1831, when Poland seemed to have\nlost hers. She immediately opened the ranks of her army to Count\nLadislas, with the grade of colonel, a position he had won on the\nbloody banks of the Vistula.\n\nFor fifteen years [Footnote 193] he watched in vain for an\nopportunity to once more draw his sword in behalf of his own\nland, or for some cause which might even indirectly serve her\ninterests.\n\n    [Footnote 193: From 1832 to 1847.]\n\nHe was obliged to content himself with employing his intercourse\nwith the political men of the two great constitutional countries,\nto secure to the Polish question, in the order of the day, some\nparliamentary discussion or some diplomatic bias, and to obtain\nfrom the French chambers and the English parliament those\nperiodical demonstrations which seemed to him so many\nprotestations of right against the most odious of political\ncrimes; so many guarantees against a proscription which the sad\ndestinies of men too often drew down on them, to the profit and\nencouragement of injustice.\n\nAt length, in 1846, he thought he saw the dawn of better days. In\nthe short counterfeit alliance between Pius IX. and Italian\nliberty, he hastened, with sixty other Polish officers, to offer\ntheir devotedness and military experience to the new pontiff,\nwhom all believed menaced by Austria even more than by the\nRevolution. From thence he passed as a volunteer into the army of\nCharles Albert, and shared, by the side of that noble and\nunfortunate sovereign, in all the vicissitudes of the struggle\nbetween Piedmont and Austria. Austria, we must remember, at the\ntime we speak of, was not the liberal Austria of the present day;\nand no Pole could look on this empire as aught save the author\nand accomplice of the calamities of his country. Piedmont being\ndefeated and restricted to its ancient limits, it was to Hungary\nthat Count Zamoyski next turned his steps. Hungary was then in a\nstate of insurrection against Austria, but was also a victim\nherself to an insurrection of her Sclavic population, unwisely\nirritated. To gain from Hungary a recognition of the rights of\nthese people--rights so misunderstood or ignored by the rest of\nEurope--was the mission of Count Zamoyski, and for which he was\nwilling to confront new perils. The Russians, however, soon\narrived, and, combining their armies with those of Austria and\nwith the revolted Croats, Hungary was soon crushed.\n{655}\nAfter the decisive defeat of Teneswar, the remnants of the Polish\nlegion passed into Servia, and from thence to Turkey.\n\nFor two years he occupied himself here in disciplining those\nindomitable spirits for future contests; for to the honor of the\nOttoman Porte be it recorded that it refused the demands of the\nRussian and Austrian governments for the extradition of the\nPolish and Hungarian refugees.\n\nDuring a short revisit which he made to France, the Eastern\nquestion arose, and he immediately returned to Turkey. He took\npart, with the rank of general, in the campaign on the banks of\nthe Danube, and through the entire Crimean war devoted his\nstrength, his rare intelligence, his military experience, to\nforming regiments of Polish Cossacks, ostensibly for the service\nof the sultan, but indulging in the hope of seeing them\nultimately admitted to the ranks of the allies.\n\nIn January, 1856, the preliminaries of the Peace of Paris came to\ndash aside once more his patriotic day-dreams, and to destroy\nevery chance of resuscitation which had seemed offered to Poland\nin this rupture, so pompous but so fruitless, between France and\nEngland and Russia.\n\nNo adequate reason has yet been given for that blind delusion\nwhich prevented the powerful allies, in 1855, or Napoleon I., in\n1812, from using against Russia the only power which she could\nnot control, to recall Poland to that national existence which\nwas her sacred right; and which, at the same time, was the only\nefficient guarantee for the independence and security of Europe.\n\nMade desperate by this thwarted expectation, Poland suffered\nherself, in 1863, to be drawn into that strenuous but unfortunate\neffort whose miserable consequences are in the memories of all.\nCount Zamoyski, now suffering with age and infirmities, made one\nlast attempt to prevail on England to unite in some kind of\naction with France, and not to stand by in silence at those\nmassacres and outrages which Russia perpetrated with such\nimpunity, a mockery to the civilization of the nineteenth\ncentury. He failed, and this was his last attempt.\n\nHe died, leaving Europe more than ever exposed to perils he had\nwarned her against, more than ever recklessly serving the\nMuscovite power.\n\nHe died, seeing Russia supremely powerful in the East, and free\nto put the seal on all the bloody hypocrisies of her history:\n_here_, making the world resound with her solicitude for the\ncivil and religious liberty of the Cretans, while she crushed out\nwith her unholy foot the last palpitations of Polish freedom, and\nextirpated, with infernal perfidy, the last vestiges of Polish\nCatholic faith: _there_, instigating against regenerated\nAustria a formidable conspiracy of her Sclavic subjects, while\nthe highways and mines of Siberia are strewn with the skeletons\nof heroic Poles, whose only crime was to spurn the yoke of those\nRussians who are a hundred-fold less truly Sclavic than their\nvictims.\n\nThe history of Count Ladislas Zamoyski is, then, a sad one; it is\nthe story of a life-long shipwreck.\n\nAll his designs were frustrated, all his hopes deceived. Always\nhastening from disappointment to disappointment, from defeat to\ndefeat, he wearied never, paused never, was successful never.\n\n{656}\n\nDeeming no sacrifice too great, and no detail too minute for the\nservice of his country, he was prompt to avail himself of any\ncircumstance or encounter any new risk which might gain for her a\nfriend, remove an error, or stimulate in her behalf the\nindifferent. Self-armed against disasters, he raised himself from\neach defeat with the tenacity of an old Roman on the\nbattle-field, where he had been once overthrown, to fall again,\nwounded and crushed down by an implacable adversity.\n\nIt would seem as if so many trials, mental and material, public\nand private, might suffice to fill that measure of suffering\nwhich is the lot of all below. But no! he had still to endure\nthose which would appear more fittingly the portion of the idle\nand prosperous.\n\nCrippled with wounds and infirmities, the last ten years of his\nlife were passed in physical sufferings which made them one\nprolonged torture. He endured, during all this time, the\nprolonged weariness, the distastes, the feebleness of failing\nhealth; and he supported them with the same imperturbable\npatience, the same tranquil and unconquerable courage, which had\nsustained him through the sad vicissitudes of his public life.\n\nHow great the virtue, crowned by those great sufferings! There is\nin it a grand and mysterious lesson, and one, above all, which\nGod seems to have designed for our instruction and edification;\nfor his character more than his career at all times raised him\nfar above the mass of human kind. No one could approach him\nwithout feeling a profound respect before a strength of mind so\ndetermined, a patience which never failed; before that singular\nunion of bravery and gentleness, that generous sense of honor,\nthat equanimity, that integrity. Rich in the domestic happiness\nwhich Providence accorded to his declining years, he was content\nto live, content to suffer; yet appreciating any relief, and\nhumbly thankful for those rare moments of respite which were\npermitted to his numerous infirmities. Without disavowing the\naspirations of his youth, he had purified and transformed them in\nthe crucible of self-denial and sacrifice. What remained to him\nof generous pride was so tempered that the most exacting could\nnot have reproached him. His Christian fervor brightened as the\nchills of age encircled him; and the destinies and well-being of\nthe church inspired him no less than those of his country.\n\nHe gave a proof of this devotion in the past summer, (1867,)\nwhen, so broken in health, he went to Rome to lay at the feet of\nPius IX. a last homage. In the midst of those _f\u00e8tes_ of the\nCentenary of St. Peter, where were gathered the bishops and the\nfaithful of the entire world, except those bound fast and gagged\nby the Muscovite autocrat, Ladislas Zamoyski appeared, like the\nliving spectre of absent, enchained Poland.\n\nNor was it only faith: it was still more--charity--which animated\nthis soul, so Christian and chivalrous. How can we depict that\ncompassion and generosity, so irrepressible, toward his destitute\ncompatriots! or how sufficiently admire that charity of\nforgiveness to his enemies--the pitiless enemies of his nation!\nNever one word of bitterness crossed his lips.\n\n\"What is to be thought of the Russians?\" said a friend to him,\none day, \"and how far are they implicated with the emperor?\"\n\n\"I never judge them,\" he replied: \"I pray for them.\"\n\nFor us, who are not bound to exercise such superhuman moderation,\nwho are witnesses and not victims of these atrocities, we raise\nbeside the tomb of this just man a cry of grief and indignant\nsurprise.\n\n\"_Usquequo, Domine sanctus et verus, non judicas et non\nvindicas, sanguinem nostrum de iis qui habitant in terr\u00e2?_\"\n\n{657}\n\nHow long, O Lord! shall crime and falsehood triumph? How long\nwilt thou leave unpunished this martyrdom of a Christian nation,\nwhich will soon have lasted an entire century?\n\nBut all rebellious thoughts against the tardiness of divine\njustice are checked, all the poignancy of sorrow is subdued, by\nthe remembrance alone of the departed dead. He is gone! His long\nand cruel trials are over! He has entered into light and peace!\nHe lives in the bosom of his God, and his memory will be for ever\ncherished among men, with the annals of his illustrious house and\nof his unfortunate country. He leaves behind a name which will be\na crown of glory to his children, born in the land of exile where\nhe died, and rocked in their frail cradle on a stormy sea. He\nleaves a sacred grief, which is a treasure to her alone, to the\nyouthful and admirable woman who gave herself to him in his\ndarkest hour; the intrepid sharer in his vicissitudes and perils,\nthe loving and faithful consoler of his sufferings and decline,\nand who enjoyed a happiness with him in this world which is to be\ninterrupted only for a few brief days.\n\nFinally, he leaves a great and profitable example to all who have\nknown and loved him; above all, to those who, subjected to\nslighter trials, submit to them with less patience and less\ncourage.\n\n----------\n\n     The Catholic Church And The Bible.\n\n\n_Does the Catholic Church condemn the Bible and forbid her\npeople to circulate and read it?_\n\nWe answer: NO! On the contrary, the Catholic Church believes the\nBible to be the inspired word of God himself, and constantly\nincites her people to its diligent perusal. In testimony of\nwhich, we offer: first, her official declarations; and second,\nher unvarying practice.\n\nFirst, her official declarations.\n\nThe holy Council of Trent, which closed its sessions in the year\n1564, and whose canons and decrees are the voice of the universal\nchurch, binding upon every Catholic under pain of sin, distinctly\nsays:\n\n  \"The Holy OEcumenical and General Council of Trent, ...\n  following the example of the orthodox fathers, does with due\n  veneration and piety receive all the books of the Old and the\n  New Testament, of both which God himself is the immediate\n  author. ... And, lest any doubt should exist as to what books\n  this council has thus received, a catalogue of the same is\n  annexed to this decree. (Here follows a list of the sacred\n  books, as found in. English Catholic Bibles.) Now, if any one\n  shall refuse to receive these books entire, with all their\n  parts, according as they are accustomed to be read in the\n  Catholic Church and are contained in the ancient Latin Vulgate\n  edition, as sacred and canonical, ... let him be anathema.\"\n  [Footnote 194]\n\n    [Footnote 194: _Can. et Dec. Conc. Trid._ Sess. iv.]\n\n{658}\n\nAgain, the Pope, who, as the head and mouth-piece of the Catholic\nChurch, administers its discipline and issues orders to which\nevery Catholic, under pain of sin, must yield obedience, has\npositively declared, \"that the faithful should be excited to the\nreading of the Holy Scriptures: for these are the most abundant\nsources which ought to be left open to every one, to draw from\nthem purity of morals and of doctrine;\" which declaration may be\nfound in the preface to the English Catholic Bibles now in use.\n\nSecond, her unvarying practice.\n\nThe Catholic Church, from the beginning, has provided effectual\nmeans, not only for the distribution of the Bible among her\npeople, but also for their knowledge of the truths which it\ncontains. One of her holy orders is that of _Reader_, \"whose\nduty,\" as her catechism says, \"is to read the Sacred Scriptures\nto the people in a clear and distinct voice, and to instruct them\nin the rudiments of faith.\" [Footnote 195]\n\n    [Footnote 195: _Catechism. Cone. Trid._ pars. ii. De\n    Ordin.]\n\nAgain, from the beginning, it has been made the daily duty of her\npriests and religious persons to recite \"the divine office,\"\nwhich consists of psalms, of readings from the Bible, and of\nprayers. The new revision of this office made by Gregory VII., in\nwhich its different parts were first collected into one volume,\nbecame known as the \"Breviary,\" and is still so called. From this\nwas translated and compiled, in great part, the \"Daily Morning\nand Evening Prayer\" of the Protestant Episcopal Church, the\nepistles, gospels, lessons, and psalms of which, thus borrowed,\npresent, as is well known, so large a portion of the Holy\nScriptures. Indeed, the Breviary is but the Bible, in a form\nadapted to devotional uses, and illustrated with pious\nmeditations and devout prayers. Before us lies a copy, published\nin the year 1632, during the Huguenotic wars and persecutions. It\nbears the official order of the great Richelieu; and, as we turn\nover its leaves, we find that a large part of the whole Bible is\nembraced within its pages, and we perceive that as long as this\nbook can be found in the hands of all her clergy, and is\naccessible to every one who seeks it, so long, within the borders\nof the Catholic Church at least, the Holy Scriptures will be\nwidely circulated and intimately known.\n\nAgain, in every age, the most eminent and pious of the pastors\nand scholars of the Catholic Church have devoted their lives to\nthe study and explanation of the Bible. The sermons of the first\neight centuries were principally oral commentaries on the sacred\ntext. The great libraries of valuable Christian works, which have\ncome down to us from the primitive church, are made up of volumes\ndirectly based on Holy Scripture. Their writers are well known as\nmen of great intellect, of unwearied zeal, of deep and humble\npiety. Look at this list of some of them: In the second century,\nPantaenus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen; in the third\ncentury, Pierius, Pamphilus, Hesychius, and Eusebius; in the\nfourth century, Hilary, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustin, Chrysostom,\nand Ephrem; in the fifth century, Cyril, Theodoret, and Isidore\nof Pelusium; in the sixth century, Gregory the Great,\nCassiodorus, Procopius, and Primasius; in the seventh century,\nMaximus, Isidore of Seville, Julian of Toledo, and John\nDamascene; in the eighth century, Venerable Bede, Alcuin, and\nRabanus Maurus; in the ninth century, Christian Druthmar,\nWalafridus Strabo, Remigius of Auxerre, and Sedulius; in the\ntenth century, OEcumenius and Olympiodorus; in the eleventh\ncentury, Nicetas, Lanfranc, and Theophylact; in the twelfth\ncentury, Euthymius, Anselm, and Rupert; in the thirteenth\ncentury, the great Thomas Aquinas and Hugo de Sancto Caro; in the\nfourteenth century, Nicholas de Lyra, Paul of Burgos, and Gerson;\nin the fifteenth century, Laurentius Valla, Tostatus, Denis the\nCarthusian, Marsilius, and Le F\u00e8vre: in the sixteenth century,\nCornelius \u00e0 Lapide, Maldonatus, and Jansen of Ghent; in the\nseventeenth century, Natalis Alexander and John Baptist du Hamel;\nin the eighteenth century, the learned Calmet, of whose work the\nfamous Dr. Adam Clarke has written: \"This is, without exception,\nthe best comment on the sacred writings ever published, either by\nCatholics or Protestants.\" [Footnote 196]\n\n    [Footnote 196: Horne's _Introduction_. Vol. ii. part.\n    iii. chap. V. sec. iii. \u00a7 3, Am. ed. 1836.]\n\n{659}\n\nCertainly, no age, illuminated with such lights as these,\ndeserves to be called \"_dark;_\" no people, taught by such\nteachers, could ever have been ignorant. And when we remember\nthat, as an eminent Protestant clergyman has said, \"the writings\nof the dark ages are made of the Scriptures;\" not merely, \"that\nthe writers constantly quoted the Scriptures, and appealed to\nthem as authority on all occasions, but that they thought and\nspoke and wrote the thoughts and words and phrases of the Bible,\nand that they did this constantly as the natural mode of\nexpressing themselves,\" (_The Dark Ages._ By Rev, S. R.\nMaidand, D.D. London, 1853;) and remember, further, that this\ncould not be so, unless the people who wrote and those who read\nalike had free access to Holy Scripture both possessing the books\nand being permitted to circulate and use them, we shall be far\nenough from believing that in the Catholic Church the Bible has\never been \"_a hidden book,_\" or that the doors of its rich\ntreasure-house were ever closed to men.\n\nAgain, the efforts of the Catholic Church to preserve and\nperpetuate the Bible have been unceasing. As early as the fourth\ncentury, by the direction of Pope Damasus, St. Jerome entered on\nthe work of preparing a full and perfect copy of the Scriptures.\nHe devoted twelve years to the study of the Hebrew, Syriac, and\nother oriental languages. He collected at Jerusalem and in the\nEast all the most accurate versions, both of the Old and New\nTestaments. From these, revised, compared, and corrected with\neach other, he prepared that Latin version which is commonly\ncalled the \"Vulgate,\" and which, as all biblical critics allow,\nis the most perfect and complete copy of the Bible which now\nexists. During the period between the fourth and sixteenth\ncenturies, every great monastery (and Europe was full of them)\nhad its \"scriptorium,\" or writing-chamber, in which copies of the\nScriptures were constantly produced. Of the 1400 manuscripts of\nthe New Testament which are now extant, not one was written\nearlier than the fourth century, or by other than Catholic hands;\nand Protestants themselves have no higher origin for their\nScriptures than these Catholic copies, and no surer ground of\nreliance on their accuracy than the fidelity and learning of\nCatholic scholars. How easy, if the Catholic Church condemned the\nBible, would it have been to neglect this multiplication of the\nsacred books, and to silently destroy existing copies! Yet those\nwho depend altogether on her labors for their boasted Scripture,\nhave said, and still will say, that she fears the Bible and would\ngladly banish it from men. But when the age of printing came, her\nefforts were redoubled.\n{660}\nAccording to the popular idea, translations of the Scripture into\nthe vulgar tongues were never made before the Reformation, or\neven till long after it, by Catholics. Nothing could be more\nfalse. The Bible, either wholly or in part, had been translated\nand published in no less than _seven_ of the common\nlanguages of Europe, before Luther and his Reform were ever\ndreamed of. In the year 1466 a translation into German was\nprinted, copies of which still exist. This translation passed\nthrough _sixteen_ different editions at Strasburg,\nNuremberg, and Augsburg, in the course of a few years, and was\nfollowed by another translation, of which _three_ editions\nwere published at Wittemberg in 1470, 1483, and 1490; _two_\nat Cologne in 1470 and 1480; _one_ at Lubeck in 1494;\n_one_ at Haberstadt in 1522; and _one_ each at Mayence,\nat Strasburg, and at Basle, in 1517. Luther first published his\ntranslation in 1530, nine years after the Diet at Worms and\ntwelve years after he had turned Reformer. Before his time,\ntherefore, there were no less than _twenty-seven_ different\neditions of the Bible in the German language in circulation among\nthe people, besides almost innumerable editions in Latin, a\ntongue with which the clergy and the learned of that age were\nwell acquainted. In the year 1471 a translation of the Bible into\nItalian was printed both at Rome and Venice, and passed through\n_thirteen_ different editions before the year 1525. Two\ndifferent translations into French were also published; one in\n1478, which was printed in _seventeen_ successive editions\nbefore 1546; and the other in 1512, which also passed through\nmany editions. In 1478 a translation into Spanish was published,\nwhich was reprinted in 1515 _with the express sanction of the\nSpanish Inquisition._ In 1475, a translation into Flemish was\npublished at Cologne, of which _seven_ new editions were\nprinted before 1530. In 1488, the Bible, in the Bohemian\nlanguage, was printed at Prague, and again produced at Cutna in\n1498, and at Venice in 1506 and 1511. An edition in Sclavonian\nwas also published at Cracow in the first part of the same\ncentury. Add to these the different versions made in the \"dark\nages,\" and you have no less than _twenty-two_ translations\nand _seventy_ printed editions of the Holy Scriptures in the\nvulgar tongues of England, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and\nSweden, prepared by the Catholic pastors and scholars of Europe,\nand distributed among their people, before Luther and his Bible\nwere ever heard of. When Protestant historians relate that this\nrenowned Reformer never saw a Bible till he was twenty years of\nage, and had been a student at the university upward of two\nyears, and depict his wonder and delight at its discovery,\n(_Hist. Ref. D'Aubign\u00e9_, vol. i. p. 131,) we hardly know\nwhether to condemn the ignorance of the Reformer or the\ndishonesty of the historian, one of which must be true.\nCircumstances certainly seem to cast the odium of falsehood on\nthe latter, rather than that of unparalleled stupidity upon the\nformer.\n\nAfter the Reformation began, the Catholic Church applied herself\nto preserve and perpetuate the Scriptures with the same diligence\nand zeal as of old. A new translation into German appeared in\n1534, and passed through _twenty_ different editions within\nthe century. Another was printed in 1537, and also passed through\nseveral editions. Still another was published in 1630, and during\nthe past fifty years there have been several others. Between the\nyears 1525 and 1567, _eight_ different editions of the\nItalian translation of 1471 were printed, with the formal\npermission of the Holy Office at Rome.\n{661}\nAnother translation appeared in 1532, which passed through\n_ten_ editions within twenty years. Another still was\npublished in 1538, 1546, and 1547, and more recently there have\nbeen several others; the principal of which is that of Antony\nMartini, which in 1778 received the written endorsement and\nrecommendation of Pope Pius VI. _Thirty-nine_ different\neditions of the French translation of Le F\u00e8vre, as revised by the\ndoctors of Louvain, were published between 1550 and the year\n1700, since which latter date many new versions, and many\nreprints of former versions, have appeared in France; of one of\nwhich the great Bossuet is said to have distributed _fifty\nthousand_ copies with his own hands. In Spain, likewise, the\nBible, and especially the New Testament, has been frequently\nreprinted. The most famous Spanish edition is the renowned\nPolyglot Bible of Cardinal Ximenes, in six folio volumes,\npublished at Alcala in 1515. In the year 1582, the New Testament\nin English was issued from Rheims, and in 1609, the Old\nTestament, in the same language, was printed at Douay, the two\ntogether forming the Douay Bible, an edition which, if not the\nmost elegant in phraseology, is still generally admitted by all\ncritics to be more faithful and correct than any other version in\nthe Anglo-Saxon tongue. This latter version has appeared in\nalmost every form, from the largest and most ornate to the\nsmallest and least expensive, and may be found in almost every\nCatholic family which possesses the ability to read it. Nearly\nthe same may be said of all other versions in the common\nlanguages of the present age. They were intended not for the\nlearned, but for the people. The encouragement which they\nreceived came from the people, not in opposition to, but in\nconsequence of, the permission and recommendation of the pastors\nof the church: and it is simply incredible that all these\ndifferent translations should have been made, and these numerous\neditions printed, unless the Bible had been freely read and\nfreely circulated among the Catholic masses both of Europe and\nAmerica.\n\nSo far, therefore, from ever hiding the Holy Scriptures, or even\nkeeping them in the background, history proves, beyond the\npossibility of doubt or denial, that the Catholic Church has\nalways occupied the foremost position in the preservation and\ndiffusion of the written word of God; and that to her efforts,\nand to her efforts alone, is due not only the continued existence\nof the Bible itself, but also of those vast treasures of research\nand investigation which tend to throw light upon its meaning, and\nenforce its teachings on the hearts of those who read it; nay\nmore, that Protestants themselves possess a Bible, only so far as\nthe same church has bestowed it on them; and that their\ncommentaries and expositions are but mere digests and abridgments\nof the laborious and extensive works of Catholic philosophers and\ntheologians.\n\nHow, then, when the Council of Trent--which is the unerring voice\nof the universal church--when the Pope, who is the head and ruler\nof the faithful--when the unvarying practice of all ages of\nCatholics throughout the world--proclaims that the Catholic\nChurch believes the Bible to be the inspired word of God, and one\nof the great means for the enlightenment and instruction of\nmankind--how, then, can Protestants ask whether the Catholic\nChurch condemns the Bible, and forbids its members to circulate\nand read it? Does not all history answer them?\n{662}\nDo not thousands of sermons, homilies, and commentaries answer\nthem? Do not hundreds of translations, scattered over all ages\nand all lands, answer them? Does not their own possession of the\nBible at the present day, which they profess to prize so highly,\nand for which they are indebted to that same church, answer them?\nHow, then, can they believe those slanders which have, for so\nmany years, been uttered against the church of God in reference\nto the Scriptures? Above all, how can they _repeat_ them,\nafter the often made and complete demonstration of their\nfalsehood?\n\nStill it is asked, _What, then, about these Bible burnings,\nthis actual hinderance, in particular instances, to the use of\nthe Bible? And why does not the Catholic Church join with the\ngreat Bible societies of the age in the diffusion of the Bible,\nor at least form societies of her own for the same purpose?_\n\nThese are important questions, and questions, too, which must be\nanswered, if the preceding demonstration would have its full\neffect upon the mind; and for this reason we will now consider\nthem.\n\nWhat is the Bible? Very few Protestants ever seem to know, or at\nleast to remember, what the Bible really is. Most of those whom\nwe have met appear to regard it as a book, delivered in its\npresent form directly by God to man. But this is not so. On the\ncontrary, the Bible is a collection of different books, written\nat various periods during the space of more than fifteen hundred\nyears. Some of them were originally in Hebrew, some in Chaldaic,\nsome in Greek. They had no less than thirty-six different\nauthors, most of whom were widely separated from each other\neither in place or time; and they were neither collected into one\nvolume nor arranged in the shape of the present Bible, until many\nyears after the establishment of the Christian church.\n\nNow, it is evident that, when we say, \"The Bible is inspired,\"\n\"The Bible is the word of God,\" we mean just this, and nothing\nmore, namely, that the original manuscript, which any one of\nthese authors wrote with his own hand, exactly as dictated to him\nby the Holy Ghost, was inspired, and contained the revelation of\nGod. When a copy of that original manuscript was made, the copy\nwas not inspired. If it precisely corresponded with its original,\nit would give a perfectly correct idea of that original; if it\ndiffered from it, it would, so far, fail to give such idea; and\nwould, to that extent, fail to be a sure guide to the knowledge\nof the written word of God. So with a translation; if it rendered\nthe ideas contained in the original manuscript into another\nlanguage so exactly that a reader of the translation would\nreceive precisely the same impressions that were intended to be\nconveyed by the original--supposing them to be rightly understood\nby him--then would the translation, in its turn, make known the\nexact truth of God. But if there was in this the smallest\ndeviation, and the ideas imparted by it were not precisely those\nimparted by the original, then it would not convey the word of\nGod. And since not one of these original manuscripts is now\npreserved, it becomes evident that there is not an inspired book\nin existence; but, at the best, only copies and translations of\nbooks that were inspired, but have long ago been lost or\ndestroyed.\n\n{663}\n\nBut even these copies which we now possess are not _first_\ncopies, made directly from the original manuscripts themselves.\nMoses wrote his five books of the Old Testament upward of three\nthousand years ago; and the oldest existing copy of them was made\nwithin the past nine hundred years. How many successive\ngenerations of copies, so to speak, filled up the intermediate\ntwo thousand years, no one can tell. The same is true, in their\ndegree, of the remaining books; copy of these also being made\nfrom copy, and so on, until the art of printing was discovered.\nAll of these copies, both of the Old and the New Testament, were\nmade by hand, in rude characters, and with ruder implements,\nwhile languages were constantly changing, and different ideas\nwere being conveyed to different generations by the same words\nand phrases. From these copies all of the modern translations\nhave been made, and these translations are the \"Bible,\" as\ncommonly read and circulated among men.\n\nNow, we ask in all candor, what certainty there is, on Protestant\ngrounds, that any of these modern translations is the real word\nof God? To be such, the translation must be an infallible\nrendering from the copy; the copy must have been exactly like the\npreceding copy, and that, again, exactly like its predecessor,\nand so on back to the original inspired manuscript itself. And\nare Protestants so certain of this, that they have any right to\nfeel sure that, when they open their Bible, the ideas which they\nreceive are precisely those which God intended that the words of\nMoses, Samuel, Daniel, or the Evangelists should convey? And yet,\nunless they are sure of it, how can they really believe what they\nread in it, and stake the salvation of their souls on the\ncorrectness and fidelity of copies and translations, about which\nthey can never, by any possible evidence short of a new\nrevelation, become satisfied?\n\nOur object is not, however, to destroy faith in the Bible as the\nword of God, (a truth which, on Catholic grounds, is thoroughly\ndemonstrable,) although it is worth while to reflect on the\ndifficulties which surround the attempt to make it the sole\nteacher of divine revelation; but to call to mind how important,\nhow _absolutely necessary_, it is, that the Bible which we\nread should be a _true translation_ from a _correct\ncopy_ of the original inspired book. And we think the reader\nwill agree with us when we say, that the greatest care to secure\ncorrectness is none too great, and the most rigid exclusion of\nall erroneous, or even suspicious, copies and translations cannot\nbe too rigid; but that, on the contrary, it is the duty of every\nChristian to obtain, and of the Christian church to provide, the\nvery best and most perfect Bibles possible; and then to abandon\nand condemn all others.\n\nAnd this is exactly what the Catholic Church has always done and\nis doing at this day. We have already mentioned the labors of St.\nJerome. This holy man lived at an age when most of the old\nmanuscripts were still existing, when those copies of the Old\nTestament which had been in use during the life of Christ had not\nall perished, and when the originals of the New Testament, or, at\nleast, copies of them which had been made under apostolic\nsupervision, were still attainable. All these, and many\nothers--Hebrew, Syro-Chaldaic, Greek, Latin, and Syriac--he\ncollected, and, having thoroughly compared them with each other,\nand restored the original text to its highest possible purity, he\ntranslated it into the Latin tongue, which was then, and probably\nalways will be, the most definite and expressive of human\nlanguages.\n{664}\nThis translation is called the \"Vulgate.\" It is the most complete\nand accurate version of the Bible in existence, and the only one\nwhich was made from the originals, or first copies, of the New\nTestament, and from authoritative copies of the Old. Protestant\ncritics have said of it: \"The Vulgate may be reasonably\npronounced, upon the whole, a good and faithful version.\"\n[Footnote 197] \"It is allowed to be, in general, a faithful\ntranslation, and sometimes exhibits the sense of Scripture with\ngreater accuracy than the more modern versions.\" [Footnote 198]\n\"The Latin Vulgate preserves many true readings where the modern\nHebrew copies are corrupted.\" [Footnote 199] \"It is in general\nskilful and faithful, and often gives the sense of Scripture\nbetter than modern versions.\" [Footnote 200]\n\n    [Footnote 197: Campbell's _Dissertations on the\n    Gospels._ Diss. X. part iii. \u00a7 10.]\n\n    [Footnote 198: Horne's _Int._ Vol. i. p. i. ch. iii. \u00a7\n    iii. p. 277. Am. ed. 1836.]\n\n    [Footnote 199: _Ibid_.]\n\n    [Footnote 200: Gerard's _Institutes_. Chap. iv. sec. 4,\n    p. 82. Am. ed. 1823.]\n\nThis most excellent Vulgate edition is the very one which the\nCatholic Church has sanctioned as the authorized text of\nScripture. The Council of Trent decreed, \"that the ancient and\nVulgate edition ... should be deemed authentic in public\nreadings, disputes, sermons, and expositions, and that no one\nshould dare or presume, on any pretext, to reject it.\" [Footnote\n201]\n\n    [Footnote 201: Sess. iv.]\n\nMoreover, as the original manuscript of St. Jerome was no more\nimperishable than others which had gone before it, and as it\ncould be perpetuated only in copies, the church has put forth\nevery effort to secure these in abundance and perfection. They\nwere all written in her own monasteries, under the very eyes of\nher priests and bishops. They have been subject to constant and\nthorough revision. When printing was invented, and Bibles began\nto multiply on every side, (some of them filled with dangerous\nerrors and perversions,) she remedied this evil by stringent\nlegislation. Thus, the same council says: \"Desiring to impose\nsome limit upon printers in this matter, who, ... without\nlicenses from their ecclesiastical superiors, do print these\nbooks of Holy Scripture, ... this Holy Synod decrees and\ndeclares, that hereafter the Holy Scriptures, and especially the\nancient and Vulgate edition, shall be printed with the utmost\nexactness; and that it shall be lawful for no one to print, or to\nhave printed, any books concerning sacred things, ... unless they\nshall have been examined and approved by the ordinary. ... This\napproval shall be given in writing, and shall appear, either\nwritten or printed, authentically in the front of the book; and\nboth the approval and the examination shall be made\n_gratis_, to the end that good things may be countenanced\nand evil things condemned.\" [Footnote 202]\n\n    [Footnote 202: Sess. iv.]\n\nIn this manner has the Catholic Church secured the preservation\nof the pure text of Scripture. Starting at an age when it was\npossible, if it ever was, to obtain an exact version of the word\nof God, she, by the hand of St. Jerome, prepared one which has\nstood the test of the most hostile criticism. Exercising over\nthis her constant vigilance, she brought it down to the age of\nprinting. Then, rigidly excluding all editions which could not\nundergo the most searching scrutiny, she openly endorses all\nthose which are genuine and faithful, so that the Catholic reader\nof to-day, seeing in his Latin Bible the approval of his bishop,\nand knowing that no bishop could sanction any false version\nwithout being immediately discovered and punished, knows also\nthat what he reads and studies is the Holy Scripture, as Moses\nand the prophets wrote it, as Christ and his apostles used it,\nand as the church of all ages has received it.\n\n{665}\n\nAdvancing one step further, the care of the church next manifests\nitself in the Bibles for the people. These are, of necessity,\ntranslations into the vulgar tongues. They are all made from the\nVulgate by persons duly authorized for the purpose, and must also\nbe certified as correct by ecclesiastical authority, before they\ncan be printed, sold, or read. Take, for instance, the English\ntranslation, commonly called the Douay Bible. This version was\nprepared by some of the most eminent English scholars on the\ncontinent of Europe, who possessed a wide acquaintance with the\nGreek and Hebrew as well as with the Latin and more modern\ntongues. This version is admitted by all critics to be exact and\nliteral, and to exhibit, as far as a translation can do so, the\nprecise sense of the original text of Scripture. It has received\nthe approbation of the Holy See and of innumerable bishops; and\nevery new edition bears the official recommendation of the\necclesiastical superior, who vouches for its completeness and its\npurity. It is hardly possible that, with all these precautions,\nthe Douay Bible should fail to be, in fidelity of rendering, the\nmost perfect copy of the Scriptures that exists in the English\ntongue.\n\nBut the Catholic Church has not stopped even here. No one denies\nthat in the Bible there are many passages difficult to\nunderstand, and that it is impossible for those who have no\naccess to the original manuscript and no opportunities for\ncritical research, to ascertain the true meaning of these\npassages without external aid. The object of commentaries and\nexpositions is to supply this aid; but these have long ago grown\nso voluminous and costly as to be beyond the reach of ordinary\nmen. And so, to meet this final difficulty, the church\naccompanies every translation into a vulgar tongue with proper\nnotes and comments, prepared by competent and pious persons, for\nthe illustration of the sacred text.\n\nFrom this brief sketch of what the\nCatholic Church has done concerning\nthe Bible, it will be perceived:\n\n  1. That the church possesses, in the Latin Vulgate, the\n     earliest, purest, and most exact version of the Holy\n     Scriptures which exists in the whole world;\n\n  2. That her translations of the Vulgate into the languages\n     of the people present them with the purest and most exact\n     version of the Bible which they can possibly obtain;\n\n  3. That by her notes and comments she affords to them freedom\n     from serious error and mistake in their perusal of the\n     sacred text.\n\nNow, for a moment, let us turn to the Bibles which Protestantism\noffers, and inquire as to their reliability. The ordinary\ntranslations of Protestants are made from Greek and Hebrew\nmanuscripts. These manuscripts, as we have seen, are copies, not\noriginals, and, of course, are not inspired. They are, therefore,\nreliable so far as they present the exact ideas presented by\ntheir originals, and no further; and the fidelity with which they\ndo this depends, in a great measure, upon their own antiquity and\ntheir nearness to the originals themselves. But not a manuscript\nof the Old Testament in Hebrew now exists which dates back\nfurther than the eleventh century. The oldest extant Greek\nmanuscripts of the New Testament are not older than the fourth\ncentury; and these are confessedly imperfect, and, in some\nplaces, entirely wanting.\n{666}\nOut of these manuscripts and later ones, however, Protestant\ntranslators are first compelled to select a text which shall\nrepresent, as near as they can make it do so, the original Greek\nand Hebrew, and then, from this text make their translation.\n\nTo the first translation this work presented no small\ndifficulties. They were unskilled in the languages in which these\nmanuscripts were written. the manuscripts disagreed extensively\namong themselves, and many of them were without lines or\npunctuation marks, and in characters long fallen into disuse. It\nis not surprising, therefore, that the first Protestant versions\nwere, both in the text and in the translation, exceedingly\nerroneous, and in some portions, utterly unreliable. Most of\nthese difficulties have vanished with advancing years. Protestant\nscholars have become versed in Greek and Hebrew. They have\nlearned to read with accuracy the ancient characters in which the\nmanuscripts were written, and their extensive research among the\nvarious versions has done much to clear their text from\nambiguity. But the fact still remains, that the best Greek or\nHebrew text, which they can reach, is later by many centuries,\nand more fallible by numerous successive copyings, than those\nfrom which the Latin Vulgate was prepared; and, consequently, can\nbear no comparison in purity and genuineness with that which St.\nJerome produced from the first copies, if not from the originals\nthemselves, of the New Testament, and from versions of the Old,\nwhich Christ had sanctioned by his personal use. And it is this\ndifference, between the sources of the text of Catholic and\nProtestant Bibles, which gives the Catholic version its deserved\npreeminence, and has won for it the encomiums to which we have\nreferred.\n\nExtending our view to the translations made and used by\nProtestants we perceive this difference still subsisting. Most of\nthese were the result of private enterprise, and never have\nreceived the sanction of great ecclesiastical authority. Even the\nordinary English, or \"King James\" version, (which is the one in\ncommon circulation in this country,) was a private venture of the\nking whose name it bears; and though indorsed by him as the head\nof the state church of England, it has never received the\napproval of any authority which can strictly be called\necclesiastical. The people who now use it have no other guarantee\nof its correctness than the fact that their fathers used it\nbefore them. They look in vain for any mark upon its pages which\nshall assure them, on an authority they know to be reliable, that\nwhat they read is the true word of God. On the contrary, if they\nexamine their own writers, they find the sentiment prevailing the\nthe \"king's version\" is _not_ the word of God. It is accused\nof being \"without fidelity,\" \"ambiguous and incorrect, even in\nmatters of the highest importance;\" [Footnote 203] and a\nwell-known commentator has even said, \"That it is not so just a\nrepresentation of the inspired originals, as merits to be\nimplicitly relied on for determining the controverted articles of\nthe Christian faith.\" [Footnote 204]\n\n    [Footnote 203: _Horne's Int._ Bibliographical Appendix,\n    p. 37, Am. ed. 1836.]\n\n    [Footnote 204: Macknight. _General Preface to Epistles_,\n    sec, 2, vol i. p. 26, Am. ed. 1810.]\n\nThese general statements are applicable to other Protestant\ntranslations as well as to the English. None of them are perfect,\nor are even claimed to be so. Each is in turn vilified and\ncondemned by the authors of the others; and not one of them has\nyet received the sanction of such an authority as can assure the\nreader that he will find upon its pages the revelations of God.\n[Footnote 205]\n\n    [Footnote 205: In 1833, the Rev. T. Curtis, an English\n    Protestant clergyman, published a work _On the Errors and\n    Corruptions in Modern Protestant Bibles_. The work\n    contains \"Four Letters to the Hon. and Rt. Rev. the Lord\n    Bishop of London, with specimens of the intentional and other\n    departures from the authorized standard, to which is added a\n    postscript, containing the complaints of a London committee\n    of ministers on the subject; the reply of the universities,\n    and a report on the importance of the alterations made.\" In\n    the course of his work, Mr. Curtis gives various instances of\n    \"the largest church Bibles\" \"found very erroneous.\" On one\n    occasion \"an important part of a text he had taken in the\n    lesson of the day, to his great astonishment was not in the\n    church Bible when he came to read the lesson. In a note on\n    the same page, Mr. Curtis says: \"The church Bible still in\n    use in the parish church of St. Mary's, Islington, is a\n    remarkably erroneous one. A clergyman, who some years ago\n    officiated in this parish, assured me he was occasionally at\n    a loss to proceed in reading the lessons from it. One passage\n    (l John i. 4) has, I have reason to believe, been read\n    erroneously in this church four times a year for many years.\"\n    Mr. Curtis says, (page 80,) \"The British and Foreign Bible\n    Society _have never circulated a single copy of the\n    Scriptures_ that has not contained THOUSANDS of\n    _intentional departures_ from the authorized version!\"\n    Who can now say with truth that the pure word of God is read\n    or heard in Protestant churches or families?]\n\n{667}\n\nHere, then, the matter comes to a distinct issue between the\nCatholic and Protestant Churches. The Catholic Church has a\nreliable and accurate text from which to translate; a competent\nand literal translation, containing all sufficient notes and\nexplanations; and never publishes a copy of even this without the\nexpress sanction of one whom her people know to be able to judge\nand impartial[ly] to decide on its fidelity and truth. The\nProtestant churches, on the other hand, have a text confessedly\ncorrupt and unreliable; innumerable contradictory translations,\neach of which is admitted to be, in many respects, erroneous, and\nnone of which enjoys the sanction of any spiritual authority. How\ncould the Catholic Church do less than to command those of her\nchildren who wish to read the Bible, to read the one which she\nhas provided for them? How could she do less than expose to them\nthe faults and errors of the Protestant translations, and forbid\ntheir use by the faithful? What right would this church, what\nright would any church, have to be called a spiritual guide, if,\nhaving the pure wheat herself, she permitted those who follow her\nto feed on coarse grain, gathered from the store-house of her\nenemies? In reference to such a matter, reason and common-sense\ndictate a rigidly exclusive policy; and that is just the policy\nwhich has been, and is now, pursued by the Catholic Church. Her\nrules are few and simple, but sufficient. They are these:\n\n  1. That those who would read the Scriptures in a vulgar\n     tongue must read a Catholic version.\n\n  2. That not only must this version be a Catholic one,\n     but it must also have been approved by the proper spiritual\n     authority.\n\n  3. That the version must not only be Catholic and properly\n     approved, but must be accompanied by approved notes and\n     explanations.\n\n  4. That those who in the judgment of their pastors would\n     derive more hurt than good from the perusal of the\n     Scriptures, may be forbidden to read them altogether.\n\nStrict as these rules may seem, we believe that any one who\nreviews the reasons for them will now say, that at least the\nfirst three of them are eminently just, and that the Catholic\nChurch, in prescribing and enforcing them, has acted wisely and\nfor the best interests of men. And when we further state that she\nhas never prevented the circulation of any Bible, or taken any\nBible from her people, or burned any Bible, except those false,\nimperfect translations which, so far as they are imperfect, are\nnot the word of God, we believe that it will be admitted that in\nthis also she has done nothing but her duty toward the people\ncommitted to her care.\n\n{668}\n\nBut that the fourth rule is also just, we think a moment's\nreflection will determine. At the date of the Reformation, as we\nhave seen, the Bible had been largely printed in many languages.\nWhen Luther and the other reformers began to preach, they pointed\nto their own translations of the Scriptures as the sole divine\nauthority, and bade all the people to read them and examine for\nthemselves. And hence arose a Babel of religions, of which we, at\nthis day, can form no adequate conception. Text was pitted\nagainst text, author against author. Men claimed the most\noutrageous license under the name of Christian liberty. The\nsacred words of God were bandied from mouth to mouth in jest and\nsong and ribaldry. The contagion spread even into the borders of\nthe Catholic Church. The danger was most imminent that, by this\nfearful abuse, men might lose all respect, not only for true\nlearning, but also for the Bible and for Christianity itself. It\nbecame absolutely necessary to put a check somewhere; and the\nCouncil of Trent, therefore, decreed that in order \"to repress\nall that rashness by which the words of Holy Scripture are turned\nabout and perverted to profane uses, to wit, to buffoonery, to\nfables, vanities, detractions, impious superstitions, devilish\nincantations, divinations, lots, and even impious libels,\" no one\nshould dare to take the words of Holy Scripture in any manner for\nthese uses, but that all such \"presumers upon, and violators of,\nthe word of God,\" should be punished. [Footnote 206]\n\n    [Footnote 206: Sess. iv.]\n\nWhen further measures became necessary, on account of the\nincreasing turmoil and disputes, the rule which we have cited was\nadopted; a rule under which no one who is able to be profited by\nthe reading of the Bible was ever hindered from perusing it, and\nby which, probably, thousands who, but for it, might have made\nutter shipwreck of their souls through the abuse of God's holy\nword, have been saved from pride and error. But this rule is now\nvirtually rescinded. The occasion for its exercise has long since\npassed away. The increasing learning of biblical scholars, the\nprogress of intelligence among the masses, the subsidence of the\nwild storm of fanaticism and impiety which marked the age of its\nenactment, have removed the necessity for enforcing it; and the\nsole restraint now placed upon the reading of the Scriptures, is\nthat contained in those three rules which we have seen to be so\nwise and just.\n\nHow then, when no conditions are imposed upon the use of the\noriginal Greek, Hebrew, or Latin texts of Scripture, and when\nonly such ones are imposed upon the use of popular translations\nas tend to give the people a more accurate and reliable version\nof the word of God, how can it be said, with even the semblance\nof truth, that the Catholic Church forbids or even discourages\nthe reading of the Bible; or how can it be denied that, in\nproviding her children with complete and accurate Bibles, she has\ngiven them every inducement to their careful and continued study?\n\nBut now we think we hear it asked, with redoubled earnestness:\n\n_If the Catholic Church possesses the most perfect of all\ncopies of the Bible, and really desires it to be read among her\npeople, why does she not co\u00ebperate with the existing Bible\nsocieties in its diffusion, or, at least, form such societies of\nher own?_\n\n{669}\n\nThe answer is an easy one. The commandment which the Catholic\nChurch received from Christ was, \"Go into all the world and\npreach the Gospel,\" not \"Go, distribute Bibles;\" and the\ncommandment which she received she has obeyed. The energies, the\nmoney, which Protestants would have expended in printing and\ncirculating translations of the Scriptures, she has expended in\nfounding churches, hospitals, convents, and seminaries, and in\nproviding the whole world with missionaries, by whose labors,\nnations, to whom the Bible could have no access, have been\nsubjugated to the faith. She recognizes but one means for the\nconversion of mankind, and that is, the voice of the living\nteacher; and never can she substitute another in its stead.\n\nMoreover, God gave the sacred books of the Old Testament to his\nown Israel, not to heathens. Our Lord, through his apostles,\nbestowed on Christians, not on pagans, the inestimable treasures\nof the New. The Bible is for those who believe already, for the\n\"man of God,\" \"that he may be thoroughly furnished unto all good\nworks,\" not for the infidel and heathen, who perhaps read it, but\nare infidels and heathens still. Such is the will of God, as the\nCatholic Church has received the same, and the facts of history\nprove that she is right. For when Protestantism arose, its great\naim was to spread the Bible. Its history has been the history of\nBible-circulation, and in the Bible Society has culminated the\nReformation. These societies have labored bravely,0. We read that\nprevious to the year 1834, a single society in Germany had\ndistributed nearly 3,000,000 copies of the entire Bible, and\n2,000,000 more of the New Testament. That by another society in\nGreat Britain, over 35,000,000 copies of the Bible, or New\nTestament, had been put into circulation before 1859; and that\nanother in New York publishes every year more than 250,000\nBibles, and twice that number of New Testaments, and parts of\nScripture. But what are the results? Where are the nations which\nhave been added to the Christian fold? Where are the signs of\nwell-developed and intelligent piety in the great Protestant\nempires of the age? Have not their own writers told us that the\nboundaries of Protestantism are the same to-day that they were\nwhen Luther left it--that no new nations have been added to its\nnumbers, and, with the exception of the Anglo-Saxon portion of\nthis continent, that no new territory has been subjected to its\nsway; that for the heathen it has done comparatively nothing, and\nfor the irreligious of its own lands but little more? Look at the\nUnited States, for instance, all of whose people come of good\nChristian stock. The census of 1860 fixes the population at over\n30,000,000, while a census of professing Christians, of all\nProtestant denominations, estimates their number at less than\n6,000,000. Is the proportion greater in Germany or in England?\nAnd what a comment is this upon the boast of these societies,\nthat they evangelize the world, and that the work they are\nperforming is the work of God!\n\nAnd has the Catholic Church by preaching done no better? While\nmen yet lived who heard the voice of Luther, the Catholic\npreachers of Europe had won back to the church more than one half\nof what she lost by the Reformation. In a few years longer the\ncontinent of South America, the Canadas, and thousands of the\ninhabitants of India, China, and Japan, were sheltered in her\nbosom. Another century, and again the Catholic faith was\nblossoming in England, and springing green and vigorous from the\nsoil of our own land. To-day where is the country in which she is\nnot strong and valorous, strong in the blood of her martyrs,\nvalorous in the surety of her victory?\n\n{670}\n\nDoes history leave a doubt upon the mind as to the true means of\nChristian labor? Or who can wonder that the Catholic Church\nrefuses to substitute the human means for the divine, or even to\nwaste her energies and money on what experience has shown to be\nso fruitless? She has the Bible for her children. She places it\nwithin the reach of all. Those who are able, can buy it for\nthemselves. To those who are unable to buy, she gives it when\nthey ask. But never has she taken pains to strew the pure pearls\nof written revelation underneath the feet of infidels and\nheathen--mindful that, as the Lord warned her, \"they will turn\nagain and rend you.\"\n\nIn conclusion, let us ask of every Christian reader a single\nfavor more. It is, that he will candidly examine the best\nauthorities upon this important subject; that he will carefully\nreflect upon the reasons we have offered, and decide for himself\nthe great questions which we have tried to answer. And when he\nfinds, as he surely will, that the Catholic Church does not\ncondemn the Bible, or forbid her people to circulate and read\nit--that she has never prohibited or burned a Bible which she did\nnot know to be erroneous and liable to lead her children into\nerror--that she has never cast her lot in with the Bible society,\nsimply because she follows the command of Christ--let him undo\nthe evil he, perhaps, has done, in stating that concerning her\nwhich he now knows is false, and manfully assert the truth he now\nhas learned, thus doing justice to the church of God.\n\n    [Footnote 207(No reference *): Macaulay's Misc., art.\n    Ranke's _History of the Popes_.]\n\n-------\n\n     Sketches Drawn From The Abb\u00e9 Lagrange's\n            Life Of St. Paula.\n\n            In Three Chapters.\n\n               Concluded.\n\n\n   Chapter III.\n\n\nThe government of Paula in her newly founded monastery was\nadmirable, and she herself was the example of all virtues, as was\nalso Eustochium. The fame of her rule spread throughout the East,\nand went back to Rome, where Marcella still lived and gloried in\nher friend.\n\nThe chief happiness of the recluses was to study the Scriptures,\nwhich they now read from beginning to end. Jerome read with them,\nexplaining everything. His grotto was not far off, and he passed\nhis nights there, by the light of a lamp, surrounded with\nmanuscripts and assisted by others copying for him; for he was\nnow growing old, and his failing eyesight no longer allowed of\nhis enduring the fatigue of writing. He resumed the study of the\neastern dialects in order the better to comprehend the original\nof the holy works, and, encouraged by Paula and Eustochium,\nresumed his work of translation, which was continued for nearly\ntwenty years under their saintly influence.\n\nAt the end of three years Paula's monasteries, church, and\nhospital were all finished, with their surrounding walls, which\nin those times were so necessary a protection from the raids of\nthe neighboring Arabs.\n\n{671}\n\nThe number of the recluses had increased, and Paula now divided\nthem into three communities, each one having an abbess or mother\nat its head, after the plan of St. Pacomius.\n\nDuring the week their vows of enclosure prevented all intercourse\nwith the outer world. They all went on Sunday to the church at\nBethlehem; for the holy sacrifice of the Mass was not offered up\nat their own chapel, St. Jerome never having deemed himself\nworthy to mount the steps of the altar, such was his profound\nhumility; and Vincentius, the only priest they had beside, did\nnot attempt to officiate where Jerome dared not.\n\nPaula was the soul of her communities. Her austerities were as\ngreat as her charities, and these were without number. St. Jerome\nrepresents her like a devoted mother to each and all of her\nspiritual daughters, loving them all and studying their\ncharacters equally, in order to guide each one according to her\nindividual nature and for the best. Intellectual activity was\ngreatly encouraged among them by her, and she took care to\nfurnish them with books and food for the mind. In this Jerome was\nof great assistance to her. His convent was the dwelling of\nscience and letters as well as of asceticism. He had around him\nmany men of vast erudition, who in taking care of their souls did\nnot forswear the paths of learning, and in solitude pursued their\nstudies. They also wrote books which were read with great avidity\nby Paula and her religious family. Jerome himself, in addition to\nhis great works, composed many pious biographies, and among\nothers the life of St. Epiphanius, at the particular request of\nPaula. The latter had now taught her daughters to copy the\nPsalms, which Jerome had translated at Rome by the order of Pope\nDamasus. This was a work of importance, as exactness was\nnecessary in order to repair the harm done to the work by neglect\nof the original manuscripts. Copying thus became universal in all\nmonasteries, owing to the impetus given to it by Paula, and to it\nwe are indebted for the preservation of much that is of\ninestimable value to Christianity.\n\nPaula now urged Jerome to revise all his various translations of\nthe Holy Scriptures, and this prodigious work was concluded by\nhim as early as the year 390. The book was dedicated to Paula and\nEustochium. To Paula particularly, _palmam ferat qui\nmeruit_, great praise is due for the holy influence she\nexercised for so many years over St. Jerome, to such a noble\npurpose, and which produced such fruits in the translation of the\nBible called the Vulgate, still used in the church after the\nlapse of so many centuries.\n\nAll these pious labors gave great renown to Paula's monasteries,\nand she who had thought to hide herself from the world, saw the\ncurious world appear at her gates, attracted by the beacon light\nof Bethlehem. Her buildings could scarcely contain the visitors\nwho flocked to see her. St. Augustine himself had sent his\nbeloved friend, Alypius, across the seas to witness these wonders\nand to see Jerome and Paula. Augustine afterward wrote to Jerome,\nthus beginning a friendship between these two great men, one of\nwhom was just risen above the horizon of the church, while the\nother great luminary was on the decline, though spreading out his\nrays in all the splendor of the setting sun.\n\n{672}\n\nBut that which most astonished the pilgrims to Bethlehem was not\nJerome nor any other inhabitant of this holy place, but Paula in\nthe midst of her virgins. \"What country,\" says St. Jerome, \"does\nnot send hither its pilgrims to see Paula, who eclipses us all in\nhumility? She has attained that earthly glory from which she\nfled; for in flying from it she found it, because glory follows\nvirtue as shadows follow the light.\"\n\nAmong all the visits paid to the recluses, none filled them with\nso much joy as that of the venerable Epiphanius, whose early\nlessons had had so much to do with the religious training of\nPaula. He, too, was delighted; he had seen nothing more perfect\nin the desert. The order, the prayerful and fervent nuns, the\naustere and laborious monks, the wonderful intellectual activity,\namazed him. He remained some time with his friends at Bethlehem,\npraising God for what he saw.\n\nAbout this time the discussions on Origenism began to trouble the\nchurch of Alexandria, and finally penetrated to Jerusalem and to\nBethlehem. Jerome was estranged from Rufinus and Melanie, and\nothers of his early friends, by differing with them on the\nsubject of this celebrated heresy. Paula was afflicted at this,\nand foresaw clouds in the future which did not fail to burst on\nher own monasteries. The great doctrinal combats of the fourth\ncentury, in which the church was destined to come off victorious,\nPaula would gladly have avoided entirely, but in spite of herself\nshe became involved in them. Her sorrow was great when she saw\nher monasteries as well as St. Jerome and herself excluded from\nthe Holy Sepulchre because of their clinging to their old friend\nSt. Epiphanius, who was the champion of orthodoxy and the great\nantagonist of Origenism, The ordination of a priest for the\nmonasteries was the ostensible cause of their being put under the\nban. This priest was Paulinianus, the brother of Jerome, and the\nvalidity of his ordination by Epiphanius was questioned by John,\nthe Bishop of Jerusalem, on the ground of the youth of\nPaulinianus, but in reality because John, instigated by Rufinus,\nwas profoundly irritated against Jerome and Epiphanius on account\nof his own leanings toward the doctrine of Origen. He forbade the\nentrance of the church of the Nativity or of the Holy Sepulchre\nto all who considered the ordination of Paulinianus canonical.\nThis, of course, included the recluses of Bethlehem. Their dismay\nwas great.\n\nEpiphanius did not consider it derogatory to his dignity for him\nto bend his white head before the younger bishop and sue for\nclemency for others. He explained the great want of a priest at\nthe monasteries, and the motives for the ordination of\nPaulinianus, and he begged John, for the sake of charity, to\ncease such persecution; and then the illustrious patriarch, on\nhis knees, conjured him to abjure the false doctrines that had\ndivided them.\n\nBut John would not yield, and talked only of the offence of the\nuncanonical ordination. Whereupon, Epiphanius thought it his duty\nto expose him, and demanded of the recluses that they should\nsuspend all communion with the bishop of Jerusalem until the\nlatter should renounce his errors.\n\nNotwithstanding this moderation, the rancor of John burst upon\nthem. All ecclesiastical functions were forbidden Jerome and\nVincentius. Paula's catechumens were refused baptism, and his\nwrath went so far as to deny religious burial to the hermits as\nif they were excommunicated. Paula suffered inwardly from this\nwarfare, so different from the quiet and repose she longed for.\n{673}\nHerself untouched by the arguments of the heretics, she became an\nobject of envy. But the voice of calumny could not disturb the\nserenity of her mind, and by no word or sign did she ever show\nimpatience or anger. She endeavored also to console St. Jerome\nfor the wounds he had received. She loved to quote Scripture to\nhim, to soothe his mind. It was in the Bible that she always\nfound strength to endure every evil.\n\nFinally, Bishop John, carrying his hatred to Jerome to its\nclimax, passed a decree of banishment against him. Jerome, worn\nout by contention, wished to depart at once, but Paula said to\nhim these touching words: \"They hate us and would crush us, but\nlet us return patience for hatred, humility for arrogance. Does\nnot St. Paul bid us return good for evil? And when our conscience\ntells us that our sufferings do not proceed from sin, we are very\ncertain that the afflictions of this world are only the assurance\nof eternal reward. Bear, then, with the trials that assail you\nand do not quit our beloved Bethlehem.\"\n\nIn this way Paula sustained and soothed the old monk by the\ndelicacy and serenity of her own noble soul, which lived so high\nup in the love of God that the storms of this world passed by\nleaving her unharmed.\n\nAfter a while Jerome was freed from this phase of persecution by\nthe Metropolitan of Palestine, Cesarius, who was a prudent and\nwise man. These perils ended, Paula encouraged him to recommence\nhis great labors on the Bible, and also to renew his\ncorrespondence with his friends, and to think no more of this\npainful episode, but to suffer the tempest without to rage and no\nlonger disturb him. [sic]\n\nWe will turn away from these discussions, at which we have\nglanced but cursorily, though unavoidably, to rest our minds in\nthe contemplation of virtue.\n\nJerome now wrote more of his most admirable letters, and Paula\ncontinued the even tenor and pious practices of her life. She\nreceived a visit from Fabiola, who came from Rome in search of\nthat peace and solitude which she believed could be best found in\nBethlehem. This visit gave great joy to the recluses; for Fabiola\ncould tell them of all their friends in Rome, of Paulina and\nPammachius, of Toxotius and his wife Laeta, and of the young\nPaula, called after her venerable grandmother. She brought them\nmessages from Marcella and the Aventine. While Fabiola was with\nthem, they resumed the habits of former years, and read the Holy\nScriptures together, Jerome explaining it to them. The ardor of\nFabiola was wonderful. After she had ended her visit and left\nBethlehem, much was done by Rufinus and Melanie to estrange her\nfrom her old friends. But she could not be moved and had\ndetermined to settle near them.\n\nAt this time, however, dark rumors of invasion threw\nconsternation among the quiet inhabitants of the monasteries. It\nwas rumored that the Huns threatened Jerusalem. Other cities had\nalready been besieged, and they were now before Antioch. Arabia,\nPhoenicia, Palestine, and Egypt were filled with terror. On all\nsides preparations for defence were being made, and the walls of\nJerusalem, too long neglected, were now under repair.\n\nTo save her monasteries from insult, Paula meditated flight, and\nconducted her whole community to the sea-shore, ready to embark\nif the barbarians made their appearance. But the Huns having\nsuddenly diverged in another direction, Paula brought back her\nfollowers to their beloved monasteries, and with a joyful heart\nonce more took possession of them.\n\n{674}\n\nThese events decided Fabiola to return to Rome. When all the\ntroubles had ceased, Jerome wrote to her: \"You would not remain\nwith us; you feared new alarms. So be it. You are now tranquil;\nbut, notwithstanding your tranquillity, I venture to say that\nBabylon will often make you sigh for the fields of Bethlehem. We\nare now at peace, and from this manger, which has been restored\nto us, we once more hear the wail of the infant Christ, the\nechoes of which I send you across the seas.\"\n\nUnfortunately, however, the peace and quiet did not last long.\nAfter three years the dispute with the Bishop of Jerusalem was\nrenewed with great violence. But the bishop, Theophilus, having\nonly declared himself against Origenism, John was finally brought\nto reason by him, and Jerome and Rufinus were reconciled in his\npresence, before the altar in the church of the Holy Sepulchre.\nPeace now reigned in the monasteries on what appeared to be a\nsurer foundation.\n\nBut other sorrows came pouring in. News arrived from Rome of the\ndeath of Paulina, when she was but thirty, and Pammachius was\nleft a widower and without posterity.\n\nHis loss in the daughter of Paula was great, for theirs was an\nadmirable and holy union; for Paulina loved her husband and would\nhave endeavored not only to make him happy, but virtuous. The\ngrief of Pammachius was overwhelming. He had now but one wish on\nearth, which was to do something for the good of Paulina's soul.\n\nIt was an ancient custom in Rome at the obsequies of persons of\ndistinction to give alms in honor of the dead, and to perpetuate\ntheir memory. This was called the _funeraticium_. On the day\nfixed for that of Paulina the streets of Rome were thronged.\nTroops of the poor, the lame, and the maimed wended their way to\nthe church in answer to the invitation of Pammachius. The gilded\ndoor of the great basilica was open before them, and Pammachius\nhimself was there distributing on all sides abundant alms in the\nname of Paulina.\n\nWho can describe the grief of Paula when the news reached\nBethlehem of the death of Paulina? She was ill for days\nafterward, and Eustochium feared for her life. Jerome wrote to\nPammachius on the sorrowful event. \"Who can see,\" cried he,\n\"without grief, this beauteous rose gathered before her time and\nfaded away? Our precious pearl, our emerald, is broken.\"\n\nPaula's only consolation was in the admirable conduct of\nPammachius. \"This death was prolific,\" said St. Jerome, \"for it\ngave a new life to Pammachius.\" He had always been a good\nChristian, he now became a heroic one. He thought of heaven,\nwhere his faith made him see his beloved Paulina; the example of\nPaula and Eustochium, and of his holy friend Jerome, all combined\nto detach him from the things of earth. He felt inspired with the\nnoble resolution to consecrate to God the remaining years of his\nlife. He assumed the dress of a monk and passed his time in\ncharities and prayer. The jewels of Paulina were converted into\nmoney and given to the poor, and also her dower and the house of\nthe noble senator was thrown open to all who were in want.\nFabiola generously seconded him in founding hospitals, and their\ncombined resources enabled them to accomplish great charities in\nRome.\n\n{675}\n\n\"Ordinary husbands,\" said St. Jerome, \"show their affection and\nlove by scattering roses and lilies and violets over a grave. Our\nPammachius has covered the tomb of his departed wife with holy\nashes, and with the perfume of charity. These are the aromatics\nwith which he has embalmed Paulina.\" Such fruits were a great\nsolace to Paula. When she heard that he had given away Paulina's\ndower to the poor, she exclaimed, \"These are indeed the heirs\nthat I would see my daughter have! Pammachius has not given me\ntime even to express my wish; he has been beforehand with me!\"\n\nIn the midst of her grief a ray of joy came from Rome, in the\nproposition from Toxotius and Laeta to send young Paula to her\ngrandmother. They had determined that, in order to secure such\nholy training for their child, she should leave Rome and go to\nthe East, where Paula and Eustochium would bring her up in the\nway of truth. Eustochium begged her of Laeta, and young Paula did\neventually come to Bethlehem to join her aunt; but her venerable\ngrandmother was no longer there to receive her.\n\nThe burden of years was now beginning to be felt by Paula. Sorrow\nand sadness pressed upon her, yet the ineffable beauty of her\nsoul was greater than ever. St. Francis de Sales says of her that\n\"she was like a beautiful and sweet violet, so sweet to see in\nthe garden of the church.\" It is this exquisite and rare perfume\nwhich we must enjoy more in speaking of her in the years just\nbefore her death, when God seemed to touch her soul with a\nsingularly soft and mellow light, like the evening of a fair day.\nShe had been much disturbed by the renewal of the dissensions\nbetween St. Jerome and the Origenists. We have already said how\nshe had grieved over the first encounter, seeing bishops against\nbishops, friends against friends, hermits against hermits. But\nthe new struggles were still more painful to her: they had become\npersonal, and, notwithstanding the reconciliation with Rufinus,\nhe had attacked St. Jerome's character and writings, and the\nlatter was obliged to defend himself. Paula had also witnessed\nanother painful sight. After the council condemning Origen, the\nmonks accused of sharing his erroneous opinions were driven away\nfrom the desert, and among them were many whom Paula had formerly\nknown and venerated, and who were now homeless wanderers. The\nseverity of the Patriarch of Alexandria against them grieved her\ndeeply; and, the most bitter of all, her tears were those she\nshed for the throes of the church and for the evil passions of\nmen. New sorrows came upon her also. She heard of the death of\nFabiola, her old and dear friend. Then came the death of St.\nEpiphanius, who had been to Paula like a beloved father.\n\nToxotius, her only son, was now taken away. All her children but\nEustochium were dead. What was left for Paula but suffering?\nPhysical infirmities accumulated upon her the result of her\nausterities. Of these she would merely say, \"When I am weak, then\nit is that I am strong;\" and again, \"We must resign ourselves to\ncarrying our treasure in brittle vases, until the day comes when\nthis miserable body shall be robed in immortality.\" She also\nloved to repeat these words: \"If the sufferings of Christ abound\nin us, his consolations abound also. Sharers of his bodily agony,\nwe will also be partakers of his glory.\"\n\n{676}\n\nThe things of earth could no longer touch her, for she had seen\nhow passing they are and knew that they could not last. The\nlonging for the heavenly country grew in proportion. She would\nsay with the patriarchs of the desert, \"We are but travellers on\nthe earth.\" And when her sufferings increased, she murmured\ngently, \"Oh! who will give me the wings of a dove, that I may fly\nto everlasting rest?\"\n\nShe no longer belonged to the earth, she was almost in heaven.\nHer soul had reached such extraordinary perfection that she\nseemed already to see the glory and to hear the harmonies of\nheaven. Peace and joy were suffused throughout her being, rising\nabove her sufferings. Her love of God grew greater, and death\nseemed to her not a separation from those she loved on earth, but\nan indissoluble union with God, in whom all joys are found again.\n\"Who,\" says St. Jerome, \"can tell without tears how Paula died?\"\nHe himself wrote immortal pages on the subject, which have\nconsoled many a dying soul since.\n\nWhen Sainte Chantal was on her death-bed, she asked to have read\nto her once more St. Jerome's account of the death of Paula, to\nwhich she listened with wonderful attention, repeating several\ntimes these words: \"What are we? Nothing but atoms alongside of\nthese grand nuns.\"\n\nIt was in the year A.D. 403 that Paula fell ill. When it became\nknown that her life was in imminent danger, the whole monastery\nwas in consternation.\n\nEustochium could not be comforted; she who had never quit her\nmother from childhood could not bear the thought of separation.\nHer love for her mother, which had always been so touching, shone\nnow in all the ardor and strength of her nature. She would yield\nher place by the bedside to no one by day or by night. Every\nremedy was administered by her hands, and she would throw herself\non her knees by the bed, and implore God to suffer them to die\ntogether and be laid in one tomb. But these tears and these\nprayers could not postpone the hour marked by God for the end.\nHer time had expired; Paula had suffered enough and wept enough.\nShe should now see joy, and put on the robes of glory. It became\nevident that her strength was failing, and that she had but a few\ndays left to live. She bore her sufferings with admirable\npatience and heavenly serenity. She was grateful for the care\nbestowed on her by Eustochium and the devoted daughters of the\nhouse, but her whole mind was given up to the thought of opening\nParadise. Her lips were heard to murmur her favorite verses from\nScripture.\n\nThe Bishop of Jerusalem and all the bishops of Palestine,\ntogether with a great number of religious, flocked to her bedside\nto witness this saintly death. The monastery was filled with\nthem. But Paula, absorbed in God, saw them not, heard them not.\nSeveral asked her questions, but she did not answer. Jerome then\napproached and wished to know if she were troubled and why she\ndid not speak. She answered in Greek, \"Oh! no; I have neither\ntrouble nor regret; I feel, on the contrary, great inward peace.\"\n\nAfter these words she spoke no more, but her fingers ceased not\nto make the sign of the cross. At last, however, she opened her\neyes with joy, as if she saw a celestial vision, and as if\nhearing the divine voice of the canticle, \"Rise up, come to me, O\nmy dove, my beloved, for winter is past and the rain has\ndisappeared.\" She spoke as if in answer, for she continued, in\nlow but joyful tones, the words of the sacred song: \"Flowers have\nappeared on the earth, the time for gathering them has arrived.\"\nThen she added, \"I think I see the good things of the Lord in the\nland of the living.\" With these words on her lips Paula expired.\n{677}\nShe had lived to the age of fifty-six years eight months and\ntwenty-one days; of which time, twenty-five years had been passed\nsince her widowhood in religious life.\n\nHer obsequies were a marvel. Before consigning her body to the\ntomb, it was carried to the church of the Nativity at Bethlehem,\nwhich she loved and where she lay for three days with uncovered\nface, for the visitation and veneration of the faithful. Crowds\nflocked from all parts to do her honor, and bishops sought to\ntake part in the funeral ceremonies and to show respect to the\nlamented deceased. Among the hermits of the desert, it was almost\nesteemed a sacrilege to stay away. John of Jerusalem himself\nofficiated. But the most touching part of the spectacle was the\nlong array of the poor, following in the procession, and weeping\nfor their mother. Death had not altered the noble countenance of\nPaula; she was only pale, and looked as if sleeping. The people\ncould not tear themselves away from this last view of her beloved\nfeatures. She was finally interred under this same church, in a\ngrotto, where her tomb may still be seen up to the present time.\nDuring the week following her burial, the crowd continued to\nlinger about her tomb, singing psalms in Hebrew, in Greek, and in\nLatin or in Syriac.\n\nAll this time, the sorrow of Eustochium had been terrible to\nbehold. Her very being was rent in twain. She could not be torn\naway from her mother's body up to the last, but would remain by\nher, tenderly kissing her eyes, throwing her arms around her, and\nbeseeching to be buried in the tomb with her. This continued\nuntil the grave shut out the form of Paula from her for ever.\n\nJerome tried to console her, though himself bowed down by grief.\nOf all the souls he had directed, none were so lofty nor so\nintimately connected with his own as that of Paula. So crushed\nwas he by this loss, that it was long before the world again\nheard his mighty voice.\n\nHe found some solace in composing two epitaphs in her honor, to\nbe engraved, one at the entrance of the grotto where the grave\nlay, the other on the grave itself. The following is the\ntranslation of the inscription on the sepulchre of Paula:\n\n  \"The daughter of the Scipios, of the Gracchi, the illustrious\n  blood of Agamemnon, rests in this place. She bore the name of\n  Paula. She was the mother of Eustochium. First in the senate of\n  Roman matrons, she preferred the poverty of Christ and the\n  humble fields of Bethlehem, to all the splendor of Rome.\"\n\nIn this epitaph, Paula's whole history is told. The other epitaph\nof St. Jerome, engraved on the entrance of the grotto,\nreproduces, in other terms, the same record of virtue, and, what\nis more, shows its sublime origin. It is in the following words:\n\n  \"Seest thou that grotto cut in the rock? It is the tomb of\n  Paula, now an inhabitant of the heavenly kingdom. She gave up\n  her brother, her relations, Rome, her country, her wealth, her\n  children, for the grotto of Bethlehem, where she is buried. It\n  was there, O Christ! that your cradle was. It was there that\n  the Magi came to make you their mystical offerings, O man God!\"\n\nEustochium desired St. Jerome, besides these two epitaphs, to\nwrite a funeral eulogium on her mother. With a hand trembling\nwith age and emotion, he performed this pious duty. We should\nhere mention that most of the details we have endeavored to give\nin this short narrative, are taken from what is, perhaps,\nconsidered the most eloquent and touching of all his writings.\n{678}\nAt the conclusion, he thus apostrophizes her:\n\n  \"Farewell, O Paula! Sustain, by your prayers, the declining\n  years of him who so revered you. United now by faith and good\n  works with Christ, you will be more powerful above than you\n  were here below. I have engraved your praise, O Paula! on the\n  rock of your sepulchre, and to it I add these pages; for I wish\n  to raise to you a monument more lasting than adamant, that all\n  may learn that your memory was honored in Bethlehem, where your\n  ashes repose.\"\n\nPaula's good works died not with her. Her monasteries were\ncontinued piously and courageously by Eustochium, the worthy\ndaughter of such a mother. With time, heresies arose to disturb\nthe atmosphere anew; and the controversy of Pelagius aroused the\nlatent powers of Jerome, and for some time absorbed him, to the\ndetriment of his studies. But at the prayer of Eustochium, and in\nmemory of Paula, he finally resumed his labors, and in the year\n403 concluded his great work in the translation of the Bible,\nwhich is called the Vulgate, and was adopted by the church in the\nlast universal council.\n\nThe Pelagians having set fire to the monasteries of Bethlehem,\nall the buildings erected by the pious care of Paula were burned\nto the ground. This act was odious to the whole world. It was\nadmirable to see the serenity of Eustochium under this trial. She\nwent to work, and, using for that purpose the noble dower brought\nto her by her niece Paula, who had come to her at Bethlehem, the\nmonasteries were soon built up again, and filled with their\nformer inhabitants. About this time, Alaric, King of the Huns,\noverran Rome with his barbarian hordes, and numberless Christian\nrefugees from them came to the East in search of an asylum.\nPammachius and Marcella were dead, but many of their friends were\nnumbered among the exiles. Eustochium and Jerome received all who\ncame with wide-open doors, and the hospitality of Paula still\nlived in her successors.\n\nEustochium survived her mother only sixteen years. She expired\nwithout a struggle, like one falling asleep. No further details\nare given of her last moments. This was on the 28th day of\nSeptember, A.D. 418. Her remains were laid by those of her\nmother, according to her wish. St. Jerome did not long survive\nher. Her death was his last great sorrow; and he died in the\nfollowing year. He was too old now to resist the final dispersion\nof what he had called his _domestic church_. Marcella,\nAsella, Paula, Fabiola, Pammachius, Eustochium, had all ceased to\nlive. Rome itself was gone, for, to a Roman heart like that of\nJerome's, her captivity was her death.\n\nHe fell into a state of settled melancholy, his voice having\nbecome so weak and feeble that it was with difficulty he could be\nheard at all. It was soon impossible for him to be raised from\nhis miserable couch, but by means of a cord suspended from the\nroof of his grotto; and in this position he would recite his\nprayers, or give his instructions to the monks for the management\nof the monastery. He died at the age of seventy-two years, after\nliving thirty-four years at Bethlehem. His eyes rested, when he\nwas dying, on young Paula, who was beside him. She who had been\nhis spiritual child from her cradle, now performed the last sad\noffices for him. We have no details of his obsequies. According\nto his request, she placed his remains in the grotto not far from\nthe venerable Paula, her grandmother, and Eustochium. United in\nlife, they were so also in death.\n{679}\nJerome's principal disciple, Eusebius of Cremona, now assumed the\nhead of his convents, while young Paula continued to rule those\nof her grandmother's. We know nothing more. With the\ncorrespondence of Jerome died all traces of these communities,\nand night fell upon the East.\n\n--------\n\n\n         Glimpses Of Tuscany.\n\n                  II.\n\n         The Boboli Gardens.\n\n\nThe high wall of our raised garden binds on the southern entrance\nto the Boboli: our white spirae droops down into it like a\nwillow, so large and in such perfect bloom that strangers stop to\nsketch it as they pass. The good grand duke has gone since I last\nwas here; the Sardinian bayonet is gleaming exactly where the\nAustrian sentinel stood. The Boboli has changed masters--not for\nthe first time--and accepts the situation with the serenity of a\nveteran.\n\nIt is a bright Sunday morning. There is still time for a walk\nthere before the Military Mass at Santo Spirito. Twelve years\nhave not disturbed the placid sameness of this creature of the\nhill-side: the laurels are clipped just as evenly, the old busts\nand statues look at you, or at each other, just as archly or just\nas stolidly. It is all thoroughly man-made--intensely artificial.\nEvery impulse of nature has been stifled in tree and shrub, until\nthey no more dare to lean out of line than soldiers on parade.\nThe very crocuses steal timidly through the grass, as if they\nwere afraid of doing wrong.\n\n  \"Grove nods to grove, each alley has its brother;\n   One half the garden represents the other.\"\n\nIt looks human, every inch; the Lord is completely banished; his\nSpirit could not possibly walk in such a garden. And yet this\ncreature of man seems clothed with imperishable bloom: this death\nof all nature seems able to outlive all other life. You cannot\ndespise it, for it possesses the semblance of indestructibility--\nunchangefulness in the midst of change. In the forests,\ndissolution and reproduction are palpably waging their unending\nwarfare; even on the eternal Apennines, the snow comes and goes,\nthe lights and shadows of the clouds are endlessly shifting. But\nin this miniature world monotony counterfeits the terrible fixity\nand relentlessness of fate. Nature is deprived of all free-will,\nand moves obedient to a fixed design.\n\nIt is difficult to say how far civilization, apart from religion,\nmay go with advantage in remodelling the natural man. It is\nequally difficult to say how far art may safely encroach upon\nnature in reconstructing a landscape. Some of the grand elemental\npresentations disdain our interference. We have no control over\nthe clouds, or the curves of the ocean, or the nocturnal radiance\nof the skies.\n{680}\nBut the surface of the earth is an unfinished sketch, which the\nCreator has left us to humanize, in some small degree, after our\nfancy. We do not make even the smallest impression upon its\nplanetary aspect; but, after centuries of toil, we succeed in\npartially changing its more immediate expression. We take the\ngroundwork ready made, accept the laws as we find them, and then,\ninspired by the supreme longing after unrevealed beauty, which,\nin some shape or other, haunts every human soul, proceed to\nestablish a little paradise of our own.\n\nBut above and beyond that last temporal Eden, there is still\nanother--the one beyond the grave. I, who am an immortal spirit\ncapable of sharing the celestial joy of angels, predestined for\nthe beatific vision; I, whose hereafter should be passed amid\nperpetual light, and peace, and beauty; may I not have imaginings\nof better forms, of sweeter faces, of fairer prospects, of deeper\nskies, and even of diviner stars than those revealed to the\nsenses? Did Raphael ever see a face that equalled hers of the San\nSisto? Was there ever in the flesh a form to rival the Apollo of\nthe Vatican? Is there any pattern in nature for Giotto's\nCampanile? Is there any voice in the woods or seas to suggest the\nmelodies of Kreutzer or the harmonies of Beethoven? And may we\nnot, then, poetize our landscapes too, and throw into the face of\nnature the expression of a human soul? But here is precisely the\ndifficulty: the landscape has a soul of its own, which must not\nbe murdered, even to make way for ours. The Grand Master has been\nat work before us; his works have wandered, of their own sweet\nwill, into shapes and combinations that exhibit the grace beyond\nthe reach of art. The mountains, the streams. the valleys, are\nfull of these sweet surprises. The true artist can do little more\nthan reproduce them, squared and framed, for parlor\ncontemplation: the true gardener can do little more than display\nthem to the best advantage.\n\nIt is more than likely, though, that, when the Boboli Gardens\nwere laid out by the Medici, the artists employed had only to\ndeal with unornamented slopes of olive orchards and arable land.\nThe landscape was less to be remodelled than created. The surface\nunder treatment was artistically as blank as uncolored canvas--\nas meaningless as quarried marble. With this difference, however:\nthat while the groundwork of the painter fades and wrinkles,\nwhile marble stains and shatters, while even the sculptured\narches of great cathedrals crumble into dust, the living canvas\non which the landscape gardener works is not only imperishable,\nbut so charged with vitality that it gains instead of losing by\nduration; or, should a touch of decay at last appear, it is but\nin transition to new phases of beauty. One would think that,\nwhere human fancy is free to conceive a garden of delight, and\nhuman means sufficient to ransack the ages and spoil the climes\nfor its embellishment, the result could not escape being a public\nand paramount attraction. I take this Boboli Garden as a sample\nof most public gardens or parks. Are they popularly, or even\nselectly, attractive? Are they ever thronged, except at stated\nhours, when people chiefly congregate to exhibit themselves and\ncriticise each other? Was an artist, by any miracle, ever caught\nthere more than once, save in the capacity of casual saunterer?\nAre they not startlingly unfrequented, in spite of their superb\nrichness and beauty?\n{68l}\nHowever conducive these civic Edens to municipal health, have not\nthe park police an almost exclusive monopoly of the fresh air and\ngravel? Do these magnets draw by dint of their intrinsic beauty?\nIt may safely be questioned. And may not this failure be\nattributed to our vague, unpronounced repugnance to having nature\nout of harmony with itself and ourselves? Notwithstanding all the\ngilt and carmine of the new emblazonry, we keep asking the gay\npalimpsest to restore the lost features of our first friend.\n\nThe curse that fell on Adam also visited the earth from which he\nwas taken. The heart of fallen man is full of yearning; the face\nof nature is full of sympathetic sadness; her voice is nearer a\nsigh than a song. More than half the year is clouded, more than\nhalf the hours belong to night, and over more than half the world\ngoes the wail of the unresting seas. The vast _distances_\nare everywhere softened or shaded into pensiveness; the very\nsunshine turns to blue and purple on the hills; it is only the\nsmall _near_ which presumes to be glad with the flash of a\nrivulet, the song of birds, or the glance of flowers. And, in\nthese minor poems too, there is apt to lurk some sly suggestion\nof the unattained. Even where the universe is transfigured by the\ncoming morn, and the world thrills with the joyous cry of\nreawakened life, the momentary exultation, the piercing delight\nof existence, are soon sobered by toil, or care, or thought; and,\nbright as the coming day may prove, the impression left on human\nhearts is that of promise unfulfilled. The poorest part of\nsunrise is the sun itself; the horns on the Rigi are silent as\nsoon as the orb is fairly up.\n\nIt may not be overbold to affirm that some of these grander\nparks, such as the Bois de Boulogne, bear no mean resemblance to\nthe first paradise itself. But our lot is changed since then; the\nprimitive tradition of Deity incarnate has been fulfilled. Eden\ncould no longer content us; we would not care to pass those\nCherubim with the flaming sword, even if we dared. Between us and\nany possible paradise lies the grave. It is worse than mockery to\nexpect the sorely laden Christian heart to find more than casual\nenjoyment in arbitrary walks, and endless beds of roses, and\nartificial fountains, and manufactured grottoes. Sorrow, passion,\ndeath, were encountered by God in descending to man; sorrow,\npassion, death, must be encountered by man in ascending to God.\nSpiritual felicity is less to be extracted from violets and roses\nthan from sackcloth and ashes. Temporal happiness is not to be\ncompassed by meandering through shaded avenues and even lawns,\nbut by the sweat of the brow and the work of the hands; and in\nour respites from toil we like the wild, suggestive\nirregularities of nature better than a too glaring array of\nbrightnesses with which we are seldom in complete accord. The\npost-Adamic garden needs depth and gloom and mystery as well as\nsunshine and flowers.\n\nI do not mean to say that the Boboli is wholly glad; much of it\nis sad or saddening enough. That long, grim avenue of cypress\nwould suit the valley of the shadow of death. Arnolfo's dark,\nmighty wall goes striding down the hill-side like a phantom. The\nBoboli was only _meant_ to be wholly glad. Though probably\nnot designed by a Greek, it is nevertheless Grecian, or rather\nAthenian; for, in art, Athens is Greece. By an exceptional\nfelicity and refinement of mental, moral, and physical\norganization, the Athenian realized in himself the most perfect\ndevelopment of natural civilization.\n{682}\nThe dark, religious mysteries which tinge and sadden Hindu,\nEgyptian, and most Gentile life had little hold upon the Greek.\nAthens, in her prime, succeeded in escaping the pressure and\nresponsibility of the hereafter. She aimed at making time a\nsuccess independent of eternity. The real heaven of the Athenian\nand his disciples, in both classic peninsulas, was this world,\nnot the next. Eternity was but the ghost of time, a vague\nprolongation of the present for better or worse in Elysium or\nHades, the shadow projected by a vast material world as it moved\nthrough endless space. The poets of Greece dictated her popular\ntheology; her sculptors carried beauty to the very borders of the\nbeatitude, giving such glory to form that the inspired likeness\nis mistaken for the divine original. It is impossible to tell\nwhere the hero ends and the god begins. We have the deification\nof man in marble or fable, instead of the humanization of God in\nthe flesh; or, in other words, the identity of religion and art.\nThis pleasant way of being one with God, this graceful fulfilment\nof destiny, imparted a complacency to Athenian life which we\ncannot imitate.\n\n  \"In every dark and awful place,\n     Rude hill and haunted wood.\n   This beautiful, bright people left\n     A name of omen good.\n\n  \"Unlike the children of romance,\n     From out whose spirit deep\n   The touch of gloom hath passed on glen.\n     And mountain, lake, and steep;\n   On Devil's Bridge and Raven's Tower,\n     And love-lorn Maiden's Leap.\"\n\nGrecian life, in its highest aspect, was an attempt to reproduce\nthe perfections of a lost Eden; Christian life, in its highest\naspect, is purification, self-denial, self-immolation, for a\nparadise which can never be reached in this world, and only in\nthe next after life-long fear and trembling. And although we\nstrive more or less successfully to substitute the joys of the\nspirit for those of the flesh, yet \"Even we ourselves, who have\nthe first-fruits of the spirit, groan within ourselves, waiting\nfor the adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body.\"\n(St. Paul. [Footnote 208]) After the knowledge of good and evil,\nour paradise must have no walls. The broad expanse of which each\none of us may chance to be the centre, bounded by the horizon and\nvaulted by the sky--the whole visible landscape, with its fitful\nlight and shade, its changing blight and bloom, its alternating\nsigh and song, whether subdued into use or wild as on the morning\nof the first Sabbath--this whole visible universe is the only\ngarden in harmony with the vast aspiration, the ceaseless\nyearning of Christian life. Our opened eyes would weary of the\nwalled Eden, as Rasselas wearied of the Happy Valley.\n\n    [Footnote 208: For the suggestion of this text of St. Paul\n    the writer is indebted to a notice in the _Freeman's\n    Journal_ of Father Ryan's beautiful lines, \"_Why does\n    your poetry sound like a sigh_.\"]\n\nIt is a pure and paramount joy to grapple with the rugged earth\nand bend it to your will; a joy to pierce the forest to your\nliking and smooth a bare expanse into velvet lawn: of mortal joys\nperhaps the purest and most enduring. But when all is done?--\n\nTake your stand behind the Pitti Palace almost anywhere high up\nthe hill, on the observatory itself, if you choose. All the wide\nvalley of the Arno, with its circumference of cultured hills and\nwoodless mountains, is before you. For thousands of years\nindustrious generations have been at work on that fair panorama.\nYellow villas are dotting all the heights; olive-trees are\nwrapping all the slopes in pale monotony; the vines are trailing\neverywhere in endless procession over mutilated mulberries; the\nlong gray walls are solemnly parcelling out the small Tuscan\nfarms.\n{683}\nAll Florence is beneath you, with its domes and towers and\nspires, its streets and bridges, its memories and suggestions.\nThe atmosphere is so transparent, the cultivation so perfect,\nthat the area described by half the radius of vision seems to\nenclose only a vast kitchen-garden. But further on, the mist and\nhaze are settling; the enchantment of distance is falling;\nVallambrosa, gleaming on its mountain's breast, turns into some\nmysterious opal; the records traced by man through all those\ncenturies are gradually erased by the quiet alchemy of nature,\nand the same eternal story reappears as vividly as if the\nsuperscription were but the shadow of a dream.\n\nTurn to the Boboli at your feet. Do you wonder it is a\nfailure--that Florence never goes there? They love their own\nlittle gardens dearly and the flowers in their windows; for these\nare but sweet thefts from nature to embellish home. But for these\nattempts to compress universal beauty into a given space, for\nthis overprizing, overadorning of the _near_, only to be\nlost, or merged, or overlooked in the glory of the _far_,\nthe Christian heart can have but little relish.\n\nThe bells of Santo Spirito are ringing; and I wonder, on my way\nthere, if that cold white hand of Athens will ever quite relax\nits hold on Christian life.\n\n-------------\n\n      Translated From Le Correspondant.\n\n      Anecdotical Memoirs By A Former Page\n      Of The Emperor Nicholas.\n\n\nOne day, some months after my admission among the pages, as the\nclasses were being dismissed, I heard a great noise. People were\nrunning to and fro, agitated and hurried; officers of the\nservice, pages of the bedroom, inspectors, all seemed to be in a\nstate of extraordinary excitement.\n\n\"Gentlemen, look out! look out! the emperor!\" cried in an\nauthoritative tone the head of our company, while his deep,\nsonorous voice reechoed throughout the dormitory, where,\naccording to custom, we were all assembled before dinner.\n\nAt this name I was deeply moved. My mother and my companions had\noften, very often spoken to me of the emperor in recitals where\nlegend mingled with reality, but I had not yet seen him face to\nface. The officer on duty arranged us in military order, each one\nstanding near his own bed, and so we waited for him.\n\nSoon the captain of the guard announced that the czar was coming\nup the great stairway. The dormitory, ordinarily so noisy, became\nperfectly still. There was a moment of solemn silence, religious\nin its perfect stillness. We hardly dared to breathe. The\nofficer, with his helmet on, placed himself at the threshold.\nSuddenly, in the opening of the large doorway, appeared a man of\ntall stature, in the uniform of a general and in the midst of a\n_cort\u00e9ge_ of superior officers.\n{684}\nHis countenance was severe, his whole exterior imposing. This was\nNicholas I.\n\nSince then I have seen, and closely, most of the sovereigns of\nEurope, and more than once have been admitted to the honor of\ndirect conversation with them; but never have I beheld a figure\nmore royal or more profoundly imprinted with supreme majesty;\nnever have I since experienced the icy impression that this view\nof the czar produced upon me.\n\nHe walked straightforward in lordly style, his leaden eyes coldly\nfixed on those of each person to whom in turn he addressed\nhimself, and gazing deeply into each face with a penetration that\nseemed to mark the very secrets of the soul. His step impressed\nyou; his aspect intimidated; and his attitudes, so truly\nsovereign, added to a physiognomy so haughty, reflected the\nguiding sentiment of his life, his utter contempt for mankind,\nand his mystical faith in his own all-powerfulness. Of colossal\nheight and admirably beautiful in face, his hard and penetrating\neye subjugated you at once. Simply clad, even in peasant attire,\nhe would have been recognized by his look and his imperial\ncarriage, and surrounded even by twenty generals in full uniform,\nthe cry would have resounded, \"The emperor! it is he!\"\n\nHe made the tour of the room, and, after speaking to several\npages, came at last to where I stood. As he neared my bed, the\ndirector approached him and said:\n\n\"Sire, this is D----.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" bowed the emperor, and turning toward me:\n\n\"How is your mother?\"\n\n\"Well, sire.\"\n\n\"She is a good friend of mine. Are you satisfied with your\npresent position?\"\n\n\"Yes, sire.\"\n\n\"How long since he entered among the pages?\" asked the czar of\nthe director.\n\n\"About two months since, sire.\"\n\n\"And conducts himself well?\"\n\n\"Very well.\"\n\n\"Bravo!\"\n\nUntil now the conversation had been in French.\n\n\"And,\" resumed the emperor, but this time speaking Russian, \"have\nyou learned Russian?\"\n\n\"Not yet, sire,\" I replied in French.\n\n\"What! here two months, and not yet a word! Why, that is\noutrageous. Can't you even say _no_ in Russian?\"\n\n\"I ask pardon, your majesty; I do speak Russian with my\ncomrades.\"\n\n\"Well, why then, stupid, if you can speak it with your comrades,\ndo you answer me in French when I address you in Russian?\"\n\n\"Because, if I express myself incorrectly to a simple page, I am\nnot annoyed, whereas, with your majesty--\"\n\n\"Very well, that will do.\"\n\nI had heard he wished nothing badly done in his presence, and I\nknew too little Russian to dare venture it before his majesty.\n\n\"Did you hear that?\" said the emperor; and turning toward General\nPhilosophoff, \"Here is one who will never be a fool,\" added he,\nand passed on.\n\nNicholas I., Paulowitch, the third son of the Emperor Paul III.,\nhad never dreamed of a crown. He believed himself destined for\nthe pompous and useless life of a grand duke. Between him and the\nempire were two older brothers, both young and both intelligent.\n\nHowever, since his earliest youth his character had shown itself\nself-willed, domineering, and tyrannical, in a manner the presage\nof his reign and harbinger of his politics.\n{685}\nThere has been discovered among the books used in his education\nwhile he was quite a child, a volume of the _History of\nRussia_, by Karamsin, and on the margin of which are written\nin his own hand these remarkable words, \"The Czar Ivan IV., the\nTerrible, was a severe but a just man, as one ought to be to\ngovern a nation.\"\n\nSuch sentiments loudly expressed by Nicholas could not fail to\nalarm a people and court who still remembered the reign of his\nfather, Paul I., only dead twenty-three years. The reign of this\ncrowned fool had, notwithstanding its short duration, tired out\neven Russia itself--Russia, too, already so corrupted by the\nhabit of despotism; and a revolution in the palace had at last\nput an end to the follies of this barbarian, this second\nHeliogabalus.\n\nDuring the reign of Alexander I., the court and town spoke freely\nof the despot Paul. Nicholas, who neither could nor dared\nreinstate the memory of his father, and who considered it\nimpolitic to permit a people to express themselves irreverently\nof a czar, forbade throughout his whole empire even the mention\nof a name so abhorred. The legend of his death he especially\ninterdicted, and so long as the reign of Nicholas lasted, the\nmemory of Paul I. remained in silence and obscurity.\n\nWhile his brother Alexander I. governed the empire, Nicholas,\nwho, as we have said, believing it impossible he should ever\nreign, kept himself in comparative obscurity, concentrated all\nhis attention on the troops, each day passing them in review, and\noccupied himself only with the lot of the soldier and the\namelioration of his condition. The marriage of the Grand Duke\nConstantine with the Princess of Lowicz brought him unexpectedly\nnearer the throne. At the death of the Emperor Alexander, and\nnotwithstanding the unequal marriage of his brother, he was still\nuncertain of his approaching advancement. But when he learned,\nfirst by the will of Alexander, then by the letter of Constantine\nintrusted to the Senate, and finally from Constantine himself,\nhis renunciation of the empire, he accepted the crown, and from\nthe day he did so, faithful to his character, he understood how\nto reign fully and absolutely.\n\nFirmly convinced that he represented celestial power on earth,\nsincerely persuaded that to his own people he was the mandatary\nof God, and held within himself divine prerogatives, he watched\nwith an overshadowing jealousy the sacred deposit with which he\nbelieved himself charged, and any attempt against his authority\nappeared to him a sacrilege and proved him inexorable. The\nconviction that he never pardoned even the simple appearance of\nsuch a crime isolated him in the midst of his court and people,\nenveloped him in an atmosphere of gloom and terror, and placed\nhim at a distance that added to his prestige and the respectful\nfear he inspired.\n\nIt is said that one evening, about two years after his death, one\nof his aides-de-camp, (in the midst of an animated conversation,)\nrecognizing the portrait of the emperor in the drawing-room,\nsuddenly left his place, and quickly turned its face to the wall.\n\"During the life of the czar, I had such a terror of him,\" said\nhe, \"that I fear the copy, with its terrible eyes fixed upon me,\nmay disconcert and embarrass me as greatly as did the model.\"\n\nThis very intentness of look was in truth the power of\nintimidation which the emperor possessed. Intending to win a\nconfidence from any one or force a confession, he fastened on his\nvictim his cold and immovable eyes.\n{686}\nThe unfortunate was literally fascinated. He knew that a word or\na gesture from the autocrat sufficed to annihilate him, and the\nleast contraction of his brow froze the blood in his veins.\nTerror is the necessary auxiliary of every despotism, democratic\nor aristocratic, monarchical or republican.\n\nYet these jealous instincts, and this implacable firmness in\npunishment, were not solely due to the character of the Emperor\nNicholas, but also to the sad experiences which signalized the\ncommencement of his reign. Conspiracies against the new czar,\nrevolts occasioned by the appearance of cholera, indeed all sorts\nof disorders, Nicholas had to suppress on his accession to the\nthrone. From the very first he learned these bloody retaliations,\nand never pardoned.\n\nThe first conspirators of his reign, Pestel, Mouravieff-Apostol,\nand the poet Relieff, were condemned to be hung. The emperor\nsigned the decree after the Russian formula, \"_Byt po\nsiemau_\" (So be it.) They were then conducted to the place of\nexecution. Relieff, a poet of the highest order, was the first\none led to the scaffold. Just at the moment when the executioner,\nhaving passed the slip-knot, over his head, had raised him on his\nshoulders to launch him into eternity, the too weak cord broke,\nand he fell forward bruised and bleeding.\n\n\"They know not how to do anything in Russia,\" said he, raising\nhimself without even turning pale, \"not even to twist a rope.\"\n\nAs accidents of this kind--besides being very rare, were always\nconsidered occasions of pardon, they sent, therefore, to the\nWinter Palace to know the will of the emperor.\n\n\"Ah! the cord has broken?\" said Nicholas.\n\n\"Yes, sire.\"\n\n\"Then he was almost dead? What impression has such close contact\nwith eternity produced on the mind of the rebel?\"\n\n\"He is a brave man, sire.\"\n\nThe czar frowned.\n\n\"What did he say?\" asked he severely.\n\n\"Sire, he said, 'They know not how even to twist a rope in\nRussia.'\"\n\n\"Well,\" replied Nicholas, \"let them prove to him the contrary.\"\nAnd he went out.\n\nA wealthy Polish lord, the Prince Roman Sanguszko, had been\ncondemned, as a conspirator, to serve the rest of his life as a\nsimple soldier, and to immediately join a regiment fighting in\nCaucasia. On the margin of the sentence, the emperor wrote in his\nown hand, \"On foot!\"\n\nSuch severity was in him a system. He sincerely believed in it as\na necessity, and a part of the sanctity of absolute power. In\nRussia, especially, his knowledge of the character of his people\nfortified him in his belief, and he let no opportunity escape to\ndeclare his despotism.\n\nOf all the heterogeneous elements that compose the immense empire\nof Russia, there is not one that ever seems likely to develop in\nthe slightest degree the idea of liberalism; not a single\nnationality in which servilism is not innate, and to which the\npeople themselves are not as much attached as the nations of the\nEast to liberty. Hence it is that among the Russians, properly\nso-called, and who constitute the main portion of the population,\nwe find the nobility infected with an inveterate sentiment of\nservile obsequiousness, and the people predisposed by\ntemperament, and moulded by past experience, to the most abject\nsubmission.\n{687}\nThey all have the same character as the great princes of Kieff,\nwho, when under the yoke of the Tartars, went to receive the\ninvestiture of the Khan of the Horde d'Or; and who, after having\nheld his stirrup and offered him a glass of _koumys_,\n[Footnote 209] were obliged to lick from the neck of his horse\nthe milk that dropped from his moustaches. Do we need greater\nevidence of the servility of the Russian people than the reign of\nthe crowned tiger, Ivan IV. the Terrible, a despot without\nparallel in history, whose subjects, more patient than the Romans\nunder Caligula and Nero, not only were contented to bear with his\nfollies and crimes, but actually supplicated him to resume the\nthrone, after his voluntary abdication through disgust of others\nand himself? The reign, too, of Peter the Great, whose savage\ngrandeur could not absolve him from cruelty, and even the\npossibility in the nineteenth century of such a despot as\nNicholas I., what greater proofs do we require?\n\n    [Footnote 209: Camel's milk fermented.]\n\nAs to the half-savage nations of the northern limits of Russia\nand Siberia, with populations perhaps only yesterday awakened to\nanything like social life, their need is still, as with children,\nthe master, and the ferule.\n\nIt is easy to understand, then, how a man armed like Nicholas\nwith an iron will and immense authority, and comprehending\nperfectly the character of his people, should have conceived this\nsuperhuman idea of his own power. Never thwarted by the least\nresistance, only now and then by an occasional murmuring, we can\nneed no better explanation of his apparently exaggerated\ndespotism, of his inveterate faith in the sanctity of his\ndomination, his conviction that in himself centred his whole\nempire, and the faculty, in fine, which he possessed in so great\na degree, of entirely ignoring mankind.\n\nOne day, a short time before the Crimean war, at a grand military\nreview at Krasnoe-Selo, the emperor, on horseback, presented his\ntroops to the empress seated in her carriage. Suddenly appeared\non the drill ground a cariole drawn by one horse, and out of\nwhich stepped a _feld jaguer_, (courier of the palace,)\ncharged with two autographic letters from the King of Prussia to\nthe emperor and empress. As the empress was the more easily\napproached, he handed her the first letter, and ran toward the\nemperor to present the second. But some steps from him he pauses,\nturns pale, and bursts into tears. The letter is lost.\n\nTrembling from head to foot, he retraces his steps to try and\nfind it, but the soldiers, the aides-de-camp, the horses, have\nalready trodden it in the dust, and the precious envelope cannot\nbe found.\n\n\"What ails that animal?\" asked the emperor of one of his\naides-de-camp.\n\n\"I do not know, sire.\"\n\n\"Well, go and ask him, and bring me his reply.\"\n\nThe aide-de-camp spurred his horse, and from the lips of the poor\nfeld jaguer he learned that an autograph letter from the King of\nPrussia to the Emperor of Russia had been lost. He brought the\nczar the information.\n\nThe face of Nicholas clouded instantly; his expression was gloomy\nand severe.\n\n\"Take charge of this man yourself and without allowing him to\ncommunicate with any one, conduct him immediately to Siberia. Let\nhim not be harshly treated, but let him never again appear in\nEurope.\"\n\nThe aide-de-camp, as well as the unhappy feld jaguer, were both\nto set out, without even changing their boots, for this journey\nof 2000 leagues. The aide-de-camp returned eight months\nafterward, and was recompensed by promotion from the emperor, but\nthe poor courier was doubtless dying or dead in the neighborhood\nof Tobolsk, such faults as his having escaped an amnesty.\n\n{688}\n\nSuch instances (I witnessed the one I am about to relate) were\nnot rare in the life of Nicholas. One morning in the spring, when\na freshet of the Neva had rendered its crossing extremely\nperilous, the emperor, on looking from the window of his Winter\nPalace, saw a large crowd watching, in evident stupefaction, a\nman directing himself, by leaps from one piece of ice to another,\ntoward the opposite shore.\n\nHe called his attendant aide-de-camp.\n\n\"Look at that fool,\" said he. \"What courage! Run and see what\nmotive he has for so exposing his life.\"\n\nThe aide-de-camp learned the particulars and returned.\n\n\"Sire, he is a peasant who has bet he would cross the Neva for\ntwenty-five roubles, and is trying to gain the reward.\"\n\n\"Give him twenty-fire lashes,\" replied Nicholas; \"a man who risks\nhis life in this miserable way would be capable of anything for\nmoney.\"\n\nTo a desperate caprice of the same kind is due the construction\nof the railroad from St. Petersburg to Moscow, called the\nNicholas railroad. The emperor had in his court a certain\ngeneral, Kleinmichel, a disagreeable person, exceedingly\nunpopular, and of equivocal fidelity, but who pleased by his\nreticence and promptness in executing orders. When the road was\ndecided upon by a counsel of ministers, and its erection\nconsidered urgent, a map of Russia was brought to the czar, who\nwas asked to look over the course designated by the different\nengineers and give his preference. Nicholas, without saying a\nword, took the map, marked a straight line from Moscow to St.\nPetersburg, and said to the stupefied engineers:\n\n\"This is the line of the railroad.\"\n\n\"But,\" they all cried, \"impossible. Your majesty will find no one\nto undertake such a work. It would be to hide treasures in a\ndesert.\"\n\n\"No one undertake it when I command it to be done!\" said\nNicholas. \"We shall see.\"\n\nAnd signalling Kleinmichel from a corner:\n\n\"Kleinmichel,\" said he, \"you see this line?\"\n\n\"Yes, sire.\"\n\n\"This is a new railroad I propose constructing in my empire.\"\n\n\"Sire, it is magnificent!\"\n\n\"You think so? Will you charge yourself, then, with the execution\nof my orders?\"\n\n\"With the greatest pleasure, sire, if your majesty orders it. But\nthe funds, the funds?\"\n\n\"Don't be troubled about them. Ask for all the money you want.\"\n\nAnd turning to the engineers:\n\n\"You see,\" said Nicholas to them, \"I can get along without you. I\nwill build my own railroad.\"\n\nAnd the construction of this road lasted ten years. It did not\ndeviate an inch from the line marked out by the imperial finger;\nand leaving on one side, at about a distance of ten leagues, the\nvillages of Novgorod, Twer, and a host of others equally rich and\nimportant, it traversed, in the midst of marshes and woods,\nnothing but immense solitudes; 706 kilometres of iron rail cost\nRussia 400,000,000 francs--a little more than half a million a\nkilometre--of which the devoted Kleinmichel, but that as a matter\nof course, took a good share. Nicholas, however, was right in\nsaying nothing could resist him.\n\n{689}\n\nSome weeks after the inauguration of this railroad an ambassador\narrived at St. Petersburg. According to custom and to pay him\nattention, everything was shown him in detail, all the objects of\ninterest in the city. He expressed no surprise or admiration; his\noriental gravity was proof against either.\n\n\"What could we show him that would astonish him?\" asked the\nemperor of Menschikoff.\n\n\"Show him the accounts of Kleinmichel for the Nicholas railroad,\"\nreplied the prince, laughing.\n\nA few days later, General Kleinmichel, in presence of the\nemperor, was discussing with Menschikoff some question upon which\nthey could not agree. The general proposed to the prince a wager.\n\n\"With pleasure,\" replied the latter, \"and this shall be the\nstake, if your excellence permits it. He who loses shall be\nobliged--at the expense of the winner--to go to Moscow and return\nby the railroad your excellence has just finished.\"\n\n\"What joke is this?\" asked the emperor.\n\n\"A very simple one, sire. The road is so constructed that one is\nvery sure to break his neck on it; so, you see, we are playing\nfor our lives.\"\n\nThe emperor laughed heartily at the joke, but Kleinmichel took\ncare not to accept the bet.\n\nThese two instances prove that Nicholas knew how, now and then,\nto listen to a truth well said. He was too certain that none of\nhis subjects dared fail him in the respect he required, so he\ncould afford to listen to those who were bold and witty enough to\napproach him with the truth. Menschikoff, the same who commanded\nat Sebastopol, was one of these; better than any other, he always\nmaintained before the czar his frank speech, and Nicholas, little\naccustomed to such frankness, loved him dearly, and frequently\namused himself with his sallies.\n\nGeneral Kleinmichel was the aversion of Menschikoff. One day the\nlatter entered the cabinet of Nicholas at the moment when the\nemperor was playing with one of his grand-children, the Grand\nDuke Michel, still quite an infant.\n\nAstraddle on the shoulders of his grandfather, the little prince\nmade the czar serve for his horse.\n\n\"See,\" cried Nicholas gayly, \"see how this little imp treats me.\nI am growing thin under it. The little monkey is so heavy, I\nshall fall with fatigue.\"\n\n\"Zounds!\" quickly replied Menschikoff, \"little Michel (in German\n_Klein-michel_) ought not to be a very light load, if he\ncarries about him all he has stolen.\"\n\nNotwithstanding his jokes, which spared no one, Menschikoff\ndelighted Nicholas, who could readily enough withdraw him from\nthe chief command at Sebastopol, but would not deprive him of his\nfriendship. This was of more ancient date, and founded on the two\ngood qualities of courage and sincerity. Sometimes, but rarely,\nothers approached the emperor as familiarly. The celebrated poet,\nPouchkine, for example, dared to express himself in his presence\nwith a frankness which, even in occidental Europe, and in a\nconstitutional state, would pass for audacity.\n\nIn the palace of the Hermitage, where they were walking together,\nthe emperor had led the poet into a gallery of pictures that\ncontained the portraits of all the Romanoffs, from Michel\nFedorovitch to the last reigning sovereign, and had ordered him\nto improvise some verses on each.\n\n{690}\n\nPouchkine obeyed; but coming to the portrait of Nicholas, he was\nsilent.\n\n\"Well, Pouchkine,\" said the emperor, \"what have you to say of\nme?\"\n\n\"Sire!\"\n\n\"Some flattery, of course? I don't wish to hear it; so tell the\ntruth.\"\n\n\"Your majesty permits me?\"\n\n\"I order you. Believe in my imperial word, you shall not suffer.\"\n\n\"So be it, sire.\"\n\nAnd he wrote the famous distich:\n\n  \"Des pieds \u00e0 la t\u00eate la toile est admirable;\n   De la t\u00eate aux pieds le tzar est d\u00e9testable.\" [Footnote 210]\n\n    [Footnote 210:\n    \"From feet to head the picture is admirable:\n     From head to feet the czar is detestable.\"]\n\nThe emperor made no reply, but he asked Pouchkine for no more\nverses.\n\nNotwithstanding his despotism, and the arbitrary acts that\nsignalized his reign; notwithstanding the innumerable banishments\ninto Siberia and Caucasia, it is seen the emperor could sometimes\nbear to hear the truth. The instinct of justice was born in him;\ndespotism had smothered it, unfortunately, but his better nature\nfrequently triumphed. Often the hereditary grand duke had, in\nthis respect, to submit to severe reprimands. One day, in 1832, a\nyear after the revolt of the Poles, whom Nicholas had handled\nwith implacable rigor, the grand duke, in the presence of his\nfather, had called them _accursed_. Rebuking publicly his\nson:\n\n\"Imperial Highness,\" said Nicholas, \"your expressions are\nunseemly. If I chastise the Poles, it is because they have\nrevolted against my authority; but to you they have done no harm,\nand you are destined to reign over them. You have no right to\nmake any difference in your future subjects. Be assured, such\nsentiments make bad sovereigns.\"\n\nThe sentiment of gratitude was no more a stranger to the Emperor\nNicholas than the spirit of justice. True, he guarded as\nfaithfully the remembrance of injuries as of services, and if he\nnever forgot those who had served or defended him, neither did he\never forgive those who had made the least attempt against his\npower. While the Troubetskois, the Mouravieffs, the\nTchernicheffs, worked in the mines of Siberia, still there could\nbe seen, at the end of his reign, several generals perfectly\nunqualified, yet provided with advantageous employments, without\nany great power, it is true, but well lodged, well fed, honored,\nand tranquil. If they committed any absurdity, and this\nfrequently happened, he changed their places according to\ncapacity, or sometimes secretly directed them in the exercise of\ntheir functions, never failing in his goodness toward them. These\nmen, in the military revolt of 1826, had offered their swords to\nassist his growing power.\n\nStrange character! Curious mixture of faults and good qualities,\nof littleness and grandeur; brutal and chivalrous, courageous\neven to temerity, and distrustful even to poltroonery; equitable\nand tyrannical, generous and cruel, at once the friend of\nostentation and of simplicity! His palace was magnificent, his\ncourt splendid, the luxuriousness of his courtiers dazzling,\nwhile, in his own person, his habits and tastes, he affected an\nimposing austerity. His working cabinet was almost bare; he slept\nalways on a camp bed. The oldness of his uniform, and of his\nmilitary cloaks, was proverbial at St. Petersburg. Worn out,\npieced in different places, they evidenced, by their shining\nneatness, how carefully they were preserved. At his repasts even,\nhe drank no wine; he never smoked, and the odor of tobacco was so\ndisagreeable to him that it was forbidden, not only in the Winter\nPalace, but in the streets of St. Petersburg.\n{691}\nEven the Grand Duke Alexander, the czar truly, and an inveterate\nsmoker, was obliged to sit under the mantel-piece, to enjoy the\nluxury of a cigar in the imperial palace.\n\nLoving beyond everything military discipline, and rigorous in his\nformulas, Nicholas, who for thirty years was accustomed to this\nrefrain, \"Master, thy slave is here to obey thee\"--Nicholas\ncould only comprehend order and uniformity. Reviews were his\nfavorite passion; during his reign, he transformed his empire\ninto a barrack. He passed his life in manoeuvres, exercises, and\nminiature wars. The soldiers adored him, although he was only\neclipsed in the severity of military rule by the Grand Duke\nMichel. It is true, the latter pushed his worship of discipline\nto such an extent that the emperor himself was often amused at\nthe expense of his younger brother. One day he met an officer\nwith his clothes torn and covered with mud, and without helmet or\nsword. The officer, finding himself discovered, and knowing he\nwas to blame, was terribly frightened, and nearly fell backward\nin making the military salute. Nicholas fixed a severe look upon\nthe poor devil, which made him totter. But, suddenly changing his\ntone and countenance, he said gayly:\n\n\"Go, dress yourself; but take good care you don't meet my\nbrother!\"\n\nRising with the dawn, and at work from the earliest hour of the\nday, whether at his palace in winter or in the field in summer,\nhe hardened himself, as well as others, to both cold and fatigue.\nAn excellent rider, his horses were magnificent and marvellously\ncared for; he always mounted alone those that were reserved for\nhim, and out of two or three hundred sent every year to his\nstables for his own use, he could scarcely find a dozen to suit\nhim. In manoeuvres I have seen him twenty times, at the moment of\nthe loudest cannonade and in the most frightful noise, jerk, in\nhis impatience, his horse's bit until the jagged lips of the poor\nbeast were streaming with blood. Sometimes this torture lasted\nseveral minutes; the sides of the beautiful animal whitened with\nfoam; he trembled in agony, and yet never lost for a moment his\nstatue-like immobility.\n\nSuch methods of proceeding, applied by Nicholas equally to\neverything that surrounded him, generals, servants, horses, and\ncourtiers, were fortunately tempered in him by the sense of\njustice, of which I have already spoken, and especially by the\nfear of public opinion, not only in Russia, but in all Europe. He\nseemed ashamed of the despotism he practised, and strove to\nconceal it from the governments and people of the West. In\nproportion as he affected to despise their arms, so much the more\ndid he respect their ideas.\n\nWe know that it is customary at the court of St. Petersburg to be\npresented to the emperor in full uniform. And even more, that\nthere is no condition in life, however trifling, which has not\nits distinctive costume. It is related that one morning Lord\n----, ambassador from England, arrived in his carriage at the\ngate of the Winter Palace, was recognized, and went up to the\napartments of the emperor. He was in his great-coat. Seeing it,\nthe chamberlain-in-waiting, who did not dare remark this\ninfringement of the laws of etiquette in such an important\nperson, immediately sent word to the chancellor of the empire.\nCount Nesselrode, and meanwhile retained the ambassador under\nvarious pretexts.\n{692}\nThe count arrived in haste, and the morning toilet seemed to have\nthe same effect on the chancellor as on the chamberlain.\n\n\"I am delighted to see you, my dear count,\" said Lord ---- to M.\nde Nesselrode. \"I wanted to speak to his majesty on some very\nimportant business, but I have been detained here nearly an\nhour.\"\n\n\"Because we do not dare, my lord--\"\n\n\"Do not dare--what?\"\n\n\"We cannot introduce you to the emperor in such morning\n_n\u00e9glig\u00e9_.\"\n\n\"_N\u00e9glig\u00e9!_\" said he, throwing a rapid glance at his person,\nand aware of his reputation for elegance, and supposing he had\nbeen guilty of some impropriety in his toilet.\n\n\"In Russia, no one is admitted in similar costume to the presence\nof the sovereign.\"\n\n\"Would full uniform be necessary?\" asked smilingly the reassured\nambassador.\n\n\"Exactly, my lord.\"\n\n\"Oh! pardon me, then. I will go dress myself.\" And he left,\nshrugging his shoulders.\n\nThe emperor was furious when he heard of the adventure.\n\n\"Cursed fools!\" he grumbled, \"they represent me a barbarian!\"\n\nWhen, an hour afterward, the ambassador returned to the palace in\nofficial uniform, the emperor excused himself with great anxiety,\nblaming the narrow-mindedness of his servants, and declaring\nloudly that he did not occupy his brain with such trifles.\n\n\"When you wish, my lord,\" added he, giving him his hand, \"to come\nand see me as you did to-day, do not be incommoded, I beg of you,\nby any such formula.\"\n\nThis fear of Western irony affected all his relations with\nEuropeans. We know the flattering reception he gave the Marquis\nde Custine, Horace Vernet, and twenty other illustrious\nstrangers. Those employed in his empire were as anxious to throw\ndust in the eyes of travellers as himself. Nothing could be more\namusing than the arrival of a stranger at St. Petersburg, under\nthe reign of Nicholas. As no one could remain in the city without\na permit, all new-comers hastened to the police to have their\ncards presented them, and the scenes enacted were truly comical.\n\nThe following dialogue will give a good idea of them:\n\n\"You wish to live at St. Petersburg?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"How long?\"\n\nEach one then fixed the probable duration of his stay.\n\n\"Well, your permit will be given you.\"\n\nHere a pause. The policeman gives the necessary order, then\nresumes the conversation.\n\n\"Well, what do you think of St. Petersburg?\"\n\n\"It is an admirable city.\"\n\n\"Are not our theatres as fine as those of Paris?\"\n\n\"Most assuredly.\"\n\n\"Is not the perspective from Newski a superb view?\"\n\n\"Truly.\"\n\n\"Do they not tell idle stories of us in Paris, and are they any\nfreer than we?\"\n\n\"Prejudices these, nothing more. Travellers, like me, are here to\nrectify such errors. A proof that Russia is free, I can move\nabout with perfect liberty.\"\n\n\"Have you seen the emperor?\"\n\n\"Yesterday evening at the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre Michel.\"\n\n\"Is he not a remarkably handsome man?\"\n\n\"The handsomest I have ever seen.\"\n\n{693}\n\n\"Sir, your permit must be ready by this time. Will you go and\nreceive it, and prolong your stay in Russia as long as you\nplease. You will see that you have judged our country correctly.\"\n\nNotwithstanding all his efforts to conciliate European opinion,\nthe Emperor Nicholas was not rewarded in his travels by any\npraise whatever. Once out of his own country, he quickly\ndiscovered he had deceived no one, and his despotism was in\nEurope the object of universal unpopularity.\n\nFrom the Holy Father he received his first lesson: a lesson,\nhowever, both given and received with dignity.\n\nIt was well known that he had changed hundreds of Catholic into\nGreek churches, in all the western provinces of Russia and\nPoland.\n\nCurious to visit Rome, he asked permission of Gregory XVI. to\nenter the holy city. The pope asked, in return, by what\nceremonial he wished to be received.\n\n\"As a Catholic sovereign,\" replied the emperor.\n\nLodged at the Quirinal, he went the next day in Eastern style\nwith a guard of Cossacks to visit the holy father, who received\nhim standing at the head of the staircase of the Vatican.\nNicholas knelt to receive the benediction of the venerable\npontiff, who, after having given it to him, without being at all\nimpressed with his Attila-like costume, said to him with a\nserenity almost angelic:\n\n\"My son, you persecute my sheep.\"\n\n\"I?\" cried Nicholas in a disconcerted tone.\n\n\"Yes, you, my son. You are powerful. Do not use your strength to\noppress the weak.\"\n\n\"Holy father, I have been slandered.\"\n\nThe conversation continued some time in the cabinet of the pope,\nand the emperor remained, during his stay in Rome, on terms of\nthe most affectionate respect with Gregory XVI. He afterward sent\nhim a magnificent altar of malachite, that may be admired at the\nchurch of St. Paul, outside the walls. An inscription, dictated\nby Nicholas to St. Peter at Rome, recalls his visit to the\nCapital of Christianity:--\"Nicholas came here to pray to God for\nhis mother, Russia.\"\n\nIn London, as is well known, he was received with great popular\ndemonstrations. We need not relate here the tumultuous scenes to\nwhich he had to submit, and how his carriage was more than once\ncovered with mud.\n\nWith a brutality unworthy a sovereign, and at times a delicacy\nastonishing in a man of such a character, the most contrary\nqualities and defects reproduced themselves in a hundred acts of\nhis life. For instance, one night I saw him fisticuff a poor Jew\nin the face, and accompany the act with the most sonorous oaths,\nbecause in giving light to the postilions of the Berlin imperial,\nhe had awakened him with a start, by throwing the light of his\nlantern into his face. Again, at Warsaw, where he went to receive\nthe King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria, he took Francis\nJoseph into his arms to force him to occupy the seat of honor in\nhis carriage, which the young emperor was unwilling to accept: a\ncourtesy, according to the Cossack, that would have exactly\nsuited him.\n\nYet this man, so rude and so haughty, evidenced occasionally\ngreat delicacy of sentiment. One very cold day, returning from a\nreview, where he had been almost frozen, he stopped at the house\nof a lady, whom he knew to be in ill health, and met the doctor\nin the waiting-room.\n\n\"How is Madame ----?\" said he to the latter.\n\n{694}\n\n\"Very poorly, sire. The cold of St. Petersburg is killing her.\"\n\n\"Ah! the cold is injuring her? Feel my hands. They are frozen,\nare they not?\"\n\n\"Very cold, sire.\"\n\n\"Well, I will wait here until they are warm; I would not for the\nworld increase her malady.\"\n\nAnd the emperor waited in this sort of an antechamber, talking to\nthe doctor, until his hands resumed their natural warmth.\n\nSo this character, which, at first sight, appeared all of a\npiece, was composed of contrasts the most dissonant. Nicholas\nbared his breast to the revolted regiments in 1826 and recalled\nthem to duty by this single attitude; at the time of the cholera,\nalone amid a populace mad with terror and exasperated by famine,\na gesture from him, a single word, could constrain the delirious\nmultitude and throw them on their knees before him; in cases of\nfire, so frequent at St. Petersburg, and under the burning beams,\na hundred times he uselessly risked his life; yet on another\noccasion, when the safety of an empire depended upon him, he\nresolutely refused to repair to Sebastopol.\n\nHis long reign was fatal to Russia. For nearly thirty years it\naccomplished nothing. During the lifetime of Nicholas, the\nwheel-work of the machine moved regularly under his powerful\nhand, the cogs upon which he impressed the movement never being\ncompletely paralyzed. But the evil, being hidden, was not the\nless deep or real. Under this show of factitious strength, the\ndownfall was already visible, and the approaching disaster keenly\nfelt. The army, upon which Nicholas concentrated all his\nattention and intelligence--the army, his strength, his hope, his\npride, began to be disorganized under the influence of an\nadministration without control. Alone, the will of the czar\nsustained the edifice, and his pride sustained his will. And this\nword pride embodies to my mind the character, the conduct, the\nwhole politics, of the Emperor Nicholas. His ruling passion was\npride, a pride incommensurable, a pride such as neither Louis\nXIV., Henry VIII., nor Solyman the Magnificent--these three\ncrowned representatives of capital sins--could ever equal. The\nidea of humiliation would leave him smiling, so entirely he\nbelieved such an event impossible. It may be truly said that he\nnever submitted, for the first repulse he had to suffer killed\nhim.\n\nThis pride in him passed all bounds, and touched sometimes on the\naberrations of a Schahabaham. One day, one of his aides-de-camp\ncame to him very much excited, and throwing himself at his feet:\n\n\"Sire!\" cried he, \"I beg your majesty to grant me a favor.\"\n\n\"Speak.\"\n\n\"Permit me to fight a duel.\"\n\n\"Never!\" replied the emperor.\n\nNicholas had a horror of duels. In his eyes, all blood was\ncriminally shed in Russia that was not for the country or in his\nservice, and he punished the guilty in this respect most\nseverely.\n\n\"Sire, I am dishonored. It is necessary for me to fight.\"\n\n\"What do you say?\"\n\n\"I have been struck in the face.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said the emperor, contracting his brows. \"But no, I cannot\npermit a duel. You must come with me.\"\n\nAnd taking him by the arm, he conducted him before the assembled\ncourt, and, in presence of all, kissed him on the offended cheek.\n\n{695}\n\n\"Go, now,\" said he, \"and resume your tranquillity; the affront is\nwashed out.\"\n\nDuring the war of the Crimea, and especially in the first part of\nit, Nicholas, very restless, waited every day for news from the\nsouth. Each one tried his best to conceal the bad turn affairs\nhad taken; but after the battle of the Alma, the truth had to be\nconfessed. A courier, Colonel A., was despatched to him in great\nhaste. He received orders to repair immediately to the czar.\n\n\"Well! what news?\" said the emperor to him brusquely, giving him\nscarcely time to enter or fulfil the accustomed formalities of\netiquette.\n\n\"The battle has been fought, sire.\"\n\n\"Finish!\" said the emperor, with an emotion that caused his\nusually firm voice to tremble.\n\n\"Alas!--\"\n\n\"You say--?\"\n\n\"Fortune has failed us.\"\n\n\"We are--?\"\n\n\"We are beaten, sire.\"\n\nThe emperor arose from his seat.\n\n\"It is impossible,\" said he in a quick manner.\n\n\"The Russian army has taken flight.\"\n\n\"You lie!\" cried Nicholas with a frightful explosion of anger.\n\n\"Sire--\"\n\n\"You lie. My soldiers never fly.\"\n\n\"Sire, I have told you the truth.\"\n\n\"You lie, I say, you lie.\"\n\nAnd his eye beaming with anger, his lips contracted, his hand\nraised, he threw himself on the military courier and tore off his\nepaulettes.\n\n\"Go! You are now only a soldier.\"\n\nThe unhappy colonel, pale with shame, smothering his rage and the\ntears that rose to his eyes, went out, his soul in despair. But\nhardly had he reached the staircase, when he heard the voice of\nthe emperor begging his return. He retraced his steps, and\nNicholas, running to meet him, embraced him ardently, begged\npardon for his brutality, and offered for his acceptance the post\nof aide-de-camp.\n\n\"May your majesty hold me excused,\" replied the poor officer;\n\"for, in taking off\" my epaulettes, you have deprived me of my\nhonor. I leave them in your hands with my dismissal.\"\n\n\"You are right,\" replied Nicholas. \"It is not in my power to\nrepair the offence of my hasty action. Ah! we are both unhappy,\nand I am vanquished. Yes, completely vanquished!\"\n\nAnd, walking up and down with an agitated step, the subdued lion\nin his cage, his heart bleeding with the wound given his pride:\n\n\"Go, leave my empire,\" continued he, turning to Colonel A----,\n\"and pardon me. We must not meet again. Both of us would suffer\ntoo much in each other's presence.\"\n\nThe mortification attending the first reverses of his army before\nSebastopol was a mortal blow to his health; yet, had not his\nstubborn pride brought about these reverses? Self-deceived\nthoroughly as to the real condition of his empire, the disastrous\nnews of the Alma came upon him like a thunder-bolt. Some honest\nmen, sent to the different stations, signalized the imperfect\nstate of the fortifications of Sebastopol, the disorganization of\nthe army, the deplorable condition of the roads. They informed\nthe emperor that the soldiers, in their march toward the south,\nwere dying by thousands for want of sufficient nourishment and\nnecessary clothing. Thanks to the bad quality of the grass and\nhay, whole regiments were in a few days entirely dismounted. And\nnow the alarming news spread with rapidity.\n{696}\nEach day brought fresh tidings of new embarrassments, new checks,\nand new misfortunes. Nicholas at last opened his eyes. He saw the\ncolossus, with its feet of clay, tremble to its base; he felt his\npower crumble in his hands, his prestige fade and disappear. From\nthe windows of Peterhoff, his loved summer residence, he could\nfollow with his telescope the evolutions of the allied fleet.\nTurkey itself, hitherto so despicable in his eyes, was\ntransformed into a redoubtable enemy. Now he began to think of\nthe ravages that continued theft had made in his empire, the\ndisorders in the finances, the corruption of public morals, and\nevery one was doomed to punishments. By his order, judgments,\ncondemnations, banishment to Caucasia and Siberia, were daily\nmultiplied. It was too late; the gangrene had reached the wound.\n\nTears of grief and rage flowed with the consciousness of his\nimpotence. He opened his eyes to the fall of Russia with each\nvictorious flash of the allied cannons; and the edifice of terror\nthat had taken him twenty years to build, he saw crumbling, stone\nby stone, and felt that the military quackery with which he had\nintimidated Europe had frightened no one. With the mocking pride\nof Titan, he bled at every pore. Repeated blows of this kind\nended by undermining his constitution, till now so vigorous.\nLittle by little he sank, bent his haughty head, and tottered,\nwith slow and saddened step, to the grave.\n\nIt was February. Under a gray and cold sky, a penetrating,\ndriving snow enveloped St. Petersburg in a whitened dust. The\nstreets, the houses, the beards and furred great-coats of the\npassers-by, all were white. The great city resembled a giant\nasleep under the snow. An inexpressible sadness took possession\nof you, weighed down your whole being, and froze your very heart.\nYou seemed to be at the pole itself.\n\nOn this day the emperor, an early riser as usual, came out of his\nbedroom and entered his cabinet, where were already assembled his\ngeneral aide-de-camp, his other aides, the chamberlain, and\ngentlemen of the bed-chamber. Perceiving his general\naide-de-camp, he called to him, and said:\n\n\"I am suffering. Send for Mandt.\"\n\n\"I will go myself, sire.\"\n\n\"Yes. I have a grand review at the end of the week, and must be\nthere.\"\n\nMandt, his attendant physician, Prussian by birth, a man of\nscience, and an excellent practitioner, hastened to the emperor,\nwho, after having given his orders, had returned to his\napartments.\n\n\"It will be nothing, gentlemen,\" said the doctor to us on leaving\nthe imperial chamber; \"only the emperor should abstain from going\nout, as the least imprudence may aggravate a malady which at\npresent portends nothing serious.\"\n\nThe emperor remained two days in his room, and there was a\nsensible improvement in his condition. But his wasted figure, his\ndull eyes, and waxy color betrayed the existence of a hidden\nmalady. The third day, the courier from the south brought him\nnews--sad news, certainly, for it had been a long time since his\ncouriers had anything happy to tell him. The next day was\nterribly cold, icy, heavy, impregnated with the boreal fog; yet\nthis was the day of the review at which the czar wished to\nassist.\n\nHe threw a small military cloak over his uniform, and at the\nappointed hour left his cabinet, to mount his horse.\n\nMandt was waiting for him in the antechamber.\n\n{697}\n\n\"Sire!\" said the doctor to him in a supplicating voice, and\ntrying to retain him.\n\n\"Oh! it is you, doctor. I am better, thank you.\"\n\n\"Yes, sire, better, but not well yet.\"\n\n\"Oh! indisposed merely,\"\n\n\"No, sire, a serious malady. I come to beg your majesty not to go\nout.\"\n\n\"Impossible!\"\n\n\"Sire, for pity's sake--\"\n\n\"You are crazy, Mandt.\"\n\n\"Sire, you had better be resigned.\"\n\n\"You believe there is danger?\"\n\n\"It is my duty to warn you of it.\"\n\n\"Well, Mandt, if you have done your duty in warning me, I will do\nmine by going out.\"\n\nAnd the emperor, without listening to another word, pursued his\nway.\n\nMandt, stupefied for a moment, ran after him, and rejoined him in\nthe court-yard, at the moment he mounted his horse.\n\n\"Sire,\" cried he, resuming his supplications, \"deign to listen to\nme--\"\n\n\"I have said it, Mandt. I thank you, but to insist would be\nuseless.\"\n\n\"Sire, in this condition!\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"It is your death, sire.\"\n\n\"And then?\"\n\n\"It is suicide.\"\n\n\"And who has permitted you, Mandt, to scrutinize my thoughts? Go,\nand insist no longer. I order you.\"\n\nAfter the review, he returned to the palace, pale, trembling, icy\ncold.\n\n\"I am threatened with my malady,\" said he to his aide-de-camp.\n\n\"Shall I send for Mandt?\"\n\n\"Useless; he has already warned me.\"\n\n\"He warned your majesty?\"\n\n\"Yes; that I would kill myself.\"\n\nThe aide-de-camp turned pale.\n\n\"Ah sire! what do I hear?\"\n\n\"To die, is it not the best thing I can do? Farewell, my old\nfriend, I have need of rest. Let no one disturb me.\"\n\nAll night the imperial family, who had been apprised of his\ncondition, the doctors, Mandt and Rasel, united in the anteroom,\nwaited with anxiety--not daring to knock at the door of the\nemperor--for the moment he might call to them. Obedience, in this\ncourt, was so blindly servile that it imposed silence on the most\nnatural and imperious sentiments. Toward two o'clock something\nwas heard between a groan and a sigh. Mandt thought he might\nknock gently at the door of the imperial chamber.\n\n\"I have forbidden any one to disturb me,\" murmured the emperor,\nin a voice still feeble, but which retained an accent of\nauthority.\n\nThat night was spent in mortal inquietude, in inexpressible\nanguish, and not until the next morning was the doctor informed\nby the valet de chambre that his august patient would like to see\nhim.\n\n\"Well, Mandt, you were right. I believe I am a dead man.\"\n\nThese were the first words of Nicholas.\n\n\"O sire! I spoke as I did to dissuade your majesty from so great\nan imprudence.\"\n\n\"Let us see: look me in the face and tell me if there is yet\nhope.\"\n\n\"I believe so, sire.\"\n\n\"I tell you I am a dead man. I feel it. Go on, make use of your\ntrade. Sound my lungs; I know that science will confirm my\nconviction.\"\n\nMandt, having accomplished the orders of the emperor, shook his\nhead.\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Sire--\"\n\n\"You are troubled, Mandt; your hand trembles. See, I have more\ncourage than you. Come, let us have the sentence, and quickly,\nfor I have to settle my affairs in this world, and I have a great\nmany of them.\"\n\n{698}\n\n\"Your majesty troubles yourself unnecessarily. No case is ever\ndesperate, and with the grace of God--\"\n\nNicholas gazed at his doctor fixedly in the eyes.\n\nThe latter looked down confusedly.\n\n\"You know, Mandt, I cannot be deceived easily. Let us have the\ntruth now, and only the truth. Do you think that Nicholas does\nnot know how to die?\"\n\n\"Sire--\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"In forty-eight hours you will be dead or saved.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Mandt,\" said Nicholas in a voice of deep emotion.\n\"Now good-by, and send me my family.\"\n\nThe doctor prepared to leave the room.\n\n\"Mandt!\" called Nicholas, on seeing him direct his steps toward\nthe door.\n\n\"Sire.\"\n\n\"Let us embrace each other, my good old friend. We will perhaps\nnever meet again on earth. You have been an honest and faithful\nservant. I will recommend you to my son.\"\n\n\"What do you say, sire? Never see you again! I sincerely hope the\ncontrary, and that my attentions--\"\n\n\"Your attentions will be superfluous. There will be time for me\nonly to see my ministers and my priest, and make my peace with\nGod. Human science can do no more for me, and, indeed, I do not\nwish to try it.\"\n\n\"And now at the close, sire, I revolt,\" cried the doctor. \"I have\nno right, and my duty forbids my thus abandoning you.\"\n\n\"Mandt, do you answer for my cure?\"\n\nThe doctor hung his head, and could not reply.\n\n\"Farewell, then, my friend.\"\n\n\"Sire, if not, then, as your physician, permit me as a devoted\nservant to see you again. Who can tell? God is great! and for the\ndestiny of the Russia which he protects, may work a miracle.\"\n\n\"And because I know that God protects Russia, so neither do I\nwish nor hope for my restoration to health. Mandt, let my family\ncome now. I assure you the time will soon fail me.\"\n\nMandt wept. With tears in his eyes, he went out and related to\nthe courtiers his conversation with the emperor. Strange\ncontradiction! This man, whom I have tried to depict as so severe\nand haughty, was adored by all who approached him. Courtiers,\nsoldiers, servants, burst into tears. Lost in the crowd with\nthem, I mingled my complaints and prayers.\n\nThen, after the empress and the grand hereditary duke, the\nimperial family, all in tears, entered the apartment of the\nemperor. The door closed upon them, and all that passed there,\nall that was said in this supreme grief, only God knew. Mandt,\nhowever, with a voice choked with emotion, continued his recital,\nand we listened to him with the keenest attention. How and by\nwhat indiscretion the news he had just given us was spread in the\ncity, I cannot tell; but already, before the death of the czar,\nit was believed at St. Petersburg that Mandt had helped to poison\nhim. From this to the pretended act itself there was but one step\ntoward belief, and this was soon overcome; so the exasperation,\ntrue or false, against the honest doctor, knew no bounds, and\nthey would have torn him to pieces in the streets. The name of\nNicholas still inspired such terror that every one endeavored to\ngive some public demonstration of grief as a claim on his\nbenevolence in the event of his returning to life. Yet after his\ndeath these manifestations changed their character, and the\ncontrast between such marks of affection and the epithets with\nwhich they loaded his memory when they were certain he really\nceased to exist, was a lesson for kings to contemplate.\n{699}\nFor the time, though, the anger of the people against the poor\ndoctor was so blindly furious, that it is related of a thief,\nseized by the collar by a passerby, from whom he had tried to\nsteal his watch, that in order to escape, he raised the cry,\n\"Hist! hist! it's Mandt, comrades, it's Mandt!\"\n\nThe interview between the emperor and his family lasted three\nhours, three long hours, during which expectation for us was\nchanged into real anguish. By degrees retired, one by one, the\nchildren, the grand-children, and his brothers. The grand\nhereditary duke came out last, bathed in tears. An hour flew by,\nand not a sound was heard from the imperial chamber; no one dared\nenter. Mandt listened attentively, holding his breath. Suddenly a\nloud noise was heard in the corridors; a courier from Sebastopol\narrived. As the whole court knew the impatience with which the\nemperor awaited the news from the Crimea, the aide-de-camp\ngeneral on duty, thinking to please the emperor, knocked at his\ndoor.\n\n\"Do they still want me?\" murmured the emperor; \"tell them to let\nme rest.\"\n\n\"Sire, a courier from Sebastopol.\"\n\n\"Let him address himself to my son; this concerns me no longer.\"\n\nSoon the primate, followed by the clergy, arrived to offer the\nlast consolations of the church. Then the ministers were\npresented, the Count Orlof at their head. This lasted during the\nnight. At ten o'clock, the emperor asked for the officers of his\nhousehold. His face already bore the impress of death; a\ncadaverous paleness betrayed the progress of the decomposition\nthat preceded the fatal moment; lying on his camp-bed, he\naddressed us some farewell words, which the first strokes of\ndeath-rattle interrupted, and took leave of us with a waive of\nhis hand. None of us slept that night in the Winter Palace, none\nof us after that hour ever saw the emperor alive.\n\nThe next day, the 18th of February, at mid-day, the grand\nchamberlain of the palace was sent for by the physicians to the\nimperial bed. At half-past twelve o'clock, returning among us,\n\"Nicholas Paulowitch is dead,\" said he.\n\nWe went out silent and sad.\n\nThe next day, on the walls of St. Petersburg could be read this\ninscription: \"Russia, grateful to the Emperor Nicholas I. for the\n18th of February, 1855.\"\n\n--------\n\n{700}\n\n\n          Translated From The French\n\t    Of The Pere Landriot--\n\t  Addressed To Women Of The World.\n\n\n             Household Duties.\n\n\n   \"She giveth meat to her household,\n    and a portion to her maidens.'\n\n\nWe finished the question, vulgar perhaps in one sense, yet so\nimportant in many others, of sleep: [Footnote 211] a benefit of\ndivine Providence accorded us each day to repair our strength,\nrenew our life, and provide for the weakness and precipitation of\nman; a time for repose and sage counsel.\n\n    [Footnote 211: See \"_Early Rising_\" in _The Catholic\n    World_ for September, 1867.]\n\nSleep is a precious dictate, a solitary bath for body and soul,\nand a prudent counsellor and daily preacher to remind us of our\napproaching and last departure. But like all good things, sleep\nis subject to abuse, and then it produces effects entirely\ncontrary to the will of the Creator: weakening, stupefying, and\ndulling the faculties, it becomes for humanity a living\nsepulchre. If the abuse of sleep coincides with the quality, that\nis to say, if the hours by nature destined to it are considerably\nchanged--night turned into day, and day into night--the\nconstitution is assuredly ruined, and an infirm old age prepared,\na never-ceasing convalescence. Parties and midnight revels have\nkilled more women than the most exaggerated mortifications and if\nreligion commanded the sacrifice the world requires of its\nvotaries, the recriminations against it would be unending. In a\nhygienic light, physical as well as moral, it is better to retire\nand rise early. Everything gains by it--health, business, and the\nfacility and excellence of prayer. But we must not dissimulate;\nand the struggle with the pillow is, in its very sweetness, one\nof the most violent that can exercise man's courage; and to break\nthese _chains of bed_, it is necessary to exercise an almost\nsuperhuman energy. The enemy is deceitful, dangerous in his\ncaresses, and generally ends in persuading us; we think he is\nright; and, after all, it is a cruelty to martyrize ourselves. I\nhave not wished, ladies, to conceal the difficulties; but I have\npleaded my cause, which is also yours. To your wisdom and reason\nI submit it, and I trust to succeed at such a tribunal. If you\nwish to appeal, and present the cause before the tribunal of\nIdleness, listening to its numerous lawyers, in advance I may\ntell you the first judgment will be suspended. Well, I will\nconsent to lose, but on one condition--that you will insert this\nexplanation in the judgment: that the case was gained before\nJudge Reason; but that, in the supreme court of Indolence,\nIdleness, surrounded by his lawyers, revoked the decision.\n\nNow for the end of our text: \"_The strong woman giveth meat to\nher household, and a portion to her maidens_.\"\n\nFormerly, ladies, when families and societies were truly\nChristian, the domestics, according to the etymology of the word,\nwere really a part of the house; for _domestic_ comes from\nthe Latin word _domus_, which signifies house. In those\ndays, a family formed a body; the father and mother were head,\nand the domestics themselves had their place in the organization\nof the family; they were only subordinate members, but they were\na part of the body.\n{701}\nTherefore, they always lived in the house, passed their lives\nthere; and when they were no longer able to work, they were cared\nfor with paternal and filial affection; and when the hour of\ndeath came to them by length of time, they had fallen into decay\nas a branch dying on its trunk. The relations of benevolence and\nChristian charity united masters to servants; and while the\nlatter accepted the place of inferiority, they felt themselves\nloved, and loving in return, a tie was formed stronger than\nmassive gold--the tie of love. Saint Augustine speaks to us with\nmuch feeling of the nurse who cared for his mother's infancy, and\nwho had even carried on her back the father of St. Monica, as\nyoung girls then carried little children: \"_Sicut dorso\ngrandiuscularum puellarum parvuli portari solent._\" [Footnote\n212]\n\n    [Footnote 212: _Confessions_, i. 9, c 8.]\n\n\"This remembrance,\" continued St. Augustine, \"her old age, the\nexcellence of her manners, assured her in a Christian house the\nveneration of her masters, who had committed to her the care of\ntheir daughters; her zeal responded to their confidence; and\nwhile she exercised a saintly firmness to correct them--to\ninstruct, she was always guided by an admirable prudence.\"\n\nNowadays, ladies, things have changed. Such examples are rare;\nbut without doubt, there are still honorable exceptions--servants\nwho love their masters, and who make part of the family as true\nchildren of the house, serving with ease and gentleness, because\nthey are guided principally by affection, and bearing the faults\nof their masters, who, in return, are patient with them, until\nhousehold affairs glide on with a smoothness which, though\nsometimes very imperfect, is, after all, a small evil. Yes, we do\nstill find Christian families where domesticity is thus\nunderstood; but alas! they become rarer every day! In our time,\nowing to a spirit of pride, independence and irreligion are\nspreading everywhere; good servants are hard to find, and perhaps\nalso good masters; and as two fireplaces placed opposite each\nother are mutually overheated, so the bad qualities of the\ndomestics increase those of the masters, and _vice vers\u00e2_.\nServants have exaggerated pretensions; they will not bear the\nleast reproof; everything wounds them; and on the other side,\nmasters do not command in a Christian spirit. Thus, everywhere is\nheard a general concert of complaint and recrimination; masters\naccuse their servants, servants do as little as possible for\ntheir masters; and certain houses become like omnibuses, where\nthe servants enter only to get out again at their convenience.\n\nI have told you, ladies, that, if I had to preach to your\nhusbands, I could add a kind of counterpart, not adverse to your\ninterests, but to complete my instructions; but, addressing\nmyself to you, my words must be limited to your duties. I would\nadd here, also, that, if I had to preach to your servants, I\nwould be obliged to give them advice very useful for your\nhousehold organization; but they are absent; my instruction is to\nyou; so I must leave in shadow all their shortcomings.\n\nIt appears to me your duties to them will be well accomplished if\nyou enter into the spirit of this text: \"She riseth while it is\nyet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her\nmaidens.\" Look at the sun; it rises on the horizon, and, in\nshedding its beams, seems to distribute work to every creature,\nand, by way of recompense, prepares their nourishment in advance.\nIs it not he who, while lighting the world, invites the artisan\nto his shop, the laborer to his field, and the pilot to leave his\nport?\n{702}\nIs it not he who prepares the germs in the bosom of the\nearth--who warms them, and conducts them to that point of\nmaturity that the statesman waits for as impatiently as the\nlaborer? \"Woman,\" says the Scripture, \"should be the sun of her\nhousehold.\" She should lighten and warm like the planet of the\nday. Her rays are emitted in indicating to each one his duties,\nin distributing the work in wise and suitable proportions, and,\nwhen all is justly ordered, superintending its execution. Then\neverything goes on admirably, because brightened by the spirit of\nregularity that guides the mistress of the house. Her glance,\ngiven to all around her, projects the light; and this light is\nthe strongest and most insinuating of counsellors, as well as a\ngracious but severe monitor. A woman who presides well over her\nhousehold need talk but little; her presence speaks for her, and\nthe simple conviction that she has her eyes everywhere, and that\nthe least detail is not unknown to her, prevents any\nirregularity. But see, on the contrary, a house where the\nmistress rises late, and sleeps morally the rest of the day.\nEverything is left to chance; disorder introduces itself\neverywhere, in heads as in business; a general pell-mell of ideas\nand objects--a confusion which recalls the primitive chaos. Madam\nsleeps late, the servants rise only a little earlier; during the\nday, madam dreams, occupies herself with her toilet, in matinees,\nand visits, and the house, given up to itself, becomes what it\nmay. The children are almost abandoned, and work accumulates in\nthe most delightful disorder.\n\nWoman, the sun of her house, should not be satisfied to\nilluminate it; she should warm it also, and with her heart.\n\nYou ought, ladies, to watch your servants, demand an account of\ntheir proceedings in-doors and out, watch over them particularly\nin their connection with your children; for too often the heart\nand mind are lost by servants, and, were it permitted to reveal\nall the human heart can tell us in this respect, you would be\nseriously alarmed.\n\nAbout twenty years ago, I had charge of a seminary. One day I\nreceived a visit from a very indignant father, who told me with\nbitterness that his child had been corrupted in our\nestablishment. I knew to the contrary; but I had no defence to\noffer, so in silence I bore an unmerited reproach. Some time\nafterward I had permission to speak, when I was able to prove to\nhim that it was in his own house that his child was lost, by\nkeeping company with a servant.\n\nWatch, then, your children, ladies, by watching your servants.\nWatch their going out and coming in, their bearing and their\ncompany; watch their words and actions. But, I beg of you, watch\nwith kindness, for the light of your supervision should be warm\nwith Christian affection. Love your servants, and always remember\nthat they are human--the image of God, and that they have been\nbought by the blood of Jesus Christ. As much as possible, speak\nto them with kindness, and, if an occasional impatience escapes\nyou, endeavor to repair it by sincere benevolence. That your\nwatchfulness may not engender suspicion and restlessness, do not\nappear a spy on their actions. We often make people good by\nbelieving them so, and bad by accusing them of qualities they do\nnot possess; or, at least, we freeze their hearts, and\npermanently harden them. Avoid everything which appears like\nill-humor, meanness, or caprice.\n{703}\nTo-day madam is in a good humor, and all goes well; the servants\nmay be as merry, and make as many mistakes as they please; nobody\nnotices them. To-morrow the moon reddens in its first quarter:\nwoe to the inhabitants of the house! woe to the servants! Madam's\ncoffee is cold, yet it bears its ordinary temperature; the soup\nis too salty, yet the usual quantity was put into it. The room is\nfull of smoke, it was the servant's fault, and yet the poor\ncreature made neither the wind nor the chimney. A racket in the\nkitchen; madam's voice is heard from the cellar to the garret--\nfrom the court-yard to the neighboring houses. Nothing renders\nauthority more ridiculous than such conduct. The servants are\ntired out; they lose every sentiment of affection and confidence,\nbecause they see no regard is shown them; that they are\nconsidered inferior beings, entitled to no respect; and that,\neven on days when caprice is not predominant, they only encounter\nairs of silent pride and haughtiness.\n\nWithout doubt, ladies, there is a just medium to be preserved.\nMany servants are unreasonable, and take advantage of favors\naccorded them; are exacting and indiscreet; they require masters\nwithout faults, and are completely blinded to their own. \"Treat\nthem as friends,\" said an ancient philosopher, \"and they lack\nsubmission; keep them at a distance, and they resent your conduct\nand hate you.\" [Footnote 213]\n\n    [Footnote 213: Confucius, _Entr. Philos_. c. 17.]\n\nThe middle course of wisdom is therefore hard to find; but it is\nso in all worldly affairs, yet it is necessary to resolve it. The\nheart of a Christian woman appears to me best adapted for this\nwork of conciliation; she can preserve her authority by\ndemonstrating a wise firmness, recalling the words of Fenelon:\n\"The less reason you find in men, the more fear requisite to\nrestrain them.\" [Footnote 214] The strong woman must be able to\ncope with such difficult minds, often so pretentious and\nridiculous in their exactions, and put them in their place when\nwisdom and occasion demand it. But, in her ordinary conduct, let\nher remember that she commands her brethren, for whom our Lord\ndied; that love and gentleness are the best, the most Christian\nroads to persuasion, and that severity should always be reserved\nfor circumstances where reason and charity fail.\n\n    [Footnote 214: _De l'Education des Filles_, c. 12.]\n\nFenelon says again that, in certain houses, \"servants are\nconsidered no better than horses--of natures like theirs--human\nbeasts of burden for their masters.\" [Footnote 215] Nothing can\nbe more opposed to sentiments of faith and reason; servants are\nbrothers, to be loved and treated as such; they owe you their\nservice and fidelity, and if they fail, recall them to duty\nprudently, with a charitable compassion and firmness that does\nnot exclude affection. A single word will often dispel a cloud\nand dissipate increasing shadows, and give you, in return, the\ndeep and solid friendship of your servants. Is this not far\nbetter than forced relations, coldness and constraint that freeze\nthe heart and poison innumerable lives? The fable itself teaches\nus a lesson in telling us that the friendship of the ant is not\nto be despised.\n\n    [Footnote 215: _Ibid_.]\n\n\"The strong woman giveth meat to her household, and a portion to\nher maidens.\" The spirit of God neglects no detail, because in\nlife everything is important. Let your servants work; nothing is\nbetter for them; but do not traffic with either their food or\nduties.\n{704}\nTreat them a little like the children of the house; you will not\nonly interest your charity, but your service will gain by it. Do\nnot calculate with an avaricious hand what may do them good and\nalleviate their lot. You will gain on one side what you lose on\nthe other; and besides, is not the true affection of a devoted\nheart worth more than a piece of gold? It is not only food and\nmaterial comforts you must assure your servants. How I love to\nsee the Christian woman enlarge her maternal heart and reserve in\nit not only a place for her children, but for all the people of\nher household! Yes, she must have a mother's affection for all,\nand let the least one understand that he has part in the warmth\nof her soul and the fireside of her heart. Thus she realizes the\ncomparison that I always love to repeat, because she is truly\ngreat in her splendor and simplicity, and, in proportion as she\nis examined, new aspects are discovered; then the strong woman is\nthe sun of her household: _sicut sol oriens_.\n\nThe planet of day sheds its light on the clouds, the high\nmountains, and the gilded palaces, but he never omits the little\nvalley flower or the blade of grass that claims his warmth. He\ndoes not give it so abundantly as to the oaks of the mountain,\nbut it is always the same light, and suffices for their life and\nhappiness. Thus the strong woman pours her intimate affections on\nher family and her true friends, but her soul has still a reserve\nfor her servants. She gives them less than her husband and\nchildren, but it is all from the same source, and bears with it\nfor them the same unction.\n\nAfter such a distribution of work, of care and affection, do not\nexpect to find no faults in your servants. To these servants, I\nwould say: Bear with the faults of your masters and mistresses;\nthe best of them are imperfect, and for you the true way to\nmodify their defects is to reply only by patience and an\nimmovable docility; sweetness and patience do much more than\nanger and violent recrimination, as various elastic substances\nare, we know, among the best agents to arrest the impetuous\nmovement of the cannon-ball. To you, ladies, I say: Bear with the\nfaults of your servants, as they are never wanting. With two such\nsureties, with the certainty of patience on the part of the\nservants, and in return on that of the masters, you will be sure\nto pacifically organize the interior of your households. If the\ntether of patience is short at one end, you can stretch it at the\nother; and such is the admirable teaching of Christianity,\nwherever the relations of mankind exist, it establishes\nreciprocal duties on so firm and solid a foundation that, if one\nis lacking, the other becomes more strong to resist it. Thus it\npreaches to the husband love and respect; to the wife, love,\nrespect, and submission; to masters, benevolence; to servants,\ndeference and patience; but in such a way that, if the first are\nfaithless to their duties, the fidelity of the second will more\nthan repair the defect. Nature evidently holds another language;\nif our neighbor fails in his obligations, we believe ourselves\nfreed from ours, and this spirit of free exchange in point of bad\nproceedings is not, perhaps, one of the least causes of our\nperturbations in the family and society.\n\n\"There are some faults,\" says Fenelon, \"that enter into the\nmarrow of the bones.\" \"Then,\" said the Archbishop of Cambrai, \"if\nyou wish to correct such in your servant, he is not wrong to\nresist correction, but you are foolish to undertake it.\"\n[Footnote 216]\n\n    [Footnote 216: _Lettres Spirituelles_,\n    193, t. 1. p. 554, \u00e9d. Didiot.]\n\n{705}\n\nYou have a horse that is one-eyed, you would wish him to see\nclearly with both eyes; it is you who are entirely blind. Alas\nladies! in this world we are all slightly one-eyed, therefore we\nmust bear with each other.\n\nYou have a servant who does not always display the judgment you\nrequire of him; tell me, why do you employ him in any delicate\nbusiness? He has made a blunder, but were you not the first cause\nof it? You have another who never sees more than a few steps\nbefore him; you cannot expect better of him, he is short-sighted.\nYou are angry because he cannot see leagues off; you are the\nunreasonable one. Another one is lame, and him you would have\nwalk straight; do you not see that you exact the impossible? I\ntell you, ladies, that poor human nature is full of weaknesses,\nand having once perceived certain infirmities in your neighbor,\nkeep them in remembrance, and don't demand a reform in what\ncannot be corrected. \"Bear ye one another's burdens,\" said Saint\nPaul; it is the rule of true wisdom, of peace and domestic\nhappiness: \"_Alter alterius onera portate_.\" [Footnote 217]\n\n    [Footnote 217: Galat. vi. 2.]\n\nBut, you say, he is thick-headed, I cannot put up with him. Alas!\nthick heads we meet with everywhere. Have you not yourselves\nsometimes the same complaint? Besides, don't be so hard to please\nin servants; you may end by finding none at all. You have one who\npouts, another who is violent; you may have one impertinent,\nanother pettish; choose between them. The best course, believe\nme, is to put up with the evil, provided it is bearable. This\nworld and all it contains is only one grand misery; accept your\nshare of it; murmuring and changing those who surround you will\ndo no good.\n\nWell and good, I hear you say. You have just spoken of those who\nkeep many servants; I am more modest; a nurse, or at most a cook,\nconstitutes my household. In this case, if you will permit me, I\nwill find you an establishment where the retainers are numerous\nand very difficult to govern. The fathers of the church teach us\nthat the human soul, in its organization, is a house complete in\nitself. We find in it intelligence, the soul properly called, the\nimagination, and the senses. Intelligence is the husband, the\nsoul the wife; and imagination, with its numerous caprices,\nrepresents an establishment of troublesome servants; while the\nfive senses may portray five grooms at the carriage-ways opening\ninto the street. To listen to such a world as this, and make it\nagree, is no easy matter. Intelligence wishes one thing, the soul\nanother; the husband and wife are just ready to quarrel. Then\nimagination comes in with its thousand phantoms, its fantastical\nnoises, its clatter by night and by day: can you not believe your\nhousehold in good condition to exercise your patience? Then the\nporters of this castle, the eyes, the ears, without considering\nthe nerves--a sort of busy battalion which makes more noise than\nall the rest. What an interior! what confusion! what a tower of\nBabel! Ladies, I will repeat here the words of Scripture: \"Rise\nearly to give work and a portion\" to this establishment of\nservants; put them in order from the first dawn of day. Clear up\nyour imagination; it needs more time and care than a disordered\nhead of hair. See how your ideas fly hither and thither; how the\nmad one of this dwelling sings and grows impertinent; how she\nreasons, how she scolds, and how absurd she is. Intelligence\nwould restore her reason; useless to try! time lost!\n{706}\nShe cries louder, and becomes longer and more violently\nnonsensical. She makes so much noise that it could be called,\naccording to Saint Gregory, the multiplied voices of several\nservants, whose tongues are perfectly sharpened: \"_Cogitationum\nse clamor, velut garrula ancillarum turba, multiplicat_.\"\n[Footnote 218]\n\n    [Footnote 218: _Moral_, i. I, c. 30, t 1. p. 546, \u00e9d,\n    Mign\u00e9.]\n\nHere is a beautiful household to organize every morning. You\ncomplain of having no work for it. I have just found you some.\nBring peace into the midst of this distraction; substitute\nharmony for confusion, and so adjust this harmony that it shall\nlast undisturbed until evening, and I will give you a brevet, a\ncertificate, as an excellent mistress of a house. Formerly, the\npoor human head was not subject to such distraction; and why?\nBecause it was subject to God; and from thence all the powers of\nman, mind, heart, will, imagination, senses, all were submitted\nto the head of the house, because this head himself was obedient\nto God. Since the primitive revolt, all has been upset in man;\nand our poor nature has become like a house where all dispute,\nhusband, wife, and servants, that is, mind, heart, imagination.\nThere is a simple way to re-establish peace, not quite complete,\nbut at least tolerable, for this would bring back God into the\nhouse: let God be head, the commander of all; let the thought of\nhim preside everywhere, and soon order will be entirely restored.\nIn the morning especially, I know nothing that can pacify us\ninteriorly and calm all around us better than a look toward\nheaven, a thought of love directed on high, and bringing, in\nreturn, the peace of God. In the morning, if the head aches, rest\nit at the foot of the cross; if the heart suffers, place it on\nthe heart of our Lord; if the imagination is feverish, calm it\nwith a drop of the blood of Jesus Christ; and if the whole being\nis in ebullition, ask God to send it refreshment in the dew of\nheaven! Be faithful to these recommendations, ladies, and you may\nrepose the length of the day under your vine and your fig-tree;\nthat is, you will enjoy the intimate happiness that God has\npromised his friends, and which is one of the sweetest\nrecompenses of virtue: \"_Et sedit unusquisque sub vite su\u00e2, et\nficulne\u00e2, su\u00e2, et non erat qui eos terreret_.\" [Footnote 219]\n\n    [Footnote 219: I Mach. xiv. 12.]\n\n-------------\n\n{707}\n\n\n        A Sister's Story. [Footnote 220]\n\n    [Footnote 220:  _A Sister's Story_. By Mrs. Augustus\n    Craven. Translated from the French by Emily Bowles. 8vo, pp.\n    539. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.]\n\nWe do not usually go to France for pictures of domestic life;\nyet, when we do find a cultivated French family penetrated with\nthe home instincts which are so much more common on the opposite\nside of the channel, and lavishing upon the members of their own\nhousehold an affection elevated and sanctified by true piety,\nthere is a charm about the scene which is apt to be wanting in\nour own more commonplace experience. The charm, to be sure, often\nasserts itself too boldly; for the Frenchman has a keen relish\nfor sentiment, and in nine cases out of ten the rapture with\nwhich love fills his heart is only half of it inspired by the\nobject of his passion, while the other half is an unconscious\nadmiration of the delicacy of his own feelings. He makes a\nromance out of love for his father and mother, and his affection\nfor his sweetheart is an extravagant poem. Still, unless you\nanalyze it too closely, which there is no need of your doing at\nall, the poem is almost always beautiful and delicate, and\nsometimes possesses the true poetical aroma. _A Sister's\nStory_ is a romance of love, trial, happiness, and death.\nNobody but a French woman could have written it; yet the\nsentiment is not what is commonly called \"Frenchy,\" because it is\netherealized by a genuine Christian refinement, and because,\nmoreover, it is a true history.\n\nThe Count de la Ferronnays, who was French ambassador at St.\nPetersburg in 1819, and afterward at Rome, had a large family of\nchildren, one of whom, Pauline, married an English gentleman, and\nis the author of this book. Another, Albert, is the hero. They\nall loved one another with a rare and touching tenderness, and\nloved God, too, with a simple and unaffected devotion. The\nrevolution of 1830 deprived the Count of his diplomatic\nappointment, despoiled him of most of his fortune, and, as he was\na stanch adherent of the Bourbons, left him without hope of a\nfuture career in the service of the state. The family seem,\nhowever, to have accepted their reverses cheerfully, and to have\nmade little change in their way of life, except by practising a\nstricter economy than they had been used to. They passed most of\ntheir time in Italy, mingling with people of rank and\ndistinction, or travelling in search of health, as one or another\nof them showed symptoms of approaching disease. Albert was a\nyoung man of handsome appearance, and, we should judge, of no\nmean accomplishments. He was warm-hearted, remarkably sensitive,\nsomewhat of a dreamer, romantic, poetical, and pure in heart. The\nlife of a man of society he sanctified with the piety of a\nrecluse. The revolution which cut short his father's public\ncareer destroyed also the young man's prospects in life, and left\nhim, just entering manhood, without fixed occupation, and without\nmuch hope of obtaining employment suitable to his rank and\ntastes. This enforced idleness, coupled with the delicacy of his\nconstitution, already perhaps undermined by the pulmonary disease\nwhich was so soon to carry him off, predisposed him to a\nmelancholy reflectiveness which, though corrected by his devout\naspirations, was nevertheless morbid.\n{708}\nThe feminine delicacy of his nature was developed by close\nintimacy with his sisters, and his religious elevation was\ndoubtless heightened by his frequent intercourse with\nMontalembert, whose sentiments he fully shared, though he was\nunable to join in his labors, with M. Rio, whom he accompanied to\nvarious parts of Italy, with the Abb\u00e9 Gerbet, and with other\ndistinguished Catholics of that brilliant day.\n\nAmong the acquaintances of the Count's family in Rome was the\nCountess d'Alopeus, widow of the celebrated Russian\nplenipotentiary at Berlin, and afterward wife of Prince\nLapoukhyn. She had a daughter, Alexandrine, a beautiful and\namiable girl, apparently, like Albert, of a pensive turn of mind,\nand, though a Lutheran, (her mother being a German,) of a\nstrongly religious disposition. Albert fell in love with her the\nfirst time they met, and from that time love and religion filled\nup all the rest of his short life. It was but a little while\nbefore Alexandrine learned to return the tender sentiment. The\nintimacy ripened fast; but there were many difficulties in the\nway of marriage, and it was only after two years, marked by\nsevere trials, that they were at last united in 1834. Ten days\nafterward Albert burst a blood-vessel, and from that time until\nhis death, in 1836, their happiness was clouded by the gradual\napproach of the untimely fate which they could hardly help\nforeseeing. The picture which Mrs. Craven, with the help of the\njournals and letters of this dear young couple, has drawn of\ntheir courtship, their love, their few hours of happiness, and\ntheir admirable married life, with all its consolations and all\nits sufferings, is full of the most delicious beauty. It could\nnot have been so natural, had it not been drawn from the life; it\nwould not have been so exquisite, had not the artist been herself\na poet.\n\nBy the side of her husband's dying bed, Alexandrine was received\ninto the Catholic Church. She appears to have possessed a\nstronger though not a more lovely character than Albert, and in\nher widowhood its magnificence was fully developed. During the\ntwelve years she survived her husband, she learned to the full\nthe great lessons of self-abnegation, humility, and detachment\nfrom all worldly things. Even in the first days of her sorrow,\nGod rewarded her with a strength which surprised all who knew\nher; and this was succeeded after a while by a completeness of\nresignation and a spiritual joy which were no less than\nsaint-like. \"We shall see,\" writes Mrs. Craven, in beginning the\nnarrative of these final years, \"by what efforts of resignation,\nby what self-surrender, she obtained peace, and entered upon that\nother period of her life which she speaks of in her story, and of\nwhich she once said, 'Even before old age and death, faith gave\nme rest!' This rest, which went beyond resignation, even beyond\npeace, which Alexandrine had soon recovered; a rest which marked\nthe latter part of her life by a joyousness unknown to her young\ndays, she did not attain till she had gone through many fresh\nsorrows. It was God's will that she should outlive most of those\nwho had proved her firmest friends and most tender comforters in\nher widowhood. Almost at one time she lost her own brother, my\nfather, Eug\u00e9nie, and Olga,\" (Albert's sisters, to whom she was\ndeeply attached.) \"It may be that this was allowed that, when\nafter such repeated blows she was still able to say she was\nhappy, no one might mistake the source whence that happiness\nsprang.\"\n{709}\nShe gave herself up to the service of the poor and suffering, and\nin order to make herself more like the objects of her charity,\nwhom she loved so tenderly, she used to deprive herself of all\nthe little every-day luxuries and conveniences which belonged to\nher station, and in which naturally she took a particular\ndelight. She made trial of a conventual life, but that was\nclearly not the path in which God wished her to walk, and her\ndirector bade her leave it. During the latter part of her life\nshe resided principally with Albert's mother, in Paris. Here is a\npicture of her occupations at that time:\n\n  \"To meet the deficiency in her resources, she gradually\n  restricted her own expenditure to the narrowest compass, and\n  deprived herself of everything short of absolute necessaries.\n  One day I happened to look into her wardrobe, and was dismayed\n  at its scantiness. When we, any of us, made this kind of\n  discovery, she blushed and smiled, made the best excuses she\n  could find in return for our scoldings, and then went on just\n  the same, giving away all she possessed, and finding every day\n  new occasions for these acts of self-spoliation. She had, of\n  course, long ago sold or given away all her jewels and\n  trinkets, but, if she ever happened to find among her things an\n  article of the smallest value, it was immediately disposed of\n  for the benefit of the poor. For instance, one day she took out\n  of its frame a beautiful miniature of Princess Lapoukhyn at the\n  age of twenty, and sold the gold and enamel frame, defending\n  herself by saying that it was the only thing of value she still\n  possessed, and did not in the least enhance the value of her\n  mother's charming likeness. Two black gowns, and a barely\n  sufficient amount of linen, constituted her whole wardrobe, so\n  that she had reduced herself, as far as was possible in her\n  position of life, to a state of actual poverty. Her long\n  errands were almost always performed on foot, and at\n  dinner-time she came home often covered with dirt and wet to\n  the skin. One day, when she was visiting some Sisters of\n  Charity in a distant part of Paris, one of them looked at her\n  from head to foot, and then begged an alms for a poor woman\n  much in need of a pair of shoes. Alexandrine instantly produced\n  her purse and gave the required amount, with which the sister\n  went away, and in a quarter of an hour returned, laughing, and\n  bringing with her a pair of shoes, which she insisted on Madame\n  Albert's putting on instead of those she was wearing, which\n  were certainly in the worst possible condition. On her return\n  from these distant excursions, she usually put on her evening\n  dress and came down to Madame de Mun's drawing-room, where she\n  found my mother, who also had often been engaged in similar\n  charitable duties. During that winter I often joined this\n  little circle, now so thinned by death, and so soon to break up\n  altogether. For one brief moment I would fain pause and look\n  back in thought to that well-remembered room and its long\n  table, at which my mother and Madame de Mun were wont to sit,\n  with Eug\u00e9nie's children playing at their feet; and at the place\n  near the lamp, where Alexandrine was to be seen every evening,\n  with her head bending over her work; her brown hair divided\n  into two long plaits, a way of wearing it which particularly\n  became her, though it was certainly not chosen on that account.\n  She did not, however, profess to be free from all thought about\n  her appearance; on the contrary, she was always accusing\n  herself of still caring for admiration; and when once she heard\n  that somebody who had accidentally spoken to her had said she\n  was pretty, she exclaimed with half-jesting indignation: 'I\n  really believe that, if I were in my last agony, that would\n  please me still!' Very pretty certainly she looked on those\n  evenings, in her simple black dress; always calm and serene,\n  and brightening up whenever the great interests and objects of\n  life were the subjects of conversation. Otherwise she remained\n  silent, occupying herself with her embroidery, or else, taking\n  her little book of extracts, so full of beautiful thoughts,\n  from her pocket, she read them over and added new ones from her\n  favorite books.\n\n  ......\n\n  \"Time never hung heavy on Alexandrine's hands. After such\n  trials and sufferings, she could say as Madame Swetchine did:\n  'that life was lovely and happy; and ever, as it went on,\n  fairer, happier, and more interesting.' The melancholy which\n  was natural to her character in youth, and which the radiant\n  happiness that for a moment filled up her life had not been\n  able to overcome--that melancholy which was the sign perhaps of\n  some kind of softness of soul, and which so many deaths and\n  such floods of tears could naturally have increased--had been\n  completely put down and overcome by the love of God and the\n  poor.\n{710}\n  One day as I saw her moving about her room which she had made\n  so bare, with an air of the greatest gayety, we both of us\n  suddenly recalled the terrible days of the past, when her grief\n  had been full of gloom, and then she said, what was very\n  striking to any one who knew how deep was her unutterable love\n  to the very last, 'Yes, that is all true; those were cruel and\n  dreadful days; but now, by God's grace, _I mourn for my\n  Albert gayly_.'\"\n\nSubsequently she was admitted, as a lodger, to the convent of St.\nThomas of Villanova, in Paris, and there she died with the\npeacefulness and holy joy which she had merited by her life. By\nwhat austerities she had prepared for and probably hastened her\nend, we may judge from this incident:\n\n  \"One morning at Mass in the convent chapel, a lady happened to\n  hear her cough, and noticing her pale looks and poor apparel,\n  she went to one of the sisters, and told her that there was a\n  lady in the church who was probably too poor to provide herself\n  with necessaries, and that she should be very happy to supply\n  her with milk daily, if she had not the means to purchase it.\n  This kind soul was quite ashamed when the sister told her the\n  poor lady was Madame Albert de la Ferronnays; but Alexandrine,\n  much amused, laughed exceedingly at the mistake, and did not\n  treat herself better than before.\"\n\nOne loving hand which has traced this beautiful story whose\noutlines we have thus roughly reproduced, has illustrated it with\nmany touching reminiscences of the other members of the charming\nfamily circle, of which Albert and Alexandrine are the central\nfigures. There is an exquisite pathos in every page, and\n\n  \"The tender grace of a day that is dead\"\n\nis delineated with an unaffected delicacy which must move every\nheart. Miss Bowles, we should add, has proved herself an\nadmirable translator, so good a one that her version reads like\nan original.\n\n----------\n\n        Translated From The French.\n\n      Breton Legend Of St. Christopher.\n\n\nAs every one knows, St. Christopher had very broad shoulders; so\nin former times he was ferryman for the river of Scorff. One\nbright day, our Lord arrived at the bank of the river with his\ntwelve apostles. Christopher made haste to take them in his arms,\nand was delighted to pay them every possible respect.\n\n\"Well,\" said our Lord, \"what are your wages?\"\n\n\"Ask for Paradise,\" whispered St. Peter.\n\n\"Let me alone, I have my own ideas. If, my Lord, you desire to\nbestow a favor on me, promise that every object I wish for shall\nbe obliged to enter my sack.\"\n\n\"I will do it,\" said our Lord, \"but on condition that you never\nask for money, and only for those things of which you have need.\"\n\nSo, for a long time, things went well; the sack filled only with\nbread, fruits, beans, and other vegetables; and often it was\nemptied for the benefit of the poor. But alas! who can say they\nmay not enter into temptation? One morning Christopher was\npassing through the street of a neighboring town, when he stopped\nbefore the shop of a money-changer.\n{711}\nHe did wrong, for all those heaps of money excited his curiosity\nand gave him very bad thoughts.\n\n\"See,\" said the wicked broker to him, \"what you can do with all\nthis money! You can rebuild the huts of the poor, and make life\nfor them so happy and desirable. Don't you wish it was all\nyours?\"\n\nChristopher had a moment of weakness, and the money jumped into\nhis bag. But don't be severe: Christopher was not yet the saint\nhe afterward became, only a mere mortal man. So this first\nfailing led to others, and while it must be confessed he was very\ngenerous to the poor, he loved his own good cheer and did not\nhesitate to enjoy it. So one day, as he was reposing on the grass\nafter an unusually good dinner, the devil passed that way, and\nbegan to bully him and crack some of his disagreeable jokes.\nChristopher was not remarkably patient, his fists were itching\nfor a fight, so in a moment he was on his feet and pitched into\nthe devil right royally. As the forces were pretty equal, the\nbattle lasted two days, and the end could not be foreseen. The\nthick grass disappeared from under their feet, and from afar the\nnoise of the blows resounded like two hammers falling and\nrefalling one upon the other. They would have been at it yet if\nChristopher had not happily thought of his sack. \"Ah cursed\ndevil! by the virtue of our Lord thou shalt enter my sack.\" So in\nhe popped, and Christopher was not slow to draw the cords tight\nand swing him over his shoulders, while he wondered at the same\ntime how in the world he would ever get rid of him. A forge\nappeared as he walked, and two brawny men were beating the red\nfire with tremendous blows. This gave him an idea; so he\naddressed himself to the smiths, and said: \"I have got a wicked\nanimal in my bag; I could not pretend to tell you all the\nvillanous tricks he has played in his life; so, if you will forge\nhim until he is about as thick as a sixpenny piece, I will give\nyou a crown.\" They consented; and, notwithstanding the cries and\nsomersaults of the devil, they hammered and beat him the whole\nnight long. When the day dawned, a weak voice cried out,\n\"Christopher, Christopher, I give up; what shall I do to get out\nof this?\"\n\n\"Swear obedience to me for ever, and never trouble me again.\"\n\n\"I swear it.\"\n\n\"Very well; get out with you, and I will not say _Au\nrevoir_.\"\n\nFrom this moment, Christopher entirely changed his life, only\noccupied himself in good works, and, when he grew too feeble to\nbe ferryman for the river Scorff, he retired into the little\nhermitage, upon the ruins of which is built the chapel still to\nbe seen. There he lived in prayer and penitence, and was visited\nby many pilgrims, who were attracted by his great reputation of\nsanctity. However, when after his death he presented himself to\nSt. Peter, who, we know, holds the keys of Paradise, he was\nrefused admittance, because the latter said he had formerly\nrejected his advice, and he feared to let him in.\n\nThe poor Christopher, very sad, and looking rather snubbed,\nwandered about, and in his distraction took the stairs that led\nto hell. He descended an unheard-of number of steps, and finally\narrived at a door, where was a very good-looking young man, who\ncourteously invited him to enter; but Satan happened to pass by,\nand, seeing him, cried out nervously: \"No, no! not in here; I\nknow him well. Send him away, he is entirely too cunning for me!\"\n\n{712}\n\nSo Christopher could do nothing but remount to the entrance of\nParadise, where he could at least listen outside to the delicious\nstrains of heavenly harmony issuing from within, and he felt more\nand more desirous to be admitted. He paused and thought; then,\nputting his ear as close as possible, \"My Lord St. Peter,\" said\nhe, \"what admirable harmony you have in there! If you would only\nset the door ajar, I might at least hear and enjoy it.\"\n\nSt. Peter was kind-hearted, so he did as he was asked; and\ninstantly St. Christopher threw in his sack, and sprang in after\nit. \"At home, at last,\" said he, \"and you can't turn me out.\" St.\nPeter conceded he was right, so he has since remained in heaven,\nand we must acknowledge he well deserved so comfortable an abode.\n\n-------------\n\n     [Supplement to the article on \"The Sanitary and\n   Moral Condition of New York City\" in our July number.]\n\n\n   The Sanitary And Moral Condition Of New York City.\n\n\nThe letter which is published below is an evidence that our July\ncorrespondent's observations on the neglected condition of a\ngreat number of children in New York struck a telling blow in the\nright direction, and has called forth one response of the right\nkind, which, we trust, will not be the only one. A number of our\ngood friends have shown themselves to be somewhat hurt by the\nremarks made in the article alluded to, on the efforts of certain\nProtestant institutions among the vagrant children of this city.\nThe article was not written for the purpose of showing what the\nsmall number of zealous Catholics--who are alive to the duty and\nnecessity of rescuing this unfortunate class of our own\nchildren--are doing, but of working up the whole Catholic\ncommunity to an active co-operation with these pioneers of\ncharity, in undertaking that which they are not doing, and cannot\ndo, while they are so feebly sustained. One principal motive for\ndoing this is, the fact that sectarian philanthropists are\nforestalling us in the work we ought to have attended to long\nago, and drawing away from the fold of the church the lambs we\nhave neglected to take care of. Every one knows, none better than\nthe leaders of every Protestant sect themselves, that they have\nno more determined adversaries than we are in their aggressions\non the Catholic religion. At the same time, we do not feel called\nupon to deny them all humane and philanthropic motives, or to\ndenounce them as actuated by mere hatred against the Catholic\nreligion. They do an irreparable mischief to the unfortunate\nchildren whom they draw away from the fold of the church; yet, we\nare willing to believe they do it ignorantly, and with an\nintention of doing them good.\n{713}\nSo far as their efforts among the young unbaptized heathen of New\nYork are concerned, they can undoubtedly effect something in\nreclaiming them from the wretched condition in which they are. We\ndesire to confine them to that sphere, and wish them a fair field\nto compete with us in, and to show what they are able to\naccomplish. We hope, as the result of all philanthropic efforts\nfor the relief of the degraded classes made by all kinds of\ninstitutions, and by individuals of all kinds of theoretical\nopinions, that the superiority of the Catholic Church, and its\nnecessity to our moral and social well-being, will be\ndemonstrated. We must demonstrate it, however, by action, and not\nby mere argument. We must show practically that we are able to\nmaster and subdue the elements of vice and misery that rage over\nthe turbulent sea of this vast population. In a former volume of\nour magazine, we did full justice to the work which the Catholic\nChurch has accomplished, and is still carrying on among our own\npeople in this city, in an article entitled \"Religion in New\nYork.\" The article in our last number may appear to have too much\noverlooked the statistics there given respecting the care of\nCatholic children. The statement of the whole number of children\nin the city was inadvertently cited from Dr. Harris as being the\nnumber of vagrants, although the correct number (40,000) was\ngiven in several other places. Another quotation from a\nProtestant source, which was cited for the purpose of showing the\nsmall proportion of children in Protestant Sunday-schools,\ncontains a statement that 125,000 children are without\ninstruction, which also inadvertently passed uncorrected. The\n60,000 children in Catholic Sunday-schools, and, we suppose, also\nthe Jewish children, as well as those who are privately taught at\nhome, ought to have been deducted. There are said to be 95,000\nchildren in Protestant Sunday-schools. The whole number of\nchildren is estimated at 200,000. There is, then, a vague neutral\nground between vagrancy and the Sunday-school domain, occupied by\nsome thousands, more or less--how many, we cannot correctly\nestimate. We are immediately concerned only with Catholic\nchildren. It is not possible to figure up precisely the numbers,\nevery day increasing, of these children, in every stage of\nneglected moral and religious education down to the most complete\nvagrancy. We know, however, that they are to be counted by\nthousands, and would be sufficient by themselves to people a\nrespectable Southern or Western diocese. We know that\ncomparatively nothing is doing to reclaim them; and as for any\nfurther practical remarks as to what ought to be done, we give\nplace for the present to the writer of the letter which follows,\nwho is sorry for these poor children one thousand dollars. We\ntrust that her good example will be followed by others, and shall\nbe happy to receive in trust whatever may be contributed toward\nthe establishment of an institution such as she recommends, and\nof which the Sisters of Charity are ready to assume the charge\nwhenever the requisite funds are provided.--Ed. C. W.\n\n  \"Rev. and Dear Father Hecker: \"The article in The Catholic\n  World, for July, on 'The Sanitary and Moral Condition of New\n  York City,' has excited in my mind the greatest interest, and,\n  I may add, self-condemnation.\n\n  \"It is true I knew the facts mentioned there before, but never\n  were they so fully brought home to me as in reading that\n  article. I could say nothing but '_Mea culpa, mea culpa_.'\n\n{714}\n\n  Yes, through my fault, and the fault of every Catholic, these\n  many thousands of little children are left uncared for; except,\n  indeed, by those who have been more zealous to spread error,\n  uncertainty, and darkness than we to give them the true bread\n  of life. Are we indeed the children of the church? Have we ever\n  listened to these words of our Saviour, 'Inasmuch as ye have\n  not done it unto these my little ones, ye have not done it unto\n  me'? God forgive us, and grant that every Catholic, in reading\n  that article, may be moved to a true contrition.\n\n  \"Why cannot the several hundred thousand Catholics in our great\n  city establish a Central Mission House for these little\n  neglected ones of the flock? For, of these forty thousand\n  vagrant and uncared-for children, we cannot doubt that far more\n  than one half have inherited the Catholic faith. The burden of\n  supporting this great work of charity should not be borne by\n  one parish or section of the city, and that the least able to\n  bear it; but every parish should feel as if this house demanded\n  its own especial care. And not only every parish in New York\n  City, but throughout the arch-diocese and the whole country;\n  for, as the poverty of the Old World finds its first refuge in\n  our city, so the charity of the New World should be\n  concentrated here to meet it.\n\n  \"Father Farrelly is doing a noble work. God bless him for it!\n  And as to the Reformatory established by Dr. Ives, only God can\n  know the good it has already done and is yet to do. Catholics\n  are not accustomed to speak much of what they do, but we who\n  have done little or nothing cannot shelter ourselves behind\n  those who, alone and single-handed as it were, have tried to\n  meet this torrent of poverty and crime. As an act of reparation\n  on my part for past neglect, I place in your hands a check for\n  one thousand dollars, ($1000,) as a beginning of this noble\n  work. The Sisters of Charity or Mercy will surely be ready to\n  take charge of such a house, for where will they find so true a\n  work of charity or mercy?\n\n  \"I beg of you, reverend father, to publish this in your\n  magazine; for I do not doubt that God has touched other hearts,\n  and that this little beginning, when known, will grow like a\n  grain of mustard-seed, and become a great and noble work.\n\n  \"Yours, etc.,\n     ......\"\n\n-------------\n\n{715}\n\n\n    New Publications\n\n\n  Problems of the Age: With Studies\n  in St. Augustine on Kindred Topics.\n  By the Rev. Augustine F. Hewit,\n  of the Congregation of St. Paul.\n  New York: Catholic Publication House. 1868.\n\nThis volume, being chiefly a republication of some of our own\narticles, cannot, of course, receive from us an independent and\nimpartial criticism. We can only state its scope and design,\nleaving it to other critics to judge of its merits. The topics\nwhich it discusses relate to the dialectic unity of the natural\nand supernatural in the universal order of truth and being. It is\nintended to meet the intellectual difficulties of those who\ncannot see this dialectic unity, and who, therefore, apprehend a\ncontradiction between the natural and the supernatural, or, at\nleast, a chasm between the two, which makes it impossible to\nexplain their relation to each other on rational principles. It\nis more especially adapted to that class of persons who are\nrather perplexed by an apparent contradiction between reason and\nfaith, than to those who are either positive infidels or positive\nsceptics. There are many such persons, predisposed to admit a\nspiritual philosophy and the truth of Christianity, but still in\na state of doubt respecting both philosophical and revealed\ntruths. The reason of this is, because the current philosophy of\nProtestantism is shallow and sophistical, and the current\ntheology of Protestantism irrational. It is necessary, therefore,\nto present a sound philosophy as a cure for intellectual\nscepticism, and a sound rational theology as a cure for religious\ndoubt. _The Problems of the Age_ is a contribution to this\nwork. It is neither a system of philosophy nor of theology, but\nrather a clue to find both the one and the other. It proposes to\nthe man bewildered in the labyrinth of scepticism a path which\nwill lead him out into the open day of certitude, and leaves it\nto him to try the path or himself, and ascertain by his own\nexamination whether it be the right one. Protestantism first\ndestroyed theology, and then philosophy. Rationalism has tried to\nreconstruct both; but, having only the _d\u00e9bris_ to use as a\nmaterial, and no formula to work by, has failed signally. The\nauthor of the volume before us has endeavored to derive a formula\nfrom the works of the best Catholic philosophers and theologians\nwhich gives the principles of construction, to present an outline\nof the plan according to which all true builders always have been\nworking, and always must work, in the rearing of that temple\nwhose porch is science and whose sanctuary is faith. The first\nprinciples of reason and the first principles of faith are\npresupposed as given. The existence and the attributes of God are\nbriefly demonstrated from the first principles of reason, as the\nbasis of faith in revealed truths. The connection between\nrational knowledge and supernatural faith is exhibited, and the\npoint of transition from one to the other designated. The\nprincipal mysteries of revelation are then taken up, and their\ndialectic relation to the great truths of natural theology,\nrespecting God as the first and final cause of the creation, is\npointed out. As the perversions of Calvinism represent some of\nthese mysterious doctrines in such a way that they are\nirreconcilable with natural theology, a considerable space is\ndevoted to the clearing away of these misconceptions. The\nprincipal philosophical difficulties in the way of apprehending\ncertain doctrines are also noticed, and a solution given. The\ntopics most thoroughly treated are those which relate to the\nsupernatural destiny of man, his primitive condition, the fall,\noriginal sin, and the final consummation of all things, including\nthe redemption of the human race through the Incarnation.\n\n{716}\n\n_The Studies in St. Augustine_ is a subsidiary essay\nintended to refute the allegation that the Calvinistic doctrines\nhave been justly deduced from his writings and the authoritative\nteaching of the church in his time. In doing this, the evidence\nis clearly presented of the fact that several of the chief\ndistinctive doctrines of the Catholic Church were held by the\nwhole church at the time when the great doctor flourished. It is\nalso shown that modern Catholic theology, although far more\nprecise and definite in many points than the ancient theology\ncould be, is the only true and legitimate offspring and\ndevelopment of its principles. The drift of the whole book in\nboth its parts is to present a clear conception of what the\nCatholic doctrine is, and to show that this conception is in\nharmony with the rational principles on which a spiritual and\ntheistic philosophy must base itself. It is adapted, therefore,\nto stimulate thought and awaken an appetite for truth, much more\nthan to satisfy the mind. Those who are influenced by its\narguments must desire a more thorough exposition both of the\nprinciples of reason and of those of faith, in order to perceive\nmore clearly the objective truth, both of philosophy and of\nrevelation, unless they are already well-informed on both points.\nThe first branch of science has been handled in the most\nsatisfactory and thorough manner in the philosophical articles of\nDr. Brownson's _Review_. There are also some able articles\non the same topics to be found in _The Catholic World_. It\nis much to be regretted that these articles are not to be had in\na separate volume, so as to be easily accessible, and that there\nis no complete treatise on philosophy, which is sufficient to\nmeet the wants of our day, written in the English language. The\nsecond branch of science, which embraces the evidence of the\npositive truth of revelation, has been more extensively\ncultivated. The shortest and most satisfactory way to a\nconclusion on that point is, to take up at once the proof of the\ndivine institution and authority of the Catholic Church. Two\nthings only are necessary to be proved: First, there is a God;\nsecond, God reveals his truth and law through the Catholic\nChurch. It ought not to require a very long time, or a very\ndifficult process, to establish these two truths in any mind not\nprepossessed by error and prejudice. Those who are unfortunately\nso prepossessed have no other choice but to work their way out\nthe best way they can, and every one who lends them a helping\nhand does a great service to his fellow-men.\n\n----\n\n  Parochial and Plain Sermons.\n  By John Henry Newman, B.D.,\n  formerly Vicar of St. Mary's, Oxford.\n  In eight volumes. Vol. I. New edition.\n  Rivingtons, London, Oxford, and Cambridge.\n  For sale at The Catholic Publication House, New York. 1868.\n\nTruly Anglicanism is a unique phenomenon, or, rather, congeries\nof phenomena, and of its phases there is no end. Its newspapers\nin this country are rather remarkable for virulent hostility to\nthe Catholic Church, and offensive language about Catholic\npersons and things. Only the other day, the Hartford\n_Churchman_, which professes to be decent, gave currency to\nthe shameless report that the late unfortunate Cardinal d'Andrea\nwas poisoned. The language used about Dr. Newman has been\nfrequently vituperative and insolent in the extreme. The English\nHigh Churchmen are usually far more gentlemanly than their\nAmerican _confr\u00e8res_, and their tone and language are often\nfar more decorous when they speak of Catholic affairs. Even in\nEngland, however, as well as in this country, a smattering of\nCatholicism very frequently produces an increase of animosity and\nbitterness against the Catholic Church. The more nearly some\napproach her, the more they become inflamed, like comets\napproaching the sun, and the attraction is suddenly turned into a\nrepulsive force, which drives them back into the dreariness of\nspace. There are some, however, in England, among those who cling\nto the Established Church, whose spirit is kind and loving toward\nthose whom they would fain regard as their fellow-Catholics, even\nthough these are converts from Anglicanism. A remarkable proof\nthat the number of these is considerable is found in the fact\nthat a new edition of Dr. Newman's _Sermons_ is announced by\nthe Rivingtons, and that the first volume has already issued from\nthe press, with a preface by the Rev. W. J. Copeland, rector of\nFarnham.\n{717}\nThe typographical execution of the volume is extremely beautiful.\nThe preface is sad and tender, like the hymn of a captive\nIsraelite in Babylon. Dr. Newman has, we believe, consented to\nthis republication. We remember well the delight and instruction\nwe received from these _Sermons_ when they were first\nrepublished in this country, and the pleasure we experienced in\nvisiting, a few months ago, the church of St. Mary the Virgin, at\nOxford, where they were preached. We are not able to say whether\nthey contain anything un-Catholic or not; if so, it cannot be\nsufficient to be in any way dangerous, or to detract from their\ngenerally Catholic doctrine and spirit. The editor says that\ntheir author is not to be considered as reasserting all their\nsentiments, and that he would undoubtedly wish some parts of them\naltered or omitted. They are models of the most perfect English\nstyle, and, as such, of great value to Catholic preachers. Their\ncirculation among Protestants to as great an extent as possible\nis something most devoutly to be wished, and likely to do an\nextraordinary amount of good. No doubt the Protestant clergy\nhere, whatever may be the case in England, will discourage their\nbeing read; yet the younger clergy of all denominations will\nundoubtedly read them themselves, and will not be able to hinder\ngreat numbers of the most cultivated among the laity from doing\nthe same. They are wonderful compositions, the like of which our\nlanguage does not contain; and those who are not already familiar\nwith them will deprive themselves of a very great pleasure if\nthey do not avail themselves of the opportunity of becoming so.\nWe feel extremely obliged to the editor and publishers for\nsending out this new and beautiful edition, and we hope its\ninfluence may be to draw the hearts of our Protestant friends and\nbrethren nearer to us. We are extremely anxious that the violent\nand hostile controversy between us should cease, and that we\nmight have the opportunity of discussing with them, in a calm and\nquiet way, the points of difference which separate them from\nourselves. While their tone and manner are so discourteous and\nunfair, this is impossible; and we hope they may learn a lesson\nfrom Mr. Copeland, and others among themselves who are of like\nspirit with him, as well as from the _ci-devant_ Vicar of\nSt. Mary's, who is revived once more in his surplice and hood, to\npreach again among his former people, as the prophet of the ten\nlost tribes.\n\n-----\n\n  Appleton's Short Trip to Europe. (1868.)\n  Principally devoted to England, Scotland, Ireland,\n  Switzerland, France, Germany, and Italy; with\n  Glimpses of Spain, Short Routes in the East, etc.;\n  and a Collection of Travellers' Phrases in French and German.\n  By Henry Morford, Author of \"Over Sea,\"\n  \"Paris in '67,\" etc., etc.\n  New York: Appletons.\n\nThis is a very pretty, convenient, and useful hand-book for\ntravellers, full of useful advice and valuable directions, which\nwe can cordially recommend to every person about to make a tour\nto Europe for the first time, as the best book of the kind we are\nacquainted with. There are some allusions and remarks scattered\nthrough the book which seem intended to enliven it and give it a\nflavor of humor, and which will doubtless please a certain number\nof its readers. Others, however, may perhaps think they detract\nfrom the general good taste evinced by the author, when he\nconfines himself to a more quiet and simple style of giving\ninformation.\n\nSidney Smith's coarse pun on the name of St. Peter, and the\nauthor's own very dull attempt at wit in regard to the relics of\nthe martyrs in the church of St. Ursula, at Cologne, will not\nrender the book any the more agreeable to Catholic tourists, and\nwe should think not to any persons of refined taste. The\nallusions made occasionally to the supposed vicious propensities\nof a certain class of tourists are still more objectionable. They\nare like whispering behind the hand, or exchanging nods and\nwinks, in good company.\n{718}\nThe guidebooks of Paris are models of the most perfect taste and\nelegance in style, and so are those of Baedeker, for the\ncontinent, with the exception of an occasional falsehood or sneer\nabout something Catholic. In our judgment, these are the proper\nmodels to imitate.\n\nWe cannot omit remarking, while we are on the subject of\nguide-books, that it would be a work of great service to Catholic\ntourists, if some competent person would prepare a guide-book for\ntheir use, with reference to all the places and objects specially\ninteresting to them as connected with their religion and its\nhistory.\n\n-----\n\n  Rhymes of the Poets.\n  By Felix Ago.\n  Philadelphia: E. H. Butler & Co. 1868.\n\nA very amusing satirical essay upon \"allowable rhymes,\" selected\nfrom the verses of a large number of poets.\n\n----\n\n  Lake George: Its Scenes and Characteristics, with Glimpses of\n  the Olden Times; to which is added some account of Ticonderoga;\n  with a description of the route to Schroon Lake and the\n  Adirondacks. With Illustrations.\n  By B. F. De Costa,\n  1 vol. 12mo, pp. 196.\n  New York: A. D. F. Randolph. 1868.\n\nThis is an excellent little book for tourists to Lake George and\nthe surrounding country. The first white man who saw Lake George\nwas the Jesuit missionary, Father Jogues, who, having arrived at\nthat beautiful lake on the eve of the festival of Corpus Christi,\ncalled it \"The Lake of the Blessed Sacrament,\" a name it retained\nuntil changed by the English to its present one. The author takes\npains to correct the many misstatements of other writers with\nregard to historical events which occurred in the vicinity of the\nlake. The account of the defeat of the English by Montcalm, 1757,\nis given; and the reported connivance of that general in the\nmassacre of the English troops after their surrender is disposed\nof as one of the \"wild exaggerations of the day.\" Yet it is only\na few years ago that a distinguished general, while on a visit to\nthe lake, reiterated, in a speech to his admirers, the terrible\ncruelty of the French in allowing the captives to be massacred in\ncold blood, and asserted that it was one of the customs of that\nbarbarous age, and therefore was not prevented by Montcalm. Mr.\nDe Costa says, with reference to this reported massacre: \"That\nclass of writers who furnish what may be called apocrypha of\nhistory, have delighted in wild exaggerations of this event.\nDrawing their material from the crudest sensation accounts of the\nday, they have not hesitated to record as facts the most\nimprobable fancies. It is to be regretted that these accounts\nhave crept into so many of our popular school histories, in one\nof which, now extensively used, we are informed that, when\nMontcalm went away, he left the dead bodies of one hundred women\nshockingly mangled and weltering in their blood. The account is\nbased upon a supposed letter of Putnam's that was never written,\nand is of the same authority as that favorite but now exploded\nstory of the school-boy, which relates Putnam's descent into the\nwolfs den.\" He also truly says that \"national enmity has had much\nto do with these misrepresentations of Montcalm, who was every\nway a noble and humane man, as well as the ablest general of his\nday in all North America.\" Religious animosity had its share in\nit, too, and no small share either. The French were Catholics;\nthe English, Protestants; and it was only in perfect keeping with\nthe English literature of the day to paint everything done by the\nFrench Catholics in the darkest colors possible. But this calumny\ncannot stand the tests of the critic of to-day, and we are glad\nto see a little hand-book like this, which must become popular\nwith the tourist of the Northern lakes, stamp the fictions which\nhave crept into history as they deserve, and give its readers the\ntruth.\n\n{719}\n\nThe work is printed on good paper, and illustrated with wood-cuts\nof the most noted places referred to in its pages.\n\n------\n\n  Democracy in the United States:\n  What it has Done, What it is Doing, and What it will Do.\n  By Ransom H. Gillett, formerly Member of Congress from St.\n  Lawrence County, N.Y.; more recently Registrar and Solicitor of\n  the United States Treasury Department, and Solicitor for the\n  United States in the Court of Claims, etc.\n  New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1868.\n\nThis is what, we suppose, will be termed, in the language of the\nmarket, a _seasonable_ book, it being brought out just in\ntime for, and adapted to, the political campaign upon which the\ncountry has now fully entered. It aims to give a succinct but\ncomplete history of the Democratic party, of its measures and its\nleading men, from its beginning down to the present time. We are\nnot ourselves politicians enough to judge how faithfully or\nreliably this has been done. The volume--a compact one of some\nfour hundred pages--is brought out in the Messrs. Appleton's\nexcellent style of book publishing, and will, of course, have an\nextensive sale.\n\n------\n\n  Histoire De France.\n  Par V. Duruy.\n  Nouvelle Edition, illustr\u00e9e d'un grand\n  nombre de gravures et de cartes geographiques.\n  Paris: Hachette. (New York: Christern. 2 vols. 12mo.)\n\nThis is a part of a course of compendious universal history\nprepared by a number of learned writers, under the direction of\nM. Duruy. It is a clear and succinct history of France from the\nearliest epoch to the year 1815, with an appendix containing a\nsummary of events from 1815 to 1866. The history of France is of\nthe greatest interest and importance, and but little known among\nus, especially in its Catholic aspects. This book is, therefore,\none of the most useful text-books for the instruction of classes\nstudying the French language, which can be studied; and most\ninvaluable also for others, who are able to read French, and who\ndesire to have a brief but complete exposition of French history.\n\nBesides its numerous and valuable maps, it contains more than 300\nremarkably well-executed and artistic woodcuts, which add very\nmuch to its value and interest. The study of the French language\nand literature has been too much neglected in our American\ncolleges and higher schools. Every person of liberal education\nought to read and speak the French language. We recommend this\nbook to the attention of teachers, parents, and all persons\noccupied with the study of French, and also to intelligent\ntourists, to whom it will prove an invaluable companion on a\nvisit to _La Belle France_.\n\n------\n\n  O'Shea's Popular Juvenile Library.\n  First series. 12 vols. Beautifully illustrated.\n  New York: P. O'Shea. 1868.\n\nThe titles of the volumes in this series are as follows:\n\n  The Inquisitive Boy and the Little Ragman;\n  The Picture and the Country Cousins;\n  Augusta and Christmas Eve;\n  The Young Guests, and other stories;\n  The Page, and other stories;\n  The Young Artist;\n  The Gray Woman of Scharfenstein, and other stories;\n  The Young Painter;\n  Tailor and Fiddler;\n  Sobieski's Achievements;\n  Hedwig of Poland;\n  The Young Countess.\n\nThese tales are taken principally from the German and French, and\nare unexceptional in matter.\n\n------\n\n  The Catholic Crusoe.\n  Adventures of Owen Evans, Esq., Surgeon's Mate,\n  set ashore with five companions on a desolate island\n  in the Caribbean Sea, 1739. Given from the Original MSS.,\n  by Rev. W. H. Anderdon, M.A.\n  New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 12mo, pp. 519.\n\n{720}\n\nA notice of Dr. Anderdon's very entertaining story appeared in\n_The Catholic World_ for December, 1867. The reprint before\nus is very well got up, but lacks an interesting feature of the\noriginal edition, namely, its maps and illustrations.\n\n------\n\n  The Queen's Daughter; or, The   Orphan of La Granja.\n  By the author of _Grace Morton_, etc.\n  Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham. Pp. 108.\n\nA pleasant tale for young folk, neatly bound, and, in general\ntypographical execution, a very decided improvement on its\npredecessor, _Elinor Johnstone_.\n\n------\n\n  The Complete Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell,\n  with a Memoir of his Life.\n  New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1868.\n\nSo far as the paper and binding are concerned, this edition of\nCampbell is beautifully got up; but we cannot say as much for the\ntype, which is the very reverse of beautiful.\n\n------\n\n  A Popular Treatise on the Art of House Painting,\n  Plain and Decorative.\n  By John W. Masury. New York: D. Appleton & Co.\n\nA very useful book, on an important subject, for those who would\npreserve their houses, and have them tastefully and, at the same\ntime, economically painted. The mechanical portion of the work is\nexecuted in the Messrs. Appleton's best style.\n\n------\n\n  Celebrated Sanctuaries of the Madonna.\n  By Rev. J. Spencer Northcote, D.D.\n  Philadelphia: P. F. Cunningham. 1868.\n\nThis is an American edition of Dr. Northcote's work, the English\nedition of which we noticed in our July number. It is brought out\nin very handsome style, and reflects credit on the taste of the\npublisher.\n\n------\n\nAnnouncements.--\"The Catholic Publication Society\" has in press,\nor in preparation, the following new works:\n\n  1. Symbolism. By Adam Moehler. This will be ready about\n     August 1st.\n  2. Second Series of Illustrated Sunday-School Library. Ready\n     about September 1st, twelve vols., for titles of which see\n     advertisement on second page of cover.\n  3. Memorials of those who suffered for the Catholic Faith in\n     Ireland, in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth\n     Centuries. Collected and edited from the original\n     authorities, by Myles O'Rielly. B.A., LL.D. This will be one\n     of the most important books relative to Ireland ever\n     published in this country. It will be ready about September\n     1st.\n  4. Cradle Lands--Egypt, Palestine, etc. Illustrated.\n     By Lady Herbert. Ready November 15.\n  5. Love; or, Self-Sacrifice. By Lady Herbert.\n  6. Life of Father Ravigan, S.J.\n  7. Third Series of Illustrated Sunday-School Library.\n\n------\n\n    Books Received.\n\nFrom P. Donahoe, Boston.\n  Plain Talk about the Protestantism of To-day. From the French\n  of Mgr. Segur. 1 vol. 32mo, pp. 253. Price, 60 cents.\n\nFrom J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia.\n  Alleghania; or, Praises of American Heroes.\n  By Christopher Laomedon Pindar.\n\n---------------------\n\n{721}\n\n         The Catholic World.\n\n  Vol. VII., No. 42.--September, 1868.\n\n\n\n    The Veneration Of Saints And Holy Images.\n\n\nThe veneration paid to saints by Catholics with the formal\napprobation or tacit sanction of the supreme authority in the\nchurch is, together with the use made of their images and that of\nChrist in religious worship, under the same sanction, the one\nfeature of the Catholic system most obnoxious to Protestants.\nThey do not hesitate ordinarily to qualify it as idolatry, that\nis, as a rendering of the worship due to God alone to creatures,\nboth living and inanimate, similar to that which the heathen\nsystem of polytheism ascribes to its numerous divinities and\ntheir images.\n\nWe propose to discuss this matter briefly, not with the intention\nof proving that the Catholic doctrine and practice are truly a\ngenuine outgrowth of the Christian religion by extrinsic\nevidence, but of showing their intrinsic harmony with Christian\nfirst principles, and refuting the objections derived from these\nfirst principles against them. As the subject naturally divides\nitself into two distinct parts, already clearly indicated in our\nopening paragraph, we shall confine our remarks at present to the\nfirst part of it, or that relating to the veneration of saints.\n\nThe preliminary charge of idolatry, or a direct contradiction to\nthe monotheistic doctrine of natural and revealed theology, is\nperfectly groundless, and, however it may be modified and\ndiminished, there is not an atom of truth in it upon which any\nobjection to the Catholic doctrine can be based.\n\nIdolatry, or the worship of the creature instead of the creator,\noriginates in ignorance or denial of the true conception of the\none living and true God. God is not worshipped, because he is not\nknown or believed in. By necessary consequence, something which\nis not God is conceived as highest, best, most excellent, most\npowerful, without reference or relation to God as the author and\nsovereign of all that has any existence. The pantheist is an\nidolater of all nature, but especially of himself. Even Socrates,\nPlato, and Aristotle were not free from idolatrous principles,\nalthough probably free from all sin in the matter, since they\nascribed to the universe a certain amount of being not caused by\nthe intelligence and will of God as creator.\n{722}\nNeither are our modern rationalists free from the same error,\nsince they withhold from God the homage of their reason, and give\nit to themselves as to persons possessing intelligence which is\nindependent of God. Wilful and obstinate heretics are all\nlikewise in the same category; for, by rejecting a part of what\nGod has revealed, they, by implication, profess to be superior to\nGod in intelligence, and substitute an idol of their own vain\nimagination in lieu of that eternal truth which is identical with\nthe essence of God. Idolaters, in the strict sense of the word,\nor polytheists, such as the ancient Greeks and Romans were, paid\na formal worship to their gods, as superior beings having a\nsupreme and irresponsible control over nature and over men. It\nwas a worship which was a substitute for that originally given to\nthe true God, totally contrary to it, and an insuperable barrier\nto the spread of monotheism as a religion. These false divinities\nwere, therefore, the rivals of the true God, and filled the place\nin the religious worship of the heathen which was filled by him\nin the worship established by divine revelation from the creation\nof mankind. It is evident, from the very statement of what\nidolatry is in itself, that a veneration paid to any creature,\nwhich is proportionate to the degree of excellence which it has\nreceived from the creator, is not idolatrous, and cannot detract\nfrom the supreme veneration which is due to God as the sovereign\nlord of the universe. Those who condemn the religious honor paid\nto created natures by the Catholic Church cannot therefore lay\ndown an _a priori_ principle from which to demonstrate in\nadvance that this honor is necessarily idolatrous, unless they\npreviously demonstrate that the excellence ascribed to these\nnatures is such that God cannot communicate it to a creature. The\nworship paid to the sacred humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ is\nthat which is apparently the most obnoxious to the charge of\nidolatry of any other species of relative worship which the\nchurch has decreed to be due to any created nature. Our chief\ncontroversy is, therefore, with Jews, Mohammedans, Unitarians,\nand others who claim to be pure theists and who deny the\nincarnation. What we affirm against these is, that they cannot\ndemonstrate the impossibility of the incarnation. They cannot\ndemonstrate the impossibility of a hypostatic union between the\nhuman nature and the divine nature, by virtue of which the\npersonality of the human nature is divine, and the human nature\nis the nature of God, and thus worthy of relative adoration.\nTherefore, they cannot argue that the divinity of Jesus Christ\nhas not been revealed, and that divine worship is not due to him\nby the law of God, because God cannot reveal such a doctrine or\ncommand such a worship without contradicting the essential truth\nof his nature. Suppose that evidence is given sufficient in\nitself to authenticate the revelation of the mystery of the\nincarnation, and at once it becomes evident that divine worship\nis due to Jesus Christ as God incarnate, precisely because\nworship is due to God. The question is then only debatable on the\npoint whether this revelation has been made or not. If it could\nbe proved that it has not, and that Jesus Christ is a created and\nfinite person, it would follow that the worship paid to him by\nall orthodox Christians is idolatrous.\n{723}\nIt would be idolatrous to worship any man who should pretend to\nbe God incarnate when he is not, or who should be erroneously\nbelieved by his disciples to be a divine person, without any\nreference to the question whether any such incarnation can be or\nhas been decreed by the wisdom of God. We are not attempting to\nprove the truth of the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus Christ,\nor to prove directly that the worship we pay to him is not\nidolatrous. Everything, we admit, depends on proving it. If it\ncannot be proved, Christianity is a superstition, and must be\nclassed with Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Mohammedanism. For the\nproof of the truth and reality of the incarnation, we must refer\nthe reader elsewhere. We are intent on showing that no elevation\nof created nature which is possible is in any way incompatible\nwith the supreme dignity and sovereignty of God, and,\nconsequently, no honor due to such an elevated nature\nincompatible with the supreme worship due to the divine majesty.\nWe are also intent on showing that it is principally the fact of\nthe incarnation on which the whole question hinges, and the\nworship paid to Christ against which the objections of so-called\ntheists to saint-worship are levelled. The incarnation is the\nprinciple of saint-worship. All orthodox Protestants are accused\nof idolatrous saint-worship by Unitarians, Jews, Mohammedans, and\nall pure theists. It is true that the orthodox do not regard\nJesus Christ as a mere saint, but all others regard him as being,\nat the highest, only the greatest among the saints. All\nProtestants who are orthodox on the incarnation, and conformed in\nbelief to the doctrine of their own confessions and great\ndivines, believe that the holy humanity of Jesus Christ is\nentitled to divine worship. They are obliged to worship not only\nthe divine nature of Jesus Christ, but also his human nature, his\nsoul and body. Yet, the human nature of Christ is a created and\nfinite substance, not possessing a single divine attribute. How,\nthen, can it receive the worship due to God alone? Evidently it\ncannot receive such a worship as terminating in itself, or as\nabsolute. It is impossible for the intellect to make the judgment\nthat the substance of the body and of the soul of Jesus Christ is\nthe infinite, self-existing being whom we call God, and from whom\nall things derive existence. Why, then, is the humanity of Jesus\nChrist to be worshipped? Because of the divine person to whom it\nbelongs. The soul and the body of Jesus Christ are the soul and\nbody of the Son of God. The same person who is God is also man,\nand his humanity is inseparable from his person. It is,\ntherefore, on account of and in relation to his divine person\nthat his human nature is adored with the worship of latria. If\nour Lord should condescend to come upon the earth again, we are\npersuaded that every sincere Protestant who believes in his\ndivinity would gladly prostrate himself at his feet to pay him\nsupreme adoration, and, if he were able to look upon his face,\nwould feel that he was gazing upon the very countenance of God,\nand that the eyes of the Lord of heaven and earth were fixed upon\nhim. If there are any whose mind or feelings revolt from the\nworship of the Son of God in his human body and through the\nmedium of his visible form, let them admit at once that they are\nno believers in the incarnation, that they have abandoned the\ndoctrine of the ancient Protestant confessions and are really\nUnitarians. Those who fully admit the Catholic doctrine that the\nsacred humanity of Jesus Christ is to be adored must range\nthemselves at once on our side and prepare to defend our common\ncause. They must defend themselves and us against the charge of\nidolatry.\n{724}\nThey cannot do it without laying down the principle that, when a\ncreated nature is elevated to a special union with the divine\nnature, and made to participate with it in dignity, it is worthy\nof a proportionate religious veneration. The more orthodox\nUnitarians cannot deny this principle without condemning\nthemselves. They give a veneration at least equal to that which\nCatholics call the worship of hyperdulia to Jesus Christ; and as\nthey do not acknowledge in him any dignity differing in kind, but\nonly one differing in degree, from that of angels, prophets,\nmartyrs, confessors, and other saints, they cannot consistently\ndeny the propriety of giving a lesser veneration, or worship of\ndulia, to the saints. Episcopalians and other Protestants\ndedicate days and churches in honor of the Blessed Virgin and the\nsaints, which are acts of very high religious veneration. Only\nthose who refuse all religious veneration either to Jesus Christ\nor to any created nature, because they deny any supernatural\nelevation of created nature into a mysterious union with the\ndivine nature, have any pretext or appearance of consistency in\ntheir charge of idolatry against Catholic saint-worship. Yet it\nis precisely the trinitarian Protestants who are loudest and most\nviolent in repeating this charge. So far as rationalists and\nUnitarians are concerned, it is not of much utility to discuss\nthe question of the veneration of the Virgin and of the saints\ndirectly. The preliminary question of the incarnation has first\nto be settled. It is the divine worship we pay to Jesus Christ\nwhich is their great stone of stumbling and rock of offence. We\nleave them aside, therefore, to pursue the one direct line of\nargument on which we started, namely, that the veneration of\nsaints flows logically out of the worship of the sacred humanity\nof Christ; and is rooted in the doctrine of the incarnation.\n\nOrthodox Protestants are bound to pay divine worship, or the\nadoration of latria, to the soul and body of Jesus Christ; a\nworship which would be idolatry if the humanity of Christ were\nnot united to the divine nature in one personality, so that the\nworship of Christ as man is necessarily referred to his divine\nperson and terminates upon it. For the same reason, they are\nbound to pay an inferior veneration, or worship of dulia, to the\nsaints, because they also are united to the divine nature through\nthe incarnation and in Christ, as his co-heirs and brethren, the\nparticipators of his glory. They are not united with the divine\nnature in one personality, therefore they cannot receive divine\nworship. But they are in a lesser mode made \"partakers of the\ndivine nature,\" as the Scripture explicitly declares, and,\ntherefore, deserve a veneration commensurate with their degree of\nunion, which is ultimately referred to God, who is \"worshipped in\nhis saints.\" To compare the veneration of the saints of God with\nthe Greek polytheism is simply absurd. It is connected with and\nsprings out of the doctrine of pure monotheism and the worship\npaid to the one true God. It does not, in the slightest degree,\nsupplant this doctrine or worship, confuse the idea of God, or\ninterfere with the recognition of his sole and absolute\nsovereignty. It presents necessarily, and by its very essence,\nthe saints as the creatures, the servants, the courtiers,\nministers, and favored friends of God, intercessors and advocates\nfor men before his throne.\n{725}\nIt presents, therefore, necessarily, God as their creator,\nsovereign, and as the source and fountain of all their sanctity,\nbeatitude, and glory, the author and giver of all the blessings\nasked for through their intercession. The perpetual presence of\nthe true idea of God preserves the idea of the hierarchy of\ncreatures from all corruption or perversion, and keeps\ncontinually before the mind their relation and subordination to\nthe supreme and absolute Lord of the universe.\n\nIn the same way, the presence of the true idea of the incarnation\nprevents the idea of the mediation of the saints between God and\nman from being corrupted. It is impossible for the Blessed Virgin\nor any other saint to take the place in the Catholic idea which\nbelongs to Jesus Christ as the Redeemer and Saviour of mankind,\nthe Mediator between God and man. It is clearly understood and\nvividly realized that Jesus Christ is the medium of union between\nGod and man through the hypostatic union of human nature with the\ndivine nature in his person. His expiation of sin derives its\ninfinite value from the divinity of his person. His merits derive\ntheir infinite value also from his divinity. He is the source and\nfountain of grace and mercy, because he is God and possesses life\nin himself. He is the sacrifice perpetually offered in the divine\neucharist, the perennial source of life from which the soul is\nfed in the holy communion. The mediation of the saints is derived\nfrom him, subordinate to and dependent on his mediation. The\nBlessed Virgin and the saints are honored on account of their\nrelation to him, and are invoked as his agents and ministers in\ndispensing grace. It is impossible, therefore, to attribute to\nthem any separate merit or independent power; and, so far from\nthe devotion to Our Lady or the saints impeding the view of\nChrist, it only brings him into bolder relief, and by contrast\nand comparison enhances the conception of his infinite elevation,\nas their and our creator and sovereign, above all creatures even\nthe most exalted. Dr. Johnson with his usual strong good sense,\nsaw this, and with his usual manly honesty avowed it, as every\none knows who has read his Life by Boswell. Intelligent\nProtestants ought to be ashamed of themselves for perpetually\nreiterating the stupid charge against the Catholic Church, that\nshe substitutes the Virgin and the saints as objects of worship\nin the place of God, or as objects of confidence in the place of\nour Saviour Christ. The only excuse for those who make this\nassertion is invincible ignorance, an excuse not very creditable\nto men who profess to be theologians. It may avail for those who\nhave grown too old to make any new studies or receive any new\nideas, and for those whose intelligence and learning are so\ncircumscribed that they cannot become acquainted with or\nunderstand the arguments of Catholic theologians. But for those\nwho have the obligation and the opportunity to study and\nunderstand these grave questions, but yet persist, either through\nculpable ignorance or wilful dishonesty, in misrepresenting\nCatholic doctrine, there can be no excuse. In spite of our desire\nto stretch charity to its utmost limits, we cannot help thinking\nthat they are afraid to meet the question openly and fairly,\nafraid to investigate, and afraid to discuss the issue between us\non its real merits. They apprehend, more or less vaguely or\ndistinctly, that they cannot maintain their ground if they state\nthe Catholic doctrines fairly and argue against them as they\nreally are. Their instinct of self-preservation teaches them that\ntheir only safety consists in the smoke which they create by\ntheir incessant fusillade of misrepresentation, and which hides\nthe true aspect of the field from their deluded followers.\n\n{726}\n\nWe leave this part of our subject with a reiteration of what we\nhave already affirmed and proved. The attempt to prove _a\npriori_ from the idea of God, or from the idea of the\nincarnation and mediation of the Word made man, that the\nreligious veneration of the saints is incompatible with the\nsupreme worship due to God, and the supreme confidence we are\nbound to repose in the merits and grace of the sacred humanity of\nJesus Christ, is perfectly futile. The only real question is one\nof evidence: whether the Catholic Church can furnish evidence of\nher divine authority to teach that the Blessed Virgin and the\nsaints have received a subordinate office of mediation, and are\nto be honored and invoked by a special and formal _cultus_.\nIf the evidence which is proposed can be refuted, the worship of\nthe saints may be qualified as a vain observance, a superstition,\na useless addition to Christianity. But it can never, with any\nreason, be denominated idolatry; because it distinctly limits\nitself to that veneration which is simply commensurate with a\nmerely created and derived dignity, leaving intact and perfect\nthe supreme worship of God. It can never be denominated a\nsubstitution of many saviours and mediators in place of the one\nSaviour and Mediator Jesus Christ; because it leaves the doctrine\nof his mediation intact and perfect. That this evidence can be\ndemolished by sound historical learning, scientific exegesis of\nthe Scriptures, or solid theological arguments, we have no fear.\nWe do not think our antagonists have much hope of doing it. They\nhave already said all that can be said on their side, and only\ndamaged their own cause by it. They cannot get rid of the\nuniversal testimony of all ages and countries to the Catholic\ndoctrine, without resorting to principles which subvert their own\nfoundation and leave them to sink down into the pit that has\nswallowed up R\u00e9nan and Colenso. These topics have been\nexhaustively handled by numerous and able Catholic writers, to\nwhom we refer those readers who wish to investigate them. We turn\nnow to the second part of our subject, which relates to the honor\npaid to the sacred images of Christ and the saints.\n\nAnticatholic writers are so illogical, careless, and confused in\ntheir arguments against Catholic doctrines and practices, and use\nso much rhetoric, directed merely _ad captandum vulgus_,\nespecially when they take up this, which is one of their favorite\nthemes, that it is very difficult to follow and refute them in a\nclear and methodical manner. They deal very much in assertions\nand vituperative expressions, in misrepresentations, ridicule,\nand low attempts at wit, in unmeaning laudations of themselves as\nthe only enlightened and spiritual persons in the world, and\nwholesale depreciation of Catholics, especially the simple and\npious peasantry and common people of Catholic countries. We\nsuppose that the substance of their objections against the\nveneration of images, extracted and reduced to a clear and\nprecise statement, would be something like this: The use made of\nimages in religious worship by Catholics is idolatrous, because\nit either is actually an adoration of images as gods in place of\nthe true God, or, if not, leads to and encourages such a worship,\nand bears the outward appearance of being identical with it. It\nis, therefore, to be condemned, as intrinsically dangerous in\nitself, and therefore prohibited under the old law, and as in\nmany cases among the uneducated grossly superstitious and\nheathenish.\n{727}\nIt is, therefore, on a par with the idolatry of the Greeks and\nRomans, and other pagan nations, which is so severely denounced\nin the Holy Scriptures, and so unmercifully ridiculed by the\nearly Christian writers; although enlightened Catholics, like\nenlightened pagans, may be free from the grossness of the vulgar\nsuperstition.\n\nA full discussion of the subject would require us to go into the\nquestion of the nature of image-worship among the heathen\nnations. This has been done already by Bishop England, who has\nhandled the whole matter with great learning and ability in his\n\"Letters to the _Gospel Messenger_.\" It has also been\nbriefly but satisfactorily treated in an article on \"Is it\nHonest?\" in a former number of this magazine. We may assert it as\na certain and established fact, that the heathen priests and\nother intelligent advocates of polytheism held the opinion, so\nfar as they were sincere believers in their own system, that the\ndivinities whom they worshipped were in some way bound to their\nimages, and acted through them as the soul acts through the body.\nThey did not, of course, worship the metal or wood of which the\nimages were composed; but they did worship the images themselves,\nas being animated statues informed by a divine virtue, and really\ncontaining the persons they represented. Philosophers like\nSocrates, Plato, and others, and persons who were imbued with the\nprinciples of the more sound and monotheistic philosophy, were\nnot idolaters in the strict and gross sense. They regarded the\ndivinities of the popular mythology as only a sort of genii, and\nprobably considered their images as only representations intended\nto impress the senses and keep alive the belief and devotion of\nthe people. But the doctrine of polytheism was not the doctrine\nof the sounder and higher philosophy. The system was idolatrous,\nboth in its substitution of imaginary beings for the one, true\nGod, and also in its offering of the worship due to God to images\nas containing their imaginary divinities. It is necessary to take\ninto account, in estimating the idolatrous character of this\nheathen worship, not only that it terminated upon objects which\nwere not divine as the ultimate end of the homage given, without\nreference to the supreme creator and lord, but also that these\nobjects were unreal and imaginary beings. It was not, therefore,\nmerely an undue exaltation of the creature, but a substitution of\nmere creations of the imagination in lieu of the true God. It\nwas, therefore, not only polytheism, or a denial of the unity of\nGod, and a division of the deity among many beings possessing\ndivine attributes, but _idol_-worship, that is, the worship\nof nonentities in place of the real, infinite Being. The image\nrepresented nothing real. It was worshipped as related to an\nimaginary divinity, supposed to reside in it and to communicate\nto it a certain divine quality. There being no such person really\nexisting, the image was a mere idol; and the worship had no real\nobject to terminate upon except the material of which it was\ncomposed. A man who cherishes and honors the picture of his wife\nhas a real and legitimate object upon which the affections and\nemotions awakened by the picture may terminate; but an artist who\nfalls in love with a picture painted after an imaginary ideal in\nhis own mind loves a mere painted form, an idol, and is,\ntherefore, guilty of an absurd form of picture-worship.\n{728}\nIf this love takes the place of the love of God in his soul and\nleads him to place his supreme good in this imaginary being, he\nis an idolater. The heathen had nothing in their idols but lumps\nof wood, stone, or metal, fashioned to represent some imaginary\nbeing. They were therefore open to all the ridicule and scorn of\nthe prophets and other servants of the true God, for shaping to\nthemselves gods which were the mere creations of their own art\nand skill. The condemnation of idols in the Holy Scripture falls,\ntherefore, not chiefly upon the mere use of images as\nrepresenting the object of worship, but upon the making and\nhonoring of images representing beings who, if they existed,\nwould not be entitled to the worship they received, and who, in\npoint of fact, had no real existence. Idolatry is also called in\nthe Scripture demon-worship, because, as we understand it, the\ndemons by means of it seduced men away from the worship of God,\nand also because, by possessing the images of the false gods,\nspeaking through the oracles, and inciting to the commission of a\nmultitude of crimes in connection with idolatry, they reduced the\nheathen into servitude to themselves.\n\nThe prohibition of images to be used in the worship sanctioned by\nthe divine law was a precept of discipline enacted for a special\nreason. The reason was the same which lay at the foundation of\nthat economy by which the trinity of persons in the Godhead, the\nincarnation of the Son in human form, the hierarchy of angels,\nthe glory of the Mother of God, the exaltation of the saints to a\ndeific union, were at first obscurely revealed, and only\ngradually disclosed to the clear knowledge and belief of the\ngenerality of the faithful. It was necessary to establish first\nthe doctrine of the divine unity and spirituality, then the\nTrinity and Incarnation, so firmly in the faith of the people of\nGod, that it could not be disturbed by anything similar to the\ncorrupt worshipping of created things, before it was safe to\nallow the glorification of all creation and all nature, which is\nthe consequence of the Incarnation, to be fully manifested. The\nTrinity and Incarnation were but dimly revealed, and only\nexplicitly known by the _\u00e9lite_ of the faithful, in order\nthat the attention of the childish, imperfect minds of those who\nlived in those early ages, surrounded by a brilliant and\nseductive polytheism, might be fixed principally on the unity and\nspirituality of the divine nature. It was the special mission of\nthe patriarchal and Mosaic dispensations to preserve and hand\ndown the doctrine of the one, true God. There would have been a\ndanger in distinctly revealing the Trinity before the time, that\nthe dogma would have been corrupted and perverted by a false\nconception of the plurality of persons in the divine being, as of\na plurality of beings. The Incarnation would have been perverted\nalso into anthropomorphism, or the conception of the divine\nnature as identical with human nature. Too distinct a knowledge\nof the angelic hierarchy would have dazzled the minds of a people\npredisposed and continually tempted to idolatry, and would have\nwithdrawn them from the contemplation and worship of God.\nSculpture and painting would have affected their senses and\nimagination too powerfully, and would have fostered the\ndisposition to conceive of the divine nature as divided among\nmany deities, and resembling material, created objects. It was\nnecessary that Christ should come and manifest himself to men in\nhis true character, and that he should establish an infallible\nchurch, competent to teach and define the Trinity and Incarnation\nin their relation to the divine unity, to condemn all errors, and\nto direct the development of theology with unerring certitude,\nbefore the grand and abstruse mysteries of faith could be safely\nexposed to the gaze of the multitude.\n{729}\nOur Lord himself proceeded with great caution in these matters,\nand so did the apostles and their successors. The trinity in\nunity and the person of Christ had first to be proposed and to be\nsunk indelibly into the mind of the church, before the Blessed\nVirgin and the saints could be brought prominently forward; and\nreligion had first to be imbued with spirituality and pure,\nrobust morality, before the splendor of worship and the riches of\nthe fine arts, and all the subsidiary means of impressing the\nsenses and the imagination, could receive their due development.\nNevertheless, that the unity of revelation might be manifest and\nthe continuity of development be kept unbroken, everything which\nwas destined to bloom forth in its season in full splendor upon\nthis grand plant of God whose branches are destined to overshadow\nthe world, existed in germ and bud from the very beginning. It\nwould lead us too far to follow up this thought. Orthodox\nProtestants will admit it in regard to the principal mysteries of\nCatholic faith. The text of Scripture shows plainly that\nceremonial, architecture, and music, in a word, all that was not\nliable to lose its symbolic character too easily in the minds of\nthe people, were profusely employed in the religion of the old\nlaw. Philosophy, poetry, science, and literature were kept in\nabeyance to a great extent, and yet given sufficiently for\nintellectual culture in the inspired writings. And,\nnotwithstanding the restriction placed on sculpture and painting,\nyet images were to a certain extent made use of, by the divine\ncommandment, for symbolic purposes in the sanctuary and in the\ntemple. This is their true and legitimate use, and they are to be\nclassed with other symbols, emblems, or exterior signs and\nrepresentations to the senses of persons and things in the\nsupersensible and celestial world. Sacraments, holy places, holy\nthings, temples, altars, vestments, ceremonies, images, all\nbelong to the same order, and find their reason and principle in\nthe Incarnation. The Incarnation is the highest consecration and\nelevation of material substance and form. The body of Christ is\nhypostatically united to the divine nature and made the true,\nliving image of the Godhead, as the Second Council of Nice\nteaches, the medium by which God is manifested in the sensible\nand visible order. Through Christ the whole material universe is\nsanctified and united with God as its final cause. The fanciful\ntheosophies and mythologies of the heathen world were only\nabortive efforts to express this truth. Mr. Gladstone has\nrecently given utterance to this idea in very beautiful language,\nso far as Greek polytheism is concerned, in his review of _Ecce\nHomo_. Heathen art was similarly a perverted foreshadowing of\nCatholic art, copied after the ideal, not of redeemed and\nglorified but of fallen nature, not of heaven but of hell, which\nis but a dark counterpart of heaven.\n\nModern Protestants will generally admit the lawfulness and\nutility of sculpture and painting, considered as the outward\nexpression of the Christian ideal of beauty, the representation\nof persons, scenes, places worthy of respect, means of improving\nthe senses and imagination with religious ideas.\n{730}\nThey are not like their ancestors, who defaced sanctuaries,\nrifled the tombs of the saints, burned relics, broke\nstained-glass windows, destroyed sculptures and paintings, and,\nwith barbarous vandalism, did what they could to efface the\nglorious monuments of the ages of faith. The remnants of these\nsacred relics of antiquity which they have now in their\npossession they preserve with jealous care. They even make use of\nsculpture and painting to perpetuate their own heretical\ntradition, as well as to set forth what they have retained that\nis truly Christian. They adorn their churches with works of art,\nand erect monuments and statues to their own chiefs and leaders,\nas, for instance, the monument to the English pseudo-martyrs at\nOxford, and the statue of Luther recently unveiled with so much\npomp and ceremony at Worms. They are, therefore, precluded from\nmaking objection to the use of sculptured or painted images of\nChrist and the saints in general, and are restricted to\nobjections against certain uses of these images in religious\nrites or worship, and certain acts of respect and veneration\nwhich are exhibited toward them. We will, therefore, proceed to\nshow that this use of images is precisely identical in principle\nwith that use of them to which Protestants do not object, and in\nconformity with the natural and necessary laws of the human mind,\nwhich even the most violent iconoclasts cannot break.\n\nThe human mind is forced to use images as its media; and,\nalthough it is not necessary to have these images sculptured or\npainted, it is by reason of the aforesaid necessity of using\nimages of some kind that man instinctively seeks in sculpture and\npainting a suitable outward form and expression of his\nintellectual images, and finds so much pleasure in beholding\nthese intellectual images expressed in works of art by others.\n\nThe human intellect is incapable of contemplating the divine\nessence immediately. It forms an intellectual conception or image\nwhich represents God to itself, but which is most imperfect and\ninadequate. Any one who should believe that God really is like\nthe conception or imagination he is able to form of him, would\ncommit as great an absurdity as one who should believe that he is\nlike a venerable old man with a long white beard. Not only is the\nconception or intellectual image of God formed by the mind always\ninadequate, but it is often false in certain respects.\nAristotle's conception of God was essentially a false one; so is\nthat of the Deists, of the Calvinists, and of those Universalists\nwho deny his retributive justice. Even the highest\ncontemplatives, as they themselves positively affirm, although\nthey speak of a certain purely spiritual and imageless view of\nGod, never contemplate God so directly that they can dispense\nwith every intellectual species or image as a medium, and intend\nonly by imageless contemplation to designate a degree of\nsubtility in their intellectual operations which renders them\npure and spiritual by comparison with those of grosser minds.\nProbably most persons of uncultivated intellects represent God to\ntheir imagination under some majestic and venerable human form,\nand think of him as seated on a throne, in a superb palace, with\nhis ministering angels, also clothed in corporeal forms,\nattending upon him. Those whose clear intellectual conceptions\nenable them to rid themselves of every image borrowed from the\nhuman figure in thinking of God, will still find that their minds\nmake use of certain emblems, figures, or images of the divine\nattributes, such as light, the sea, the atmosphere.\n{731}\nMuch more will they find themselves compelled to transfer to\ntheir conception of the divine intelligence and volition the\nanalogy of their own manner of thought, of their sentiments and\naffections. In the same manner, when a person thinks of Jesus\nChrist, meditates on his life, death, and glorified state in\nheaven, he will form to himself images which represent his ideal\nconception, images so much the more distinct as they reflect the\nhumanity of Christ with which we are far more immediately united\nthan we are with the divine nature, and which we are therefore\nable to represent more exactly and vividly to our imagination.\nAre we to say, then, that every person worships the image of God\nor of Jesus Christ which his intellect has formed, and becomes\nthereby an idolater? Certainly not. His reason and faith assure\nhim of the existence of God and Christ as objectively real,\ndistinct from his own mental conception, and surpassing all his\napprehensions. His intention in worship is directed to God as he\nreally is, and is true worship, although the intellectual media\nwhich the soul is obliged to make use of are imperfect and\ninadequate.\n\nThe case is no way altered if the sculptured or painted image of\nChrist is made use of, instead of or together with the\nintellectual image. The crucifix is only a permanent image\naffecting the exterior senses, as the intellectual representation\nis a transient image affecting the interior senses. Coleridge\nsays that a picture is \"an intermediate somewhat between a\nthought and a thing.\" The same may be said of a statue, though a\nstatue is more of a thing than a painting is. The material\nsubstance employed by the artist is merely the substratum of the\nform, which is something ideal, as language is merely the medium\nof thought. In painting or sculpture of real merit, the higher\nand more perfect conceptions of men who possess the artistic gift\nare transferred to the minds of those whose ideal conceptions are\nof an inferior order, or who, at least, are not able to give\ntheir conceptions an outward and permanent expression. The artist\nwho makes a statue or painting of our Lord intends to represent\nhim according to the ideal which he has in his own mind. His\nobject is to bring the ideal conception of Christ vividly and\ndistinctly before the imagination of the beholder. The more\ncompletely he succeeds in producing the desired effect, the more\nperfect will be the identification of the image with the object\nit represents in the imagination of the beholder; that is, the\nimage, the more completely it is an image, the less does it\nattract attention to its own separate reality, and the more does\nit fix the attention of the mind on the object it represents. A\nperson whose mind is susceptible to the influence of art, looking\nat a masterpiece of painting or sculpture, forgets that it is\nonly a representation, and seems to himself to be looking at the\nreality. His imagination transports him to the scene of\ncrucifixion, and he is spell-bound as he gazes on the face of the\ndying Christ. The same emotions arise in his mind that would\narise if he were actually gazing upon the crucifixion itself. If\nhe is a Christian, he will spontaneously elicit acts of worship\ntoward the Son of God dying on the cross. These interior acts\nwill manifest themselves by exterior signs, by the respectful\nposture, the silence, the reverential expression of countenance,\nthe moistened eye, which betray the workings of the soul within\nto any attentive observer. Suppose that he kneels down and offers\na prayer, that he kisses the feet of the image of Christ, that he\nexclaims aloud, \"My Lord and my God!\" is that idolatry?\n{732}\nIs he worshipping a picture or a statue? If he is, then all the\nmerely interior and mental acts of a person who is affected by a\nstatue or picture of Christ are equally idolatrous. If the\nsculptured or painted image of Christ is really substituted for\nChrist himself, and receives as a reality, distinct in itself,\nany homage or affection which it terminates as an ultimate\nobject, then all admirers of works of art are guilty of the same\nspecies of absurdity, commit the same unreasonable act, in a\nlesser degree, which culminates, in the case supposed, in the\nsupreme folly of adoring marble, ivory, canvas, and paint. That\nclass of persons who go into raptures over works of art,\ntherefore, have nothing to say against the Catholic use of the\ncrucifix which is not contradicted by their own practice and\navowed sentiments. If the devout sentiments awakened by a\ncrucifix or a painting of the crucifixion are legitimate for once\nand for the space of half an hour, they are legitimate at all\ntimes. If it is lawful to go to a picture-gallery in order to see\na masterpiece, it is lawful to buy it, to hang it in an oratory,\nto visit it every day, and to make a regular and constant use of\nit, as a means of exciting devotion. If the inward sentiments it\nawakens are lawful, so is their outward expression; and if this\noutward expression is in itself lawful, it may be prescribed as a\nlaw by the ritual of the church. The same principle that\njustifies the making of a crucifix, and the looking upon it with\nemotion, justifies the church in placing it above the altar,\nbowing or genuflecting before it, incensing it, exposing it on\nGood Friday to veneration, and chanting the words: \"Ecce lignum\ncrucis, _venite adoremus_.\"\n\nThe crucifix, considered as a material object, is merely treated\nwith the same respect which is shown to a Bible, an altar-cloth,\na chalice, or any other object devoted to sacred uses. As a\nrepresentation, it is not distinguished from the object which it\nrepresents, and the acts of interior or exterior veneration which\nterminate upon it are merely relative, and are referred\naltogether to Jesus Christ. They are like the kiss which a man\nimprints upon his wife's picture, or the uncovering of the head\nwhen a procession passes the statue of Washington. There is only\none question, therefore, in regard to the veneration given to the\ncrucifix, and that is, Does the object or person represented,\nthat is, our Lord Jesus Christ, deserve the worship of latria, or\ndivine worship, which we pay to him, and which we signify by\nthese exterior marks of respect toward his image? The same is the\ncase with the images of the Blessed Virgin and the saints. The\nveneration paid to them has no respect to the material of which\nthey are composed, but passes to their prototypes, that is, the\npersons represented. The only question, therefore, is, Do these\nprototypes deserve the honor we intend to pay them? If they do,\nit is right to signify this honor by marks of respect to their\nimages, such as bowing, offering incense, burning lights,\ndecorating the shrines in which they are placed with flowers, and\nkneeling before them to offer prayers.\n\nWe have already shown that those who have the mere devotion of\ntaste and imagination toward statues and pictures act in a manner\nprecisely analogous, and pass through the same mental process\nwhich is exhibited by the Catholic in the respect which he pays\nto the sacred images of Christ and the saints.\n{733}\nThe only difference is, that the latter makes use of his\nimagination in the service of a real and practical faith and\npiety. His devotion is not a mere intellectual or sentimental\ndevotion, but a spiritual exercise. It is, therefore, less\ndependent on the artistic merit and excellence of the\nrepresentation than the merely sentimental excitement of the\nvotary of art. A rude crucifix or a simple image of the Blessed\nVirgin is sufficient for the only purpose for which the devout\nCatholic makes use of them, as a help to fix the senses and\nattention, a sort of step-ladder by which he may raise his mind\nto the contemplation of Christ and his blessed mother. Many other\ncircumstances give value to sacred objects besides their\nintrinsic worth. Their history, their antiquity, the associations\nconnected with them, the traditions of past ages which cluster\nabout them, often give them a sacredness far beyond the charm of\nsymmetry and beauty. Of the two, we should much prefer to have\nBernini's exquisite statue, over which the Rev. Mr. Bacon goes\ninto raptures which betray his refined love of art, destroyed,\nrather than the venerable statue of St. Peter, which, with\nmanners the reverse of exquisite and refined, he calls \"a grimy\nidol.\" Even persons of the most exquisite taste often love an old\nhouse, old portraits, old articles of furniture, and many other\nold things, intrinsically ugly and valueless, far more than any\nsimilar objects which are new, costly, and fabricated in the\nhighest style of art. For the same reason, certain objects of\ndevotion, which are devoid of all artistic excellence, may be\nvery dear and venerable to Catholics of the most cultivated\ntaste. Much more, then, it is natural that rude and unsightly\nstatues or pictures should be objects of devotion to Catholics of\nuncultivated taste. Protestants make a great mistake in judging\nof the sentiments of the common people in Catholic countries.\nThey attribute to superstition what is really to be ascribed only\nto uncultivated taste. The sentiments which are awakened by\nmasterpieces of art they can understand; but they cannot\nunderstand that ordinary and even grotesque images are\nmasterpieces of art and models of beauty to the rude and childish\nmind of the multitude. To their prejudiced and distorted fancy,\nthese images appear like idols, and the devotion of the people\ntoward them like a stupid idol-worship. They do not appreciate\nthe fact that they are to these simple people what\n_chefs-d'oeuvre_ of religious art are to them--a vivid\nrepresentation, in outward form, of their own highest ideal. The\nsusceptibility of these untutored minds to those emotions which\nare awakened through the senses is far greater than that of the\nmore educated, though it is not so chastened. This is especially\nthe case with the southern races. Poetry, music, painting,\neverything which appeals to the imagination, finds a ready\nresponse in their ardent temperament. It is, therefore, a proof\nof the highest wisdom in the church that she has taken advantage\nof all these means of impressing religious ideas upon the minds\nof all classes of men in every stage of intellectual development.\nThere are some whose devotion takes a more purely intellectual\nform, and who elevate their minds to God and heaven more easily\nby interior recollection and meditation than by any exercise of\nthe imagination or any outward aids. A few prefer the solitude of\na cell or a cave to Cologne Cathedral, and an hour's abstracted\ncontemplation to all the pageantry of St. Peter's.\n{734}\nSuch are permitted and encouraged to follow the bent of their own\ninclination and the leading of the divine Spirit. The mass of\nmen, however, even of the educated and cultivated, need the help\nof the exterior world to give them the images and emblems of\ndivine and spiritual things without which they cannot fix their\nattention or awaken their emotions. The quality and quantity of\nthe helps and instruments with which they worship God vary\nindefinitely. The devotion of those whose state is a kind of\nintellectual childhood, or in whose temperament imagination and\npassion predominate, will necessarily be more sensuous than that\nof more cultivated minds or races of a more cool and sedate\ntemperament. It is the same principle, however, which pervades\nand regulates all; the spirit is one, though the form varies. The\ntrue mystic, who is absorbed in the contemplation of the divine\nnature, does not deny to the sacred humanity of Christ, to the\nBlessed Virgin, the saints, or to any holy things, their worth\nand excellence, although he does not fix his attention upon them\nso frequently and so directly as others. The great saints and\ntheologians of the church never despise the devotions of the\npeople or accuse them of superstition. The distinction between\nthe intelligent few and the superstitious many in the Catholic\nChurch, is one which the most highly educated and spiritually\nminded Catholics disdain and repudiate as a dishonor to\nthemselves. It is made by sciolists, who are unable to answer the\narguments of our theologians or to deny the sanctity of our\nsaints, and who seek to evade in this way the overwhelming force\nof the evidence for the truth of our religion. The veneration of\nsaints and the use of images in religious worship, they say,\nthough it does not prevent the _\u00e9lite_ of Catholics from\noffering a supreme and pure worship to God and looking up to\nJesus Christ as their only Saviour, leads the multitude to\nsuperstition and idolatry. We are better judges of the fact than\nthey are. They know next to nothing of the practical working of\nour religion, or of the ideas and state of mind of our people. We\nknow these things. We have, at least, as much abhorrence of\nidolatry as they have, and as much zeal for the enlightenment and\nspiritual welfare of the multitude. We know that there is no\ntaint of superstition or idolatry in the devotion of our people.\nThe Catholic Church keeps the ideas of God and Christ vividly\nbefore the minds of her children; they realize them in a manner\nof which those who are out of the church have no conception. The\naccusation of withdrawing from God and our Lord that which is due\nto them--to divide and scatter it among inferior beings--comes\nwith a very bad grace from Protestants. What have they done to\nreclaim mankind from polytheism and to spread the worship of the\ntrue God? They have done nothing, except to cripple the efforts\nof the Catholic priesthood by sowing dissension in Christendom\nand giving the scandal of disunion to infidels. They have bred\nanew the old heresies against the Trinity and the Divinity of\nChrist which had become extinct, together with the more monstrous\nerror of pantheism. We, the Catholic priesthood, have conquered\nthe ancient heathenism, have planted everywhere Christianity,\nhave established on an immovable foundation the doctrine of the\ndivinity of Jesus Christ, together with the worship of his\nadorable name.\n\n{735}\n\nWe are now carrying on the work of converting the heathen, and of\ndefending theism and Christianity against the hosts of enemies\nraised up against them by the revolt of the sixteenth century. If\nChristianity is to gain in the future new and more glorious\ntriumphs over the false religions of the world, it will be\nthrough our labors and our blood that she will win her victories.\nNot only do the defence and advancement of the supernatural order\nrest on us; we are obliged also to defend nature, reason, the\narts, the poetry and romance of life, from a gloomy Puritanism, a\nhopeless scepticism, a desolating materialism, which would sweep\naway all spiritual philosophy, all sound science, all gayety and\ncharm in life, all joyousness in religion, all ideality and\nheroism in the sphere of human existence. It is against a\nuniversal iconoclasm we have to contend--an iconoclasm which\nseeks to throw down and deface the image of celestial truth and\nbeauty, to break the painted windows through which the light of\nheaven streams in upon this earthly temple, to efface those\nangelic and saintly forms with the Madonna who is the queen of\nthe whole bright multitude, to overthrow the cross, and finally\nto drag down the sacred humanity of Christ, together with the\ndeity that dwells in it and is worshipped through it, leaving\nmankind without a temple, an altar, a Saviour, or a God. We have\nlearned the nature of the warfare we are engaged in too well from\nthe conflicts of eighteen centuries, to be deceived or misled. We\nknow that an attack on the smallest portion of the edifice of the\nCatholic Church means its total subversion, and that,\nconsequently, it is just as necessary to resist it as if it were\navowedly aimed at the foundation. We know that we cannot and must\nnot yield up the smallest fragment of Catholic truth for any\nplausible end whatever. Although, therefore, the veneration of\nsaints and holy images is not among the most necessary and\nfundamental parts of the Catholic religion, yet, as the principle\nfrom which it proceeds is an integral portion of Catholic\ndoctrine, we shall always maintain it with the same fidelity as\nwe do the primary truths of the Creed, the Unity and Trinity of\nthe Godhead, the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection of Jesus\nChrist. The images of Christ, of the Blessed Virgin, and of the\nsaints, will always remain above our altars and on the walls of\nour churches; the Salve Regina and Litanies of the Saints will\nnever cease to be chanted in our solemn services; and we shall\ncontinue to adore the Incarnate Word in his sacred humanity with\nthe worship of latria until the end of the world.\n\n------\n\n{736}\n\n        Nellie Netterville; Or,\n        One Of The Transplanted.\n\n\n    Chapter XV.\n\n\nBefore leaving the guard-room, Ormiston poured out a large goblet\nof wine from a flask which he had sent one of the soldiers to\nprocure at a wine-tavern hard by, and insisted upon Nellie\ndrinking it to the last drop.\n\nThe remainder of the flask he gave to Roger, who, truth to say,\nwas almost as much in need of it as Nellie; and they then all\nwent forth together, O'More having previously pledged his word,\nboth to Ormiston and Holdfast, to consider himself merely as a\nprisoner at large, until they themselves should release him from\nhis parole.\n\nTheir way led them from the gate-house into Bridge street, and\nfrom thence to Ormond Gate, Earl's Gate, \"Geata-na-Eorlagh,\" as\nit was then sometimes called. With Major Ormiston in their\ncompany, this was opened to them without a question, and they\nafterward proceeded, as fast as Nellie's strength permitted, up\nthe steep hill street, debouching into the Corn Market. Entering\nthe latter, they found themselves face to face with Newgate, the\ngreat criminal prison of the city. There it stood, dark, strong,\nand terrible--too strong, Roger could not help thinking, to be a\nfitting prison for the frail, dying woman it was guarding for the\nhangman. It seemed, indeed, almost like an abuse of power to have\ncast her there, so helpless as she was, and powerless, in the\nstrong grasp of the law.\n\nNewgate had originally formed a square, having at each of its\nfour angles a tower, three stories high, and turreted at the top.\nTwo of these however, those facing toward the city, had been\nrecently taken down; and when Nellie looked upon it for the first\ntime, it consisted merely of the gate-house, with its portcullis\nand iron gates, and a strong tower at either end. Near the prison\nstood the gibbet, metaphorically as well as really; for few,\nindeed, in those sad days, were the prisoners who, once shut up\nwithin the walls of Newgate, ever left them for a pleasanter\ndestination than the gallows. From the position in which it\nstood, they could hardly avoid seeing it as they passed onward\ntoward the prison; but in the faint hope of sparing at least poor\nNellie's eyes this terrible apparition, Ormiston stepped a little\nin advance of his companions, and placed himself between her and\nit. Roger, however, upon whose arm she leaned, knew, by the\nsudden tremor which shook her frame that this tender caution had\nbeen in vain. Nellie, in fact, had already seen and guessed at\nthe ghastly nature of its office there; and as her eye glanced\nreluctantly--and almost, as it were, in spite of herself--toward\nit, she felt as if she had never before thoroughly realized the\nawful position in which her mother stood. What wonder that she\ngrew sick and giddy as the thought forced itself, in all its\nnaked reality, on her mind, that her mother--_her mother_,\nthe very type and personification of refined and delicate\nwomanhood--might at any hour be dragged hither, shrinking and\nashamed, beneath the rude hangman's grasp?\n{737}\nWhat wonder that her very feet failed to do their office, and\nthat Roger was compelled rather to carry than to lead her past\nthe spot, never pausing or suffering her to pause until they\nstood before the gates of Newgate?\n\nHere, as at the city gate, the name and authority of Ormiston\nprocured them ready admission, the jailer receiving them with\ncourtesy, and showing them at once into a low, vaulted room on\nthe ground-floor of the prison. Notwithstanding this, however,\nOrmiston had no sooner announced the name of the prisoner they\nhad come to visit, than the man showed symptoms of great and\nirrepressible embarrassment.\n\n\"The prisoner had been very ill,\" he muttered; \"had burst a\nblood-vessel in the morning, and the bleeding had returned within\nthe hour. A doctor had been sent for, and was at that moment with\nher; but if Major Ormiston could condescend to wait, he would\ncall his wife, who was also in attendance on the poor lady, and\nwould tell her to announce the arrival of a visitor. It must be\ndone gently,\" he repeated over and over again, \"very gently; for\nthe doctor had already told him that any sudden shock would of\nnecessity prove fatal.\"\n\nOrmiston eyed the man curiously as he blundered through this\nstatement. He knew enough of Newgate, as it was then conducted,\nto doubt much if the visit of a doctor was a luxury often\nvouchsafed to its inhabitants; and feeling in consequence that\nsome mystery was concealed beneath the mention of such an\nofficial, he was almost tempted to fancy that Mrs. Netterville\nwas already dead, and that, on account of the presence of her\ndaughter, the man hesitated to say so. The next moment, however,\nhe had leaped to another and more correct conclusion, though for\nNellie's sake, and because intolerance formed no part of his\ncharacter, he made neither question nor comment, as the jailer\nevidently expected that he would, on the matter. Greatly relieved\nby this apparent absence of suspicion on the part of the English\nofficer, the man brought in a stool for Nellie to sit upon, and\nthen once more announced his intention of going in quest of his\nwife. Just as he opened the door for this purpose, Ormiston\ncaught a glimpse of a tall, gray-haired man, who passed down the\npassage quickly in company of a woman. The jailer saw him also,\nand with a sudden look of dismay upon his features, closed the\nhalf-opened door, and turned again to Ormiston.\n\n\"It was the doctor,\" he said with emphasis--\"the doctor who had\njust taken his departure; and as there was nothing now to prevent\ntheir seeing the sick lady, he would send his wife at once to\nconduct them to her cell.\"\n\nA long ten minutes followed, during which time Nellie sat quite\nstill, her face hidden by her hands, and shivering from head to\nfoot in fear and expectation. The door opened again, and she\nsprang up. This time it was the jailer's wife who entered.\n\n\"The poor lady had been informed,\" she said, \"of the arrival of\nher daughter, and was longing to embrace her. Would the young\nlady follow her to the cell?\"\n\nNellie was only too eager to do so, and they left the room\ntogether. Ormiston hesitated a moment as to what he would do\nhimself; but not liking to leave Nellie entirely in the hands of\nsuch people as jailers and their wives were in those days, he at\nlast proposed to Roger to follow and wait somewhere near the cell\nduring her approaching interview with her mother.\n{738}\nTo this Roger readily assented, and they reached the open door\njust as Nellie entered and knelt down by her mother's side.\n\nMore than a hundred years later than the period of which there is\nquestion in this tale, the treatment of prisoners in the Dublin\nNewgate was so horrible and revolting to the commonest sense of\ndecency and humanity as to demand a positive interference on the\npart of government. There is nothing, therefore, very astonishing\nin the fact, that the state in which Nellie found her mother\nfilled her brimful with sorrow and dismay. The cell in which she\nwas confined was low, and damp, and dark, and this she might have\nexpected, and was in some degree prepared for; but she had not\ncounted on the utter misery of its appointments; and the sight of\nher pale mother--death already haunting her dark eyes, and\nwritten unmistakably on her ghastly features--stretched upon the\nclammy pavement, a heap of dirty straw her only bed, and a\ntattered blanket her only covering, was such a shock and surprise\nto Nellie that, instead of joyfully announcing the fact of her\nreprieve to the poor captive, as she had intended, she fell upon\nher knees beside her, and wept over her like a child.\n\n\"Mother! mother!\" was all that she could say for sobbing, as she\ntook her mother's hand in hers and covered it with tears and\nkisses. Mrs. Netterville appeared for a moment too much overcome\nto speak, or even move, but gradually a faint flush passed over\nher wan face, and her eyes at last grew brighter and more\nlife-like, when Nellie, making a strong and desperate effort to\ncommand her feelings, suddenly wiped away her tears and bent over\nthe bed to kiss her.\n\n\"O mother! mother!\" the poor girl could not refrain from once\nmore sobbing, \"is it thus that I see you after all?\"\n\n\"Nay, child,\" the mother gasped with difficulty, \"you should\nrather thank God for it on your knees. See you not it is an\nespecial mercy? If I had not burst a blood-vessel to-day,\nto-morrow--yes, to-morrow\"--a shudder ran through her wasted\nframe, and she broke off suddenly.\n\n\"But I have brought you a reprieve,\" sobbed Nellie, hardly\nknowing what she said, or the danger of saying it at that\nmoment--\"a reprieve which is almost a pardon. Only a few days\nmore, and you would have been free, whereas now--now\"--tears\nchoked her utterance, and, hiding her face on her mother's scanty\ncoverlet, she sobbed as if her heart were breaking. Mrs.\nNetterville half raised herself on her pallet bed. For one brief\nmoment she struggled with that desire for life which lurks in\nevery human breast, and which Nellie's exclamation had called\nforth afresh in hers. For one brief moment that phantom of life\nand liberty, lost just as they had been found again--lost just as\nthey had become more than ever precious in her eyes--that\ncontrast between what was to be her portion and what it\n_might_ have been, deluged her soul with a bitterness more\nintolerable than that of death itself, and her frail body shook\nand trembled like an aspen leaf beneath the new weight of misery\nthus laid upon it. That one unguarded word of Nellie's had, in\nfact, changed, as if by magic, all her thoughts and feelings and\naspirations. Death and life, and health and sickness, freedom and\ncaptivity, had each put on a new and unexpected aspect in her\neyes, and that very thing which, only a minute or two before, had\nseemed to her soul as a source of real consolation, had suddenly\ntaken the guise of a great misfortune. It was as if God himself\nhad mocked her with feigned mercy; a weaker soul might so have\nsaid, and sunk beneath the burden! But with that strong and\nwell-tried spirit the struggle ended otherwise.\n\n{739}\n\nClasping her wasted hands together, and lifting up her eyes to\nheaven, the dying woman exclaimed, in a voice which none could\nhear and doubt of the truth of the sentiments it uttered, \"My\nGod! my God! Thy will, not mine, be done!\" Then she fell back\nquietly on her pillow, exhausted indeed with the effort she had\nmade, but calm and smiling and resigned, as if that sudden\nglimpse of renewed happiness and life had never, mirage-like,\nrisen to mock her with its beauty.\n\nThe first use Mrs. Netterville made of her victory over nature\nwas to comfort Nellie.\n\n\"Weep not, dear child,\" she whispered tenderly; \"weep not so\nsadly, but rather thank God with me for the consolation which he\nhas given us in this meeting. Where is Hamish?\" she added,\nturning her dim eyes toward the open door, where Ormiston and\nO'More were lingering still, and evidently fancying that one or\nother of them was her absent servant--\"where is Hamish? He has\ndone my bidding bravely; why comes he not forward, that I may\nthank him?\"\n\n\"Hamish is not here, mother; I left him with my grandfather.\"\n\n\"God help you, child!\" moaned Mrs. Netterville, a sudden spasm at\nher heart at the thought of her unprotected child, \"God help you!\nhave you come hither all this way alone?\"\n\n\"Mother,\" said Nellie in a smothered voice, \"I am not alone.\nRoger More came with me. Without him it would have been\nimpossible.\"\n\n\"Roger More--Roger More,\" repeated Mrs. Netterville, trying to\ngather together her memories of the days gone by. \"It was in the\narms of a Roger More that your father breathed his last.\"\n\n\"In mine, dear lady!\" cried Roger, unable any longer to resist\nthe temptation of presenting himself to Nellie's mother--\"in\nmine! And knowing that the father did me the honor to call me\nfriend, Lord Netterville has had the great kindness to entrust me\nwith the daughter in this long journey, which the love she bears\nyou compelled her to undertake.\"\n\nSomething in the tones of Roger's voice, rather than in the words\nhe uttered, seemed to strike on the mother's ear. She smiled a\ngrateful smile of recognition, and then turned a questioning\nglance, first upon his face and afterward on Nellie's. Perhaps\nRoger interpreted that glance aright. At all events,\nhe took Nellie's hand, and, as if moved by a sudden inspiration,\nlaid it on her mother's, saying:\n\n\"Only the day after that on which I saw her first, I told her\nthat I would never ask for this dear hand until her mother was by\nto give it.\"\n\n\"Her mother gives it,\" said Mrs. Netterville solemnly. \"Yes! for\nI guess by Nellie's silence that her heart is not far from you\nalready.\"\n\n\"Mother, mother!\" cried Nellie, resisting Mrs. Netterville's\nfeeble efforts to place her hand in Roger's--\"not here--not\nnow--not when you are dying.\"\n\n\"For that very reason,\" gasped the mother. \"My son,\" she added,\nfixing her eyes full on Roger, \"_you_ can understand. I\nwould see my Nellie in safe hands before I go.\"\n\n\"It would be the fulfilment of my dearest wish,\" said Roger\nearnestly, \"if only it be possible.\"\n\n{740}\n\n\"It _is_ possible,\" she was beginning; but pausing at the\nsight of Ormiston, who had by this time joined himself to the\ngroup around her bed, she added in an apprehensive tone, \"but\nthere is a stranger present.\"\n\n\"Not a stranger, but a friend,\" the young officer replied, in a\ntone of sincerity it would have been impossible to doubt, even if\nNellie had not whispered, \"A friend, indeed! Without him we could\nhardly have been with you now.\"\n\n\"Then I will trust him as a friend,\" Mrs. Netterville replied.\n\"The gentleman who left me as you entered--\"\n\n\"The doctor,\" Ormiston interrupted, with a marked emphasis on the\nword.\n\n\"Well, the doctor,\" she replied, with a languid smile. \"He can do\nall I need, and he lives close at hand, with the merchant William\nLyon, who knows him not, however,\" she added, mindful of the\nsafety of the person named--\"who knows him not in any other\ncharacter than that of a lodger and chance sojourner in the\ncity.\"\n\n\"In ten minutes he shall be here,\" said Ormiston, \"if I can\ninduce him to come with me. Meanwhile I will give orders to the\njailer to leave you undisturbed.\"\n\n\"If you permit it, Major Ormiston, I will go with you,\" said\nRoger, not only zealous for the success of the embassy, but\nanxious, likewise, that before taking such a decided step Nellie\nshould have the opportunity of a private conference with her\nmother. \"I think my name, and a word which I can whisper in his\near, may be of use--otherwise he might fear a snare.\"\n\nOrmiston assenting to this proposition, the young men departed,\nand for the first time since the commencement of their interview\nmother and daughter were alone together.\n\nFor some minutes, however, neither of them spoke. Mrs.\nNetterville lay back, endeavoring to recover breath and strength\nfor the coming scene, and Nellie was completely stunned. The\nshock of finding her mother dying at the very moment when she had\nhoped to restore her to new life--the bodily weariness consequent\non her journey--the sudden, and, to her, the most inexplicable\nresolution to which Mrs. Netterville had come in her regard--all\ncombined to paralyze her faculties, and, hardly able to think or\neven feel, she sat like a statue on the floor beside her mother.\n\nFrom this state of stupor she was roused at last by the sound of\nthe dying woman's voice:\n\n\"Nellie!\"\n\n\"Mother!\" cried the girl; and then, as she felt that poor\nmother's hand feebly endeavoring to twine itself round her neck,\nshe burst into a fresh flood of tears. They saved her senses,\nperhaps--who knows? Creatures as strong in mind as she was, and\nstronger far in body, have died or gone mad ere now beneath such\na strain on both as had been put upon her for weeks.\n\n\"Nellie, my child--my only one--weep not!\" her mother whispered\ntenderly. \"Believe me, little daughter, that I die happy.\"\n\n\"O mother, mother!\" Nellie sobbed; \"and I thought to have given\nyou life!\"\n\nMrs. Netterville paused a moment, and then, in a voice tremulous\nwith feeling, she replied:\n\n\"Nellie, I would not deceive you. Life is no idle thing to be\ncast off carelessly as a garment; and for one brief moment the\nthought that, but for this sudden malady, I might yet have lived\nsome years longer, filled my soul with sorrow! But it is over\nnow--more than over--and I am at peace. Why should I not? for you\nare safe--you for whom I chiefly clung to life! Yes! now that a\nman good and generous, as I long have known Roger More to be, is\nabout to take my place beside you, I go without repining--nay,\n'repining' is not the word,\" she said, correcting herself--\"I go\nin great joy and jubilation to the presence of my God.\"\n\n{741}\n\n\"O mother!\" sobbed Nellie, cut to the soul by this allusion to\nher marriage, \"that is the worst of all. Do not insist upon it, I\nentreat you.\"\n\n\"Silence, Nellie!\" Mrs. Netterville answered, almost sternly.\n\"Think you I could die happy if I left you--a child--a\ngirl--unprotected in this wild city?\"\n\n\"Mother, be not angry, I beseech you,\" Nellie pleaded, \"if I\nremind you that I came hither safe!\"\n\n\"Ay, but you were coming to your mother, and the world itself\ncould say no evil of one bent on such a mission. To-morrow,\nNellie, you will be motherless, and I will not have it said of\nyou hereafter, that you went wandering through the country\nprotected by a man who had no husband's right to do it. Child,\nchild!\" Mrs. Netterville added, in a tone of almost agonized\nsupplication, \"if you would have me die in peace, if you would\nnot that your presence here (instead of joy) should cast gall and\nvinegar into the cup of death, you will yield your will to mine,\nand go back to your grandfather a wedded woman.\"\n\n\"Mother!\" cried Nellie, terrified by the vehemence with which her\nmother spoke, \"dear mother, say no more! It shall be even as you\nwish. I promise. Alas! alas! this weary bleeding has commenced\nagain--what shall I do to aid you?\"\n\nMrs. Netterville could not speak, for blood was gushing violently\nfrom her lips, but she pointed to a jug of water on the floor.\nNellie took the hint at once, and dipped a handkerchief into the\nwater; with this she bathed her mother's brow, and washed her\nlips, until by degrees the hemorrhage subsided, and the dying\nwoman lay back once more pale and quiet on her pillow.\n\nJust then, to Nellie's great relief, the jailer entered, bearing\na lighted torch; for the sun was going down, and the cell was\nalmost dark already.\n\nAfter him came Ormiston and O'More, accompanied by the\ngray-haired man who had been with Mrs. Netterville at the moment\nof their own arrival in the prison. Ormiston took the torch from\nthe jailer's hand, and placing a gold piece there instead,\ndismissed him, with orders to close the door behind him, and to\ngive them due notice before shutting up the prison for the night.\nAs he set the torch in the sconce placed for it against the wall,\nthe light fell full upon Mrs. Netterville's face, which looked so\npale and drawn that for a moment he thought that she was dead,\nand whispered his suspicion to the stranger.\n\nThe latter drew a small vial from his bosom, and poured a few\ndrops upon her lips. They revived her almost immediately; she\nopened her eyes, and a smile passed over her white face as they\nfell upon her visitant. \"You here again, my father!\" she murmured\nbeneath her breath. \"I thank God that you have had the courage.\nYou know the purpose for which I need you?\"\n\n\"I know it--and, under the circumstances, approve it,\" the\nstranger answered quietly. \"The sooner, therefore, that it is\ndone the better it will be for all.\"\n\n\"Poor child--poor Nellie!\" murmured Mrs. Netterville, as she\ncaught the sound of the low sobbing which, spite of all her\nefforts at self-control, burst ever and anon from Nellie's lips.\n\"Poor little Nellie! no wonder that she weeps. It is a sad,\nstrange place for a wedding, is this prison-cell!\"\n\n{742}\n\n\"These are strange times,\" said the priest kindly, \"and they\nleave us, alas! but little choice of place in the fulfilment of\nour duties. Nevertheless, sad as all this must seem at present, I\nam certain that your daughter will, some day or other, look back\nupon her wedding in this prison-cell with a sense of gladness no\nearthly pomp could have conferred on marriage; for she then will\nunderstand, even better than she does now, how, by this\nconcession to a mother's wishes, she has secured peace and\nhappiness to that mother's death-bed. That is,\" he added, turning\nand pointedly addressing himself to Nellie, \"if sorrow for her\nmother's state is the sole cause for all this weeping?\"\n\nNellie felt that he had asked indirectly a serious question, and\nshe was too truthful not to answer it at once. She did not speak,\nhowever--she could not; but she gave her hand to Roger, and made\none step forward.\n\n\"Come nearer,\" whispered her mother, \"come nearer, that I may see\nand hear.\"\n\nRoger drew Nellie nearer, until they both were standing close to\nthe sick woman's pillow.\n\n\"Raise me up,\" the latter whispered faintly.\n\nHe lifted her in his strong arms, for she was as helpless as a\nchild, and placed her in a sitting posture, with her back\nsupported by the wall near which her bed was placed.\n\nAs soon as she had recovered a little from the faintness\nconsequent on this exertion, she waved her hand to Roger as a\nsignal that the ceremony should begin. The priest turned at once\nto the young couple, and commenced his office, making it as brief\nas possible. Brief, however, as it was, and bare of outward\nceremonial, Ormiston, as he stood a little in the background,\ncould not help feeling that he never before had looked on, might\nnever again behold, such a strangely touching scene. The wasted\nfeatures of the poor mother, for whom death seemed only waiting\nuntil her anxiety for the safety of her child had been set at\nrest for ever; the fair face of Nellie, pale now with grief and\nwatching, but ready as a budding rose to flush into yet brighter\nbeauty with the first return of sunshine; Roger, with such a look\nof grave yet conscious gladness in his eyes as best suited the\nmingled nature of the scene in which he was a foremost actor; the\npriest, who, at the risk of his own liberty or life, was\nfulfilling one of the most solemn offices of his sacred calling;\nthe vaulted roof above, glistening in the damp as the light\nflashed on it, and the bare, bleak walls around, with the names\nof many a weary captive inscribed upon them; joy and sorrow, hope\nand fear; life springing forward, on the one hand, to its\nbrightest hours, and sadly receding, on the other, into the\nshadows of the tomb--all were gathered together in that\nprison-cell, and combined to form a picture which would have\nneeded the pencil of a great master to render in its full force\nand truth.\n\nIt was done at last! Nellie had said the word which made her a\nwedded wife, and Mrs. Netterville folded her in her arms, and\nwhispered, \"Thank you, dearest, thank you; for I know what this\nmust have cost you!\" and then placing her hand in Roger's, added,\n\"Take her, my son--take her; God is my witness that I give her to\nyou without a fear for her future happiness. To you in whose arms\nthe father died I may well intrust the daughter!\"\n\n{743}\n\n\"You shall never repent it, mother--never!\" said Roger, with\nthat calm, determined manner which better than many words, brings\nassurance to the soul, of truth. \"I loved her from the first day\nI saw her, not so much for her brightness and her human beauty,\nas for that higher beauty which I thought I discovered in her\nsoul, and which she has bravely proved since then. Over beauty\nsuch as that time has no power; the love, therefore, that springs\nfrom it must last for ever.\"\n\n\"It is well, my son,\" replied Mrs. Netterville, \"I thank you, and\nbelieve you. And now, be not angry if I bid you go! For this one\nday Nellie must be all my own--to-morrow there will be no one to\ndispute her with you.\"\n\nShe spoke the last words hurriedly, for the jailer entered at\nthat moment to inform Ormiston that the prison was about to be\nshut up for the night, and that it was his duty to see that all\nstrangers left it.\n\n\"But not Nellie--not my child?\" said Mrs. Netterville, with an\nappealing look, first to the jailer and then to Ormiston. \"Surely\nyou will leave Nellie with me?\"\n\n\"They must!\" cried Nellie passionately, \"for by force alone can\nthey drag me from you.\"\n\n\"Sir,\" said the dying woman, addressing herself this time to\nOrmiston alone, \"add this one favor, I beseech you, to all the\nothers you have done me, and let my child close my dying eyes?\"\n\n\"I cannot refuse you, madam,\" he replied, much moved. \"But is\nyour daughter equal to the effort? Would it not be better to have\nthe jailer's wife as well?\"\n\n\"No--no!\" cried Nellie, answering before her mother, who looked\nhalf inclined to assent to this proposition, could reply. \"I am\nequal, and more than equal. I would not have a stranger with us\nto-night for the world.\"\n\n\"Come for her, then, at the first dawn of day,\" said Mrs.\nNetterville, with a glance, the meaning of which they understood\ntoo well. She gave her hand in turn to each of the young men, and\nthen signed to them to withdraw. Ormiston did so at once; but\nRoger turned first to Nellie, and taking her passive hand, lifted\nit silently to his lips. Not to save his life or hers could he\nhave done more than that in the solemn presence of her dying\nmother.\n\nHe then followed Ormiston. The priest lingered a moment longer to\nspeak a word of cheer to his poor penitent; but the jailer\ncalling him impatiently, he also disappeared, and the cell-door\nwas closed behind him.\n\n\n\n    Chapter XVI.\n\nThe rattling of the key in the lock as the jailer shut them up\nfor the night came like a death-knell on poor Nellie's ear. So\nlong as Ormiston and Roger had been there beside her, she had,\nquite unconsciously to herself, entertained a sort of hope that\nsomething (she knew not what) might yet be devised for the solace\nof her mother; and now that they were gone indeed, she felt as\npeople feel when the physician takes his leave of his dying\npatient, thus tacitly confessing that all hope is over. The lamp,\nwhich, in obedience to a word from Ormiston, the jailer had\nbrought in trimmed and lighted for the night, revealed the cell\nto her in all its bleak reality, and as she glanced from the\nstraw pallet, which at Netterville they would have hesitated to\nplace beneath a beggar, to the pitcher of cold water, which was\nthe only refreshment provided for the dying woman, Nellie felt\nanew such a sense of her mother's misery and of her own inability\nto procure her comfort, that, unable to utter a single syllable,\nshe sat for a few moments by her side weeping hopelessly and\nhelplessly as a child.\n{744}\nMrs. Netterville heard her sobbing, and, after waiting a few\nminutes in hopes the paroxysm would subside, said gently:\n\n\"Nellie--my little one--weep not so bitterly, I entreat you; you\nknow not how it pains me.\"\n\n\"How can I help it, mother?\" sobbed the girl, unable to conceal\nthe thought uppermost in her own mind. \"_You_ suffer, and\nthe lowest scullion in the kitchen of Netterville would have\ndeemed herself ill-used in such poverty as this!\"\n\n\"Is that all, my child?\" said her mother, with a faint smile.\n\"Nay, dear Nellie, you may believe me, that, to a soul which\nfeels itself within an hour of eternity, it is of little moment\nwhether straw or satin support the body it is leaving. Eternity!\nyes, eternity!\" she murmured to herself \"Alas! alas! how little\ndo we realize in the short days of time the awful significance of\nthat word, for ever!\n\n\"Mother, you are not afraid!\" burst from Nellie's lips, a new and\nhitherto unthought-of anxiety rushing to her mind.\n\n\"Afraid!\" Mrs. Netterville echoed the expression with a smile.\n\"No, my daughter, by the grace of God and goodness of Our Lady I\nam not afraid. Nevertheless eternity, with its ministering angel\nDeath, are awful things to look on, Nellie, and if I could smile\nat aught which makes you weep, it would be to think that such a\nsilly grievance as a straw pallet could add to their awfulness in\nyour eyes.\"\n\n\"Not to their awfulness, mother,\" Nellie sobbed, \"but to their\nsorrow; it is such a pain to see you comfortless.\"\n\n\"And has no one else been comfortless in death?\" Mrs. Netterville\nwhispered almost reproachfully. \"Only consider, Nellie, this\nstraw bed which you lament so bitterly is a very couch of down\ncompared to His, when he laid him down upon the hard wood of the\ncross to die.\"\n\n\"Mother, forgive me; I never thought of that,\" said Nellie\nhumbly. \"I only thought of your discomfort.\"\n\n\"Think of nothing now, dear Nellie, but this one word of\nScripture, 'Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord;' and hope\nand pray that it may be so with me to-night. Now, dry your eyes\nand listen, for I have much to say, and but little time left\nwherein to say it. Dry your eyes, for I cannot bear to see you\nweeping thus. Your tears have almost the power to make me repine\nat death.\"\n\nThe last hint was sufficient. Nellie resolutely checked her\ntears, and laid her head down on her mother's pillow, in order\nthat the latter might speak to her with less danger of fatigue.\n\nThen, in a few earnest, touching words, Mrs. Netterville set\nbefore her daughter the duties of her new state of life, and gave\nadvice, which, precious as it would have been at any time, was\ndoubly precious then, coming as it did from the lips of a dying\nmother; after which, true to an idea ever uppermost in the Irish\nmind, and which she had too thoroughly adopted her husband's\ncountry not to feel as keenly upon almost as he could have done\nhimself, she adverted to her own place of burial.\n\n\"It cannot be at Netterville, I know,\" she said. \"I may not\nsleep, as I had ever hoped, by the side of my brave husband! But\nin your new western home, dear Nellie--in your new western home,\nwhere the churches, I believe, are yet undesecrated--there, if\nit be possible, I would gladly take my rest--there, where you can\ncome sometimes to pray for your poor mother, and where, when my\nhusband's father follows me, as no doubt he must full soon, he\ncan be laid quietly to sleep beside me.\"\n\n{745}\n\nShe paused, and Nellie muttered something, she hardly knew what,\nwhich she hoped would sound like an assent in her mother's ears.\nNot for worlds would she have saddened her at such a moment by\nallowing her to discover that Roger, like themselves, had been\nrobbed of his inheritance, and that, instead of that quiet\nwestern home of which she spoke so confidently, her wedded life\nwith him must be spent of necessity in a foreign land.\n\nWhatever she did or did not say, her mother evidently fancied it\nwas a promise in conformity with her wishes, and went on in that\nlow, rambling way peculiar to the dying:\n\n\"It was not thus--not thus that I had thought to visit that wild\nland. I dreamed of a resting-place and a welcome--a meeting of\nmingled joy and sadness--and then a homely life, and at its close\na peaceful ending. But it is better as it is--much better. Our\nnext meeting will be all of joy--joy in that eternal home where\nGod gathers together his beloved ones, and bids them smile in the\nsunshine of his presence. Yes, yes! it is better as it is!\"\n\n\"As God wills. He knows best--he knows,\" and then Nellie\nstopped, powerless to complete the sentence.\n\n\"Remember me to my father, Nellie, \"Mrs. Netterville continued\nfaintly--\"for father I may truly call him who has been in very\ndeed a parent to me ever since I was wedded to his son. And poor\nHamish also--let him not think himself forgotten, and tell him\nespecially of the gratitude I feel for this great consolation\nprocured me by his faithful service--my Nellie's heart to rest on\nin dying--my Nellie's hands to close my eyes in death.\"\n\nThe last words were barely audible, and after they were uttered\nMrs. Netterville lay for a long time so mute and still that,\nfancying she was asleep, Nellie hardly dared to move, or even\nalmost to breathe, lest she should disturb her. At last she felt\nher mother's hand steal gently in search of hers.\n\n\"Your hand, dear Nellie,\" she whispered softly. \"Nay, do not\nspeak, my daughter, but take my hand in yours, that I may feel,\nwhen I cannot see, the comfort of your presence.\"\n\nNellie took her mother's hand in hers. It was as cold as ice, and\nshe gently tried to chafe it. But the movement disturbed the\ndying woman.\n\n\"It prevents me thinking, Nellie,\" she whispered faintly, \"and my\nthoughts are very sweet.\"\n\nThe words sent a gush of tenderness and joy to Nellie's heart,\ntelling her, as they did, that her mother's was at peace. But the\nphysical condition of that poor mother still weighed heavily on\nher soul, and taking the mantle from her own shoulders, she laid\nit on the bed, hoping thus gradually and imperceptibly to restore\nwarmth to the failing system. Mrs. Netterville perceived what she\nhad done, and, true to that forgetfulness of self which had been\nthe chief characteristic of her life, she would not have it so.\n\"Nay, nay, child,\" she murmured as well as she could, for she was\nby this time well-nigh speechless, \"put it on again, for you need\nit, and I do not. This death-chill is not pain.\"\n\n{746}\n\nShe tried to push it from her as she spoke, and became so uneasy\nthat Nellie, in order to calm her, was forced to resume the\ngarment. Satisfied on this point, her mother closed her eyes like\na weary child, and fell into a dozing slumber. It was the stupor\npreceding death, but Nellie, never suspecting this, felt thankful\nthat her mother's hacking cough had ceased, and that her\nbreathing had become less painful. For more than an hour she sat\nthus, her mother's hand in hers--praying, watching,\nweeping--weeping silent, soundless tears--not sobbing, lest it\nshould disturb the sleeper.\n\nThe night passed onward in its course, but day was yet far off\nwhen the lamp began to waver. Sometimes it flickered and\nsputtered as if just going to be extinguished, and then again it\nwould flare up suddenly, casting strange shadows through the\ngloomy space, and deepening the pallor on the sleeper's brow,\nuntil it almost seemed as if she were dead already. Lower still,\nand lower, after each of these fresh spurts, it sank, while\nNellie watched it nervously; but just as she fancied that it had\nactually died out, it flashed up high and bright again, full upon\nher mother's face. Nellie turned eagerly to gaze once more upon\nthose dear features. Even as she did so, a rush of darkness\nseemed to fill the cell--darkness that could be almost felt--and\na pang seized upon the poor girl's heart, for she knew at once by\nintuition that the lamp was now gone indeed, and that she had\nlooked for the last time on the face of her living mother.\n\nThe sudden change from light to darkness seemed somehow to\ndisturb the invalid. She opened her eyes wearily, and something\nlike a shudder passed over her; but when she felt her daughter's\nhand still clasping hers, a heavenly smile (pity that Nellie\ncould not see it then--she saw its shadow on the dead face next\nday, however) settled on her features, and she whispered:\n\n\"You here still, dear child? Thank God--thank God for that!\"\n\n\"Mother, what would you?\" Nellie asked, amid her tears.\n\n\"It is coming, Nellie; be not frightened, dearest. It is coming\nlike a gentle sleep. Pray for me, dear one; pray loud, that I may\nhear you.\"\n\nWhat prayer could Nellie say at such a moment? An orphan already\nby the loss of her father, she was about to be doubly orphaned in\nher mother's death, and her thoughts turned naturally and\nspontaneously toward that other Parent whose home is heaven, and\nwho, Father as he is to each of us, has pledged himself to be so\nin a yet more especial and individual manner to the fatherless of\nhis earthly kingdom.\n\nThe words of the \"Our Father\" seemed to rise unbidden to her\nlips.\n\n\"Our Father who art in heaven.\"\n\n\"Who art in heaven,\" her mother repeated after her; and then came\na pause of sweet, and solemn meditation.\n\n\"Thy kingdom come,\" Nellie once more found voice to say. Mrs.\nNetterville had ever kept the desire of that kingdom in her heart\nof hearts. Surely he was now calling her to enjoy it in eternity!\nSo Nellie thought, and the thought gave her strength and courage\nto go on.\n\n\"Thy will be done!\"--that _will_ which was calling her last\nparent from her side. Nellie sobbed aloud as she uttered the\nwords, but Mrs. Netterville took them up, and, in a voice of\nineffable love and sweetness, kept repeating over and over again,\nas if she never could weary of the sentiment.\n\n\"Thy will be done; _thy_ will--_thy_ will--thy will,\never merciful and to be adored--thy will, my God, my Father, and\nmy Redeemer--thy will, not mine, be done!\"\n\n{747}\n\nNellie listened until she almost felt as if she herself were\nstanding with her mother on the threshold of eternity. A sweet\nand awful calmness settled on her soul. She knew intuitively that\nher mother was in the very act of dying, but she no longer felt\nfear or sorrow. It was as if the Judge of the living and the\ndead, not stern and exacting, but tender and approving, was\ndescending in person to that bed of death to speak the sentence\nof his faithful servant. It was as if saints and angels were\ncrowding after him, bowed down, indeed, beneath his awful\npresence, but yet glad and jubilant over the crowning of a sister\nspirit, and bringing the songs and sweetness of heaven itself on\nthe rustling of their snowy wings. And in the midst of such\nthoughts as these, Nellie still could hear her mother's voice\nrepeating, \"Thy will, my God, not mine, be done.\"\n\nFainter still and fainter grew that voice, as the soul which\nspoke by it receded toward eternity; then all at once it died\naway, and Nellie felt that the last word had been said in heaven.\n\nIt was very dark now, and very cold--the cold that precedes the\ndawn--cold in Nellie's heart within, and cold in the outside\nworld around her. She shivered, and was scarcely conscious that\nshe did so. Was her mother really dead? She knew it, and yet\ncould scarce believe it. For a little while she knelt there\nstill, waiting and holding in her breath in the vague, faint hope\nthat once more, if it were even for the last time, once more that\nsweet, plaintive voice might greet her longing ear. But it never\ncame again. At last, by a great effort, she put forth her\ntrembling hand and touched her mother's face. It was already\ngrowing cold, with that strange, hard coldness which makes the\nface of the dead like a marble mask to the living hands that\ntouch it. She shuddered; nevertheless, with an instinctive\nfeeling of what was right and proper by the dead, she did not\nwithdraw it until she had pressed it gently on the eyelids, and\nso closed them without almost an effort.\n\nThat done, she knelt down once more, and, hiding her face in the\nscanty bedclothes, tried to pray.\n\n  ......\n\nDay began to dawn at last, and a few sad rays forced their way\ninto that gloomy cell; but Nellie never saw them. Sounds began to\ncome in from the newly-awakened city, but Nellie never heard\nthem. The prison itself shook off its slumbers, and there was a\nslamming of distant doors and an occasional hurried step along\nthe passages; and still she took no heed. She knew, in a vague,\ncareless way, that at one time or another some one would be sent\nto her assistance, and that was all she thought or cared about\nit. In the mean time she prayed, or tried to pray; but when at\nlast they did come, they found her stretched upon the floor, as\ncold almost and quite as unconscious as her dead mother.\n\n\n\n    Chapter XVII.\n\n\"To the memory of Francis, Twelfth Baron of Netterville, one of\nthe Transplanted, and of Mary, the widow of his only son.\"\n\n{748}\n\nNellie stooped to decipher the inscription, but it may be doubted\nif she saw aught save the stone upon which Hamish, in obedience\nto his master's dying orders, had engraved it, for her eyes were\nfull of tears. A hurried journey to the west, another death-bed,\nand a few weeks more of tears and renewed sense of desolation had\nfollowed the events recorded in our last chapter, and then at\nlast a holy calmness settled upon Nellie's soul--a calmness and a\nhappiness which was all the more likely to endure that it was\nfounded upon past sorrows bravely met and meekly borne, in a\nspirit of true and loving resignation to the will of Him who had\nlaid them on her shoulders. From the day of her departure from\nClare Island, the old lord had drooped like a plant deprived of\nsunshine, and he died on the very evening of her return, his hand\nin hers, smiling upon her and her brave husband, and leaving for\nonly vengeance on his foes the inscription which heads this\nchapter, to be engraved upon his tombstone.\n\nNellie laid him to rest beside her mother; for through the\nkindness of Ormiston she had been enabled to carry out Mrs.\nNetterville's dying wishes, and to bear her remains to that\nwestern shore which she had so fondly and so vainly fancied was\nto be her daughter's future home. Ormiston had done yet more. He\nhad obtained a reversal of the sentence of outlawry against\nRoger, coupled with the usual permission to \"beat his drum,\" as\nit was called, for recruits to follow his banner into foreign\nlands, to fight in the armies of foreign kings. It was the evil\npolicy of those evil times.\n\nTo rid Ireland of the Irish was the grand panacea for the woes of\nIreland, the only one her rulers ever recognized, and of which,\ntherefore, they availed themselves most largely, careless or\nunconscious of the fatal element of strength they were thus\nflinging to their foes. As a native chieftain and a well-tried\nsoldier, Roger had a double claim upon his people, and short as\nhad been the time allotted to him for the purpose, fifty men, of\nthe same breed and mettle as the soldiers who fought at a later\nperiod against an English king until he cursed, in the bitterness\nof his heart, the laws which had deprived him of such subjects,\nhad already obeyed his summons. They assembled under the\ntemporary command of Hamish, near the tower, waiting the moment\nfor embarkation, and the ship that was to convey them to their\ndestination was riding at single anchor in the bay on that very\nmorning when Nellie and her husband knelt for the last time\nbeside her mother's grave. It was like a second parting with that\nmother. But with Roger at her side she could not feel altogether\nfriendless or unhappy, and they prayed for a little time in\nsilence, with a calm sense of sadness which had something of\nheavenly sweetness in it. At last it was time to go, and Roger\nlaid a warning finger upon his young wife's shoulder. She did not\nsay a word, but she bent down once more and kissed her mother's\nname upon the stone; then she gave her hand to Roger, and they\nleft the churchyard together. While she had been lingering there,\nHenrietta had landed with Ormiston at the pier to bid her a last\nadieu. The quick eye of the English girl instantly perceived the\ngoodly company of recruits assembled near the tower, and with a\nlittle smile of malicious triumph she pointed them out to her\ncompanion. Ormiston shook his head reprovingly. He was too\nthoroughly a soldier not to lament the policy which drafted large\nbodies of men into foreign armies, but he was full at that moment\nof his own concerns, and had little inclination to waste time in\ndiscussing the wisdom of his leaders. The truth was, Henrietta's\nreception of him on his arrival from Dublin the night before had\ndisappointed him.\n{749}\nHe had come in obedience to her own written orders, as conveyed\nto him by Nellie, and instead of the frank, loving meeting which\nhis own frank and loving nature had anticipated, he had found her\nshy, cold, and, he was forced to confess to himself, almost\nunkind. At first he consoled himself by attributing this in a\ngreat measure to the presence of her father, before whom she\nalways seemed naturally to assume the bearing of a spoiled and\nunruly child; but when at her own invitation he had rowed her\nthat morning to Clare Island, and her manner, instead of\nsoftening, as he had hoped, grew even colder and more constrained\nthan it had been before, he became seriously distressed, and\nunable to endure the suspense any longer, they had hardly landed\nfrom the boat ere he turned short round upon her, and said:\n\n\"Henrietta, before you move one step further, you must answer me\nthis question--are we in future to be friends or foes?\"\n\n\"Not foes! Oh! certainly, not foes!\" Henrietta stammered, taken\nquite aback by the suddenness of the question. \"Oh! certainly,\nnot foes!\"\n\n\"Because I cannot endure this uncertainty much longer,\" he went\non as if he had not heard her. \"I must have an answer, and that\nsoon. I might, indeed, insist upon your own letter, but I will\nnot. It was written under a sudden impulse, and the word that\ngives you to me for a wife must be said with a calm consciousness\nof its import. What shall that word be, Henrietta--yes or no?\"\n\n\"Yes, if you will have me,\" she said, in a low voice,\nhalf-turning away her head as she did so.\n\n\"If! So long and so faithfully as I have loved you, and do you\nstill talk of _if?_\" he answered, almost reproachfully.\n\n\"There is an 'if,' however,\" said Henrietta; \"and when you have\nheard me out, you will have to decide the question for yourself.\"\n\n\"Nay, the only 'if' for me is the 'if' that you really love me,\"\nhe replied wistfully, and in a way which showed he felt by no\nmeans certain upon that score.\n\n\"That is the very thing,\" she answered, flushing scarlet. \"Harry,\ndear Harry, remember that I have never had a mother's care, and\npromise to be still my friend, even if what I have got to tell\nyou should alter all your other wishes in my regard.\"\n\n\"What can you have to say that could do that?\" he asked\nimpatiently. \"For God's sake, Henrietta, say it out at once,\nwhatever it may be!\"\n\n\"It is not so very easy, perhaps,\" she said in a low voice. And\nthen she added quickly: \"They call me a woman grown, Harry, and\nyet in some few things I think that I am still almost a child.\"\n\n\"In a great _many_ things rather, I should say,\" he could\nnot resist saying, with a smile.\n\nThat smile reassured her, and she went on quickly: \"You know that\nit has never been a new thing to me to consider myself your wife,\nHarry. My father has treated me from childhood as your affianced\nbride, and we have played at being wedded in the nursery. You\ncannot be surprised, therefore, if in my feelings toward you\nthere has been something of unquestioning security, which does\nnot enter usually, I think, into the relations in which we stood\ntoward each other. This kind of sisterly feeling--oh! do not\nlook so cross, Harry,\" she cried, suddenly stopping short, \"or I\nshall never be able to go on.\" \"Do not talk of sisterly feeling,\nthen,\" he answered moodily, \"for _that_ I cannot bear.\"\n\n{750}\n\n\"I need not, for I do not feel in the least like a sister to you\nnow,\" she answered, with a pretty _na\u00efvet\u00e9_, that made him\nalmost depart from the attitude of cold seriousness in which he\nhad elected to receive the confessions of his betrothed. He\nchecked the impulse, however, and signed to her quietly to\nproceed.\n\n\"You know, for you were with us at the time,\" she accordingly\nwent on, \"how much I was charmed with this wild western land when\nmy father first brought me hither. You know, too, of my\nindignation when I found that the real owner had been deprived of\nit in order to our possession. True, I had heard before of the\nlaw of transplantation enacted for the benefit of our army, but\nnot until it stared me in the face as an act of private\ninjustice, done for the enrichment of myself, did I thoroughly\nappreciate its iniquity. From that moment the very abomination of\ndesolation seemed to me to rest upon this land, which I had once\nfelt to be so beautiful. I grew angry and indignant with all the\nworld--with my father chiefly, but with you also, Harry, because,\nthough I acquitted you of all active share in the robbery, I yet\nfelt that it was your character as a good officer, capable of\nholding it against the enemy, which had encouraged him to commit\nit. From dwelling upon the injustice, I went on almost\nunconsciously to question of its victim. At first, however, I\nonly thought of him with a sort of contemptuous pity, as of a\nhalf-tamed savage wandering sadly among the hills which had once\nbeen his own. But one day I met him. You remember that evening\nwhen I returned home so late, that you and my father became\nalarmed and went out to seek me? I told you then that I had lost\nmy way, but I did not tell you that it was the O'More who had\nhelped me to regain it, and who, finding I was nervous at the\nlateness of the hour, had walked back with me nearly to the\ngates. He was a gentleman, there was no mistaking that; and there\nwas something so foreign in his look and accent, that I never\neven dreamed of him as the owner of the Rath, until I asked him\nto come in and make the acquaintance of my father. Then--I can\nhardly tell you in what words, but I know that they were\ncourteous, and that I felt them to be all the more cutting for\nthat reason--he told me WHO he was. In my surprise and shame, I\ntried, I believe, to stammer out something like an apology for\nthe wickedness of which he had been the victim; but he cut me\nshort with a cold, quiet smile, pointed to the gate, which we had\nby this time almost reached, saluted, and so left me. Harry, from\nthat moment, wild dreams began to float through my brain as to\nhow I might restore him to his own. There was one way, and only\none way, in which, as a woman, I could do it. Remember, I was not\nyet seventeen, dear Harry.\"\n\n\"I have need to be reminded of it,\" he answered bitterly, \"when I\nam forced to listen to such things as you are saying now.\"\n\n\"And yet I loved you all the time, Harry; I did, indeed,\" she\nanswered in a low, earnest voice. \"I loved you, although I think\nI knew it not--should never, perhaps, have known it quite, if we\nhad not at last quarrelled and parted, as I thought, for ever. In\nthe first keen suffering which that parting caused me, my heart\nwoke up all at once to a true knowledge of itself, and I felt\nthat, dormant as my love for you had been, it had yet become so\ndeeply rooted in my whole being that by no effort of my own will,\n(and you know that it is a pretty strong one, Harry,\") she added\nwith a faint smile--\"by no effort of my own will could I have\ntransferred it to another.\"\n\n{751}\n\n\"Go on,\" said Harry, now smiling in his turn, for she had paused\nin a little maidenly confusion at this full and frank avowal of\nher sentiments in his regard--\"go on, for I can listen to you\nwith patience now, Ettie.\"\n\n\"I never dreamed again, Harry, of any other than yourself,\" she\nanswered softly; \"and When, the day after your departure, I went\nto Clare Island to warn him of a coming danger, (but not, I do\nassure you, with any other motive,) I saw at once that if he ever\ncared for any woman in the world, it was, or soon would be,\nNellie Netterville. It did not grieve me that it was so, but I\nconfess it wounded my woman's vanity a little, and for a moment I\nfelt inclined to be angry with her. But I was ashamed of the\npitiful feeling, and for the first time in my life, perhaps, I\ntried to conquer my evil passions. In this her sweet, quiet\nfrankness greatly helped me, and her forgetfulness or forgiveness\nof the great injury I, or at all events, my father, had inflicted\non her, made me blush for my own unkindness. If ever you take me\nfor a wife, Harry, and that you find me a more manageable one\nthan I have given you reason to expect, remember that you will\nowe it entirely to her example.\"\n\n\"Nay, nay! not entirely!\" here interposed Harry, \"for the sun\nshines in vain upon a barren soil.\"\n\n\"And now,\" continued Henrietta, regardless of the compliment,\n\"can you forgive me, Harry? Believe me, you know all, I have told\nyou the truth, and the whole truth. I would not deceive you in\nsuch a matter for the world.\"\n\n\"My love, I believe you, and I am more than satisfied,\" he\nanswered in a tone of trustful tenderness which left no room for\ndoubting in Henrietta's mind.\n\n\"And, Harry,\" she added pleadingly, \"our home that we have left\nin England is as pleasant, if not so sublime, as this, and we can\ncall it, at all events, honestly our own!\"\n\n\"Some day, dear Ettie, we will go there; and should your father's\ndeath ever place these lands at our disposal, we will leave them\nto their rightful owner.\"\n\n\"O Harry! how could I doubt you?\" she said remorsefully. \"Can you\never forgive me for it?\"\n\n\"Yes, if you will never doubt again,\" he answered with a bright\nsmile. \"But, hark! the bugle sounds, and yonder is Roger and his\nwife talking to old Norah at the tower-gate.\"\n\nHenrietta looked in that direction, and she saw that Nellie was\ntaking leave of the old woman, who had flung herself at her feet,\nand was sobbing bitterly. This much she could guess from the\nattitude and action of both parties; but she could not guess the\ninfinite delicacy and feeling which Nellie contrived to put into\nthat last farewell, nor yet the reverent admiration with which\nRoger watched his young wife, as, silencing her own deeper\nsorrows, she soothed the old woman's clamorous grief over the\ndeparture of her hereditary chieftain and his bride, \"her\nbeautiful, darling, young honey of a new mistress!\"\n\nNellie was still occupied in this manner when the bugle once more\nsounded. The soldiers, who at the first summons had mustered\ntogether under the command of Hamish, instantly put themselves\ninto motion, and, with flags flying and pipers playing, marched\npast the tower, saluting Roger as they did so, and coming down to\nthe place of embarkation amid the wails of music which, martial\nand spirit-stirring in the beginning, had died gradually away\ninto such wild, plaintive strains as best befitted the thoughts\nof men who were leaving their native land for ever.\n{752}\nAnother moment, and Nellie threw herself into Henrietta's arms,\nand the two girls sobbed their farewells in silence. Then some\none separated them almost by force, there was a short bustle of\ndeparture and a clashing of oars, and when Henrietta could see\nagain through her blinding tears, Nellie had nearly reached the\nship which was to convey her to her new home; while over the\ncrested waves came the voices of the soldier-emigrants singing\nthat farewell song which rang so often and so sadly in those days\nalong the coasts of Ireland, that it has left, unhappily, many an\necho _still_ to wake up thoughts of bitterness and distrust\nin the minds and memories of her living people.\n\nYears afterward, when Henrietta was a happy wife and mother in\nher quiet English home, and her friends, thanks to her generosity\nand her husband's, were once more settled in that western land\nwhich was dearer to them than all the shining kingdoms of the\nearth, the music of that wild \"Ha-till\" would strike at times\nsuddenly on the chord of memory, and she would weep again almost\nas bitterly as she had wept upon that late autumn morning when,\nfloating over the waters of Clew Bay, came those voices to her\near, sadly singing:\n\n  \"Mute in our grief, our fortunes broken.\n     Land of Eire, [Footnote 221] farewell, farewell!\n   Sad is that word--half-wept, half spoken--\n     Sad as the sound of the passing bell.\n   Ha-till, ha-till! we return no more,\n   Eire, beloved, to thy winding shore!\n\n  \"Ever in dreams to see thee weep!\n     Ever to hear thy wail of pain!\n   Bitter as death, and as dark and deep.\n     The grief that we carry across the main.\n   Ha-till, ha-till! we return no more,\n   Eire, beloved, to thy winding shore!\n\n  \"Happy the dead who have died for thee!\n     More happy the dead who died long ago!\n   Who never in sleep had learned to see\n     The grief and shame that have laid thee low.\n   Ha-till, ha-till  we return no more,\n     Eire, beloved, to thy winding shore.\n\n  \"Farewell! we have poured out our blood like rain,\n     We asked for naught but a soldier's grave;\n   Yet say not thou we have sought in vain.\n     While foes confess that thy sons are brave.\n   Ha-till, ha-till! we return no more,\n     Eire, beloved, to thy winding shore.\"\n\n    [Footnote 221: The ancient name for Ireland.]\n\n\n         The End.\n\n---------------\n\n{753}\n\n\n      The Holy Shepherdess of Pibrac,\n\n    Canonized By Pope Pius IX. In 1867.\n\n\nIn the latter part of the sixteenth century, beneath the walls of\nToulouse, bloomed, almost unseen and unknown, a little flower of\nthe fields, whose delicate chalice emitted a perfume scarcely\nperceptible to mortal sense. It passed away, and seemed\nforgotten; but its odor still lingered where it had blossomed;\nand after a few years had gone, its dust was gathered into the\nsanctuary, that the holy place might be filled with the celestial\nfragrance.\n\nGermaine Cousin was born at Pibrac, a village of nearly two\nhundred families in the environs of Toulouse, about the year\n1579. The parish church was dependent on the great Priory of the\nKnights of Malta in that city. The chateau belonged to the Du\nFaur, Lords of Pibrac. The actual proprietor was Guy, famous at\nonce as an orator, a poet, and a successful courtier. Once the\nproudest remembrance of the place was the visit of Catharine de\nMedicis and her daughter, Margaret of Navarre, who were\nmagnificently entertained by the Lord of Pibrac. But now the\nvisit of the two queens, and the fame and opulence of the great\norator, are nearly forgotten; while the memory of our holy\nshepherdess has lived for nearly three centuries in the hearts of\nall the inhabitants of Pibrac. The chateau is a forsaken ruin;\nbut the church has become a place of pilgrimage, because Germaine\nprayed beneath its arches, and there found a tomb.\n\nHer father was a poor husbandman, to whom tradition gives the\nname of Lawrence. Her mother's name was Marie Laroche. From the\nfirst moment of her existence, she seemed destined to suffering\nand affliction. She was infirm from her birth, being unable to\nuse her right hand, and afflicted with scrofula. While yet a\nchild, she became motherless; and, as if these were not trials\nenough to accumulate at once upon the head of one so frail, her\nfather did not long delay to fill the vacant place on his hearth.\nAbsorbed in her own children, this second wife, instead of\npitying the hapless orphan whom Providence had confided to her\ncare, conceived an aversion for her. But the trials to which\nGermaine was subjected were proofs of the divine favor. To them\nshe was indebted for the brilliancy of her virtues, especially\nhumility and patience.\n\nAs soon as she was old enough, her step-mother, who could not\nendure her presence at home, sent her forth to guard the flocks.\nThis was her occupation the remainder of her life. But even in\nthe depths of her lonely life, our shepherdess created for\nherself a more profound solitude. She was never seen in the\ncompany of the young shepherds; their sports never attracted her;\ntheir jeers never disturbed her thoughtful serenity; she only\nspoke sometimes to girls of her own age, sweetly exhorting them\nto be mindful of God!\n\nWe know not from whom Germaine received her first religious\ninstructions--what hand, friendly to misfortune, revealed to her\nthe great truths of salvation. Doubtless, it was the cur\u00e9 of the\nparish; for holy church despises not the meanest of her children;\nand her sagacious eye is quick to discover the chosen of God.\n{754}\nBut, whoever it was, he did but little, and there was little to\nbe done. God himself perfected the religious training of his\nhandmaiden. She early learned what must for ever remain unknown\nto those who do not recognize in him the fountain of all wisdom.\nLiving amid the wonders of creation, she contemplated them with\nthe intelligent eye of innocence. Blessed are the pure in heart,\nfor they shall see God--see him in the brilliant stars, the\nburning sun, the unfathomable heavens, and the changing\nclouds--see him in the flowers and plants that cover the surface\nof the earth! Germaine learned from the open book of nature a\nwondrous lore; and her attuned ear caught and comprehended that\nmysterious, anthem of praise, which, floating through creation,\nis unheard by more sinful man. Her pure soul united in the\neternal song: _Benedicite omnia opera Domini Domino: laudate et\nsuperexaltate eum in saecula!_\n\nAlthough Germaine was a poor infirm orphan, subjected to the\nheavy yoke of a severe step-mother, and exposed by her occupation\nto the inclemency of the weather, she bore all her trials with\ncheerfulness, never brooding over her sorrows. One of the\ncharacteristics of the saints which particularly distinguishes\nthem from ordinary Christians, is, _the use made of the common\noccurrences of life_. They share in common with other men, and\noften in a greater degree, the trials common to humanity; but\nthey are chastened, purified by them, and they look upon the\nafflictions of this life as a means of assimilating them to Him\nwho was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Even in the\nmanifest ill treatment and injustice of the malignant and wicked,\nthey disregard the channel, but accept the suffering, as a means\nof perfection.\n\nThe extent to which this principle is carried, is peculiarly\nCatholic; and, in reading the lives of our saints, we cannot but\nbe struck by it. They never struggled against their trials, and\ntherefore were cheerful under them; for the greater part of our\nwretchedness proceeds from struggling against the current of\nlife. This is the key to the saying of F\u00e9n\u00e9lon: _Non-resistance\nis a remedy for every ill._\n\nThe paternal roof was not for Germaine, as for most--even the\nmost wretched--a refuge and a place of repose. And yet neither\nher poverty, nor sorrows, nor infirmities, could have rendered\nher insensible to that which surpasses all the other pleasures of\nlife--the happiness of being loved. By a divine foresight, God\nhas placed in the hearts of parents, by the side of that fount of\nlove for their offspring, a well of singular tenderness for the\nunfortunate child, the black lamb of the flock. This peculiar\nlove Germaine had not. She had not even the legitimate share of\nher father's heart. She was denied a place at the fireside; she\nwas hardly allowed shelter in the house. Her step-mother,\nirritable and imperious, would send her away to some obscure\ncorner. She was not permitted to approach the other\nchildren--those brothers and sisters whom she loved so tenderly,\nand whom she was always ready to serve without manifesting any\nenvy on account of the preferences of which they were the object,\nand she the victim. The inflexible harshness of her step-mother\nobliged the infirm girl to seek a place of repose in the stable,\nor upon a heap of vine branches in an out-house.\n\n{755}\n\nBut Germaine knew too well the value of sufferings not to accept\nwith joy these humiliations and this injustice. And, as if her\ncross were yet too light, she imposed upon herself additional\nausterities. During the greater part of her life, she denied\nherself all nourishment but bread and water.\n\nSo great a conformity to her poor, suffering, and persecuted\nSaviour, kindled in the heart of Germaine an ardent love for his\nadorable humanity. Notwithstanding her feebleness and other\nobstacles, she assisted every day at the Holy Sacrifice of the\nMass. Even the obligations of her calling could not keep her from\nchurch at that hour. Confiding in God, she left her flock in the\npasture, and hastened to the foot of the altar. It is a misguided\npiety which induces us to neglect the duties of our state of life\nin order to satisfy our devotion; but with Germaine this was the\nresult of prompt obedience to a special inspiration. She knew who\nwould guard her sheep; while she, poor lamb of Christ's flock!\nwent to refresh herself at the fountain of living water.\n\nEven when her sheep were feeding close by the wood of Boucone,\nwhich skirted the fields of Pibrac, and abounded with wolves, at\nthe sound of the church bell she would plant her crook or her\ndistaff in the ground, and hasten to the feet of the divine\nShepherd. At her return, she always found her sheep unharmed. Not\none was ever devoured by the wolves, nor did they ever stray into\nthe neighboring fields.\n\nLong after St. Germaine's death, the peasants of the hamlet\nremembered the unearthly brightness of her face as, week after\nweek, she approached the holy sacraments.\n\n  \"A celestial brightness, a more ethereal beauty,\n   Shone on her face and encircled her form when, after confession,\n   Homeward serenely she walked with God's benediction upon her.\"\n\nIn the Holy Eucharist she found a compensation for every grief.\nThat divine Spouse to whom she was pledged placed himself as a\nseal upon her heart, thereby strengthening it to endure the\ntrials of life, and enriching it with such abundant grace that,\nwhile dwelling at large in the great temple of nature, her life\ngleamed before him, brightly, and purely, and constantly, like\nthe undying lamp of the sanctuary!\n\nLike all the saints, Germaine had a singular devotion to\nMary--that devotion so dear to the Catholic heart, and which is\nconsidered by the fathers as a mark of predestination. The world\ndoes not realize how much it has owed to Mary during these\neighteen hundred years; yet some, some of us know how dark and\nalmost unbearable it would be with its sorrows, and cares, and\nprivations, if over all were not diffused the beauty and\nsoftness, the sweet charm of virginity and love, from the divine\nface of Mary!\n\nTo Germaine, the Ave Maria was another salutation of the angel\npreluding the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost; and she murmured\nthe sacred words with infinite tenderness, above all, at the hour\nwhen they are on every lip. As soon as she heard the Angelus\nbell, which has three times a day, for six centuries, intoned the\nAve Maria between heaven and earth, it was remarked that,\nwherever she might be, she immediately fell upon her knees as if\ninsensible to the incommodiousness of the place.\n\nThe Rosary was her only book; and to her this devotion was no\nvain repetition. \"Love,\" says Lacordaire, \"has but one word, and,\nin saying that for ever, it is never repeated.\"\n\n{756}\n\n  \"Ever transformed to meet our needs.\n   Oft as Devotion counts her beads,\n   As if those beads had caught the light\n   In her celestial girdle bright,\n   But each with its own colors dight.\n   Thus, whensoe'er that prayer is heard,\n   Fresh thoughts are in each solemn word:\n   An orb of light comes from the skies\n   To kindle holy liturgies;\n   It gathers and gives back their rays.\n   Now turned to prayer, and now to praise.\"\n\nThe love of God insensibly leads to the love of one's neighbor.\nGermaine, when she could, used to draw around her the little\nchildren of the village, and endeavor to explain to them the\ntruths of religion, and sweetly persuade them to love Jesus and\nMary. This little school, held in the shade of a thicket of the\nlone fields, was a spectacle worthy of the admiration of angels,\nand is a proof of the unselfishness of real piety, even in the\nmost lowly.\n\nAlthough the piety of Germaine produced a profound impression in\nthe village, yet the world is the same everywhere, and always\nconceives a secret aversion to piety. It cannot avoid censuring\nit in some way, however unobtrusive a piety it may be. Religion\nimposes esteem upon the world, and the world avenges itself by\nraillery. So the wits of Pibrac persecuted Germaine with mockery;\nthey laughed at her simplicity, and called her a bigot.\n\nBut if God permits, for the perfection of the saints, that their\nvirtue be turned into ridicule, he knows, when it pleaseth him,\nhow to render them glorious in the eyes of the world.\n\nIn order to reach the village church, Germaine was obliged to\npass the Courbet, a stream she generally crossed without\ndifficulty in ordinary weather; but after heavy rains, it was too\nwide and deep to be passed on foot. One morning, as she was going\nto church, according to her custom, some peasants who saw her\nafar off stopped at a distance, and asked one another in a tone\nof mockery how she would pass the stream, now so swollen by the\nrain that the most vigorous man could hardly have stemmed the\ntorrent. Dreaming of no obstacle, and perhaps not seeing any,\nGermaine approached as if none existed. ... O wonder of divine\npower and goodness! As of old the waters of the Red Sea opened\nfor the passage of the children of Israel, so those of the\nCourbet divided before the humble daughter of Lawrence Cousin,\nand she passed through without wetting even the edge of her\ngarments. At the sight of this miracle, afterward often repeated,\nthe peasants looked at one another with fear; and from that time\nthe boldest began to respect the simple maiden whom they had\nhitherto scoffed at.\n\nAfter having thus glorified the faith of Germaine by dissipating\nthe material obstacles to the performance of her duty, God wished\nalso to glorify her charity to the poor.\n\nIf any one could believe himself exempted from the obligation of\ncharity and alms-giving, it was certainly our shepherdess. She\nhad no superfluities; she lacked even the necessaries of life.\nWhat was there, then, to retrench, in her life of extreme\nprivation and severe penance? How economize the _reward_ of\nher labor, which consisted only of a little bread and water? But\ncharity is ingenious; and, seeing only our suffering Lord in the\nperson of the poor, Germaine often deprived herself of a part of\nthe bread which was allowed for her nourishment, doubly glad to\ngive it to the hungry, and increase the treasure of her\nprivations. Such are the deeds of the saints which will one day\nreproach us with terrible power! What will the rich man say when\nhe beholds, rising up to confront his hardness of heart, the alms\nof Lazarus!\n\n{757}\n\nThe pious liberality of Germaine made her an object of suspicion\nto her step-mother, who, not divining her resources, accused her\nof stealing bread from the house. One day she learned that\nGermaine, who had just gone with the flock, carried in her apron\nsome pieces of bread. Furious, and armed with a cudgel, she\nimmediately ran after her. Some of the other inhabitants of\nPibrac happened to be on their way at this very moment to the\nhouse of Lawrence Cousin. Seeing this woman almost beside herself\nwith passion, they divined her intentions, and hastened to\nprotect Germaine from the ill treatment with which she was\nmenaced. Overtaking the step-mother, they learned the cause of\nher anger. Finding Germaine, she seized her apron, and instead of\nbread, it was filled with bouquets of roses, although it was a\nseason when those flowers were not in bloom. Thus God confounded\nthe malice of her implacable enemy by renewing a miracle,\nlikewise wrought in favor of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary and other\nsaints.\n\nFrom this time, Germaine was regarded as a saint. Lawrence\nCousin, conceiving more tender sentiments toward this pious child\nwhom he had so little known, forbade his wife's annoying her any\nmore, and wished to give her a place in his house with the other\nchildren. But Germaine, accustomed to suffering and loving\nprivation, besought him to leave her in the obscure place which\nher step-mother had assigned her.\n\nIt was now that Germaine attained and proved the perfection of\nher humility. We must not consider it a trifling honor to have\nbeen esteemed at Pibrac; nor a small reward to have had a place\nat the fireside of Lawrence Cousin. Human nature is the same\neverywhere. There is no theatre too small for ambition. We know\nthere are as many cabals for the first place in a village as for\nthe chief place in an empire.\n\nPerhaps it may not be entirely useless to speak of the exterior\nof the blessed Germaine. The manners and customs of the remote\nprovinces of France retain so much of primitive simplicity, they\nchange so little year after year, and the people in these\nlocalities have such a marked appearance, that we may form a\nreasonable idea of her person and habits.\n\nShe is represented in paintings and engravings as we see scores\nof shepherdesses in the south of France at this day--seated on a\nhillock in the fields, and surrounded by her flock. With a\nspindle in her hand, and under her arm the distaff laden with\nflax, she is spinning, after the primitive manner of that\ncountry. She is rather below the medium size, and is slight in\nform. She has the long head of the Toulousains, and their dark,\nSpanish complexion and eyes. The face, half hidden by the\npicturesque scarlet capuchon, is expressive of silence,\n_interior_ silence; and forcibly speaks of the deep, deep\ncalm within. A pleasing sadness, or rather a subdued joy, veils\nher face. There is an introspective look about the eyes which\nshows that her spirit has passed the bounds of sense, and is\nconcentrated in one mysterious thought--some dream of a heavenly\nworld. Sitting alone, away from her kind, her thoughts were pure\nand holy and bright, like the fragrant flowers of her own green\nmeadows. She must have seemed to the other peasants like some\nphantom of unearthly love, as she sat there enveloped in a divine\nethereal atmosphere.\n{758}\nIn the distance rise the towers of the church, and the antique\nch\u00e2teau of the Lords of Pibrac, and between murmurs the Courbet.\nOver all, is the sunlight of her own bright clime.\n\nPerhaps the miracle of the roses is the most popular\nrepresentation of Saint Germaine, as something not quite so\nunearthly. There is no mystery about the look of the fierce\nstep-mother, as with one hand she raises the cudgel over the head\nof the resigned-looking girl, and with the other grasps the apron\nfrom which tumble out the bright and fragrant flowers. The face\nof Germaine is somewhat sad, and her eyes are cast down in fear\nto the earth. Tremulous and mute she stands before her\nstep-mother, for she is humble and sore afraid. There is a\nreflective charm about her of which she is wholly unconscious,\nfor it emanates from that spiritual beauty visible only to the\nintelligences and bright ardors around the throne.\n\nSaint Germaine died soon after the miracle of the roses. Almighty\nGod, having sanctified her by humiliations and sufferings,\nwithdrew her from this world when men, becoming more just, began\nto render her the honor her virtue merited. She terminated her\nobscure and hidden life by a similar death, but according to\nappearance this terrible moment, which confounds human arrogance,\ngave her no terror or pain.\n\nOne morning, Lawrence Cousin, not seeing her come out as usual,\nwent to call her where she slept--under the stairs. She made no\nreply. He entered and found her upon her bed of vine-branches.\nShe had fallen asleep while at prayer. God had called her to\nenjoy the reward of eternal life. She had ceased to suffer.\n\nIt was about the commencement of the summer of the year 1601 that\nSaint Germaine entered into the joy of her Lord. She was\ntwenty-two years of age.\n\nThat same night two pious men were overtaken near Pibrac by the\ndarkness of night, and obliged to await the return of day in a\nneighboring forest. All at once, in the middle of the night, the\nwoods were flooded with a light more brilliant than the dawn, and\na company of virgins, clothed in white garments and surrounded by\na dazzling light, floated by on the darkness toward the house of\nLawrence Cousin. Soon after they returned, but there was another\nin their midst--more radiant still--who had on her head a chaplet\nof fresh flowers. ...\n\nPeople came in crowds to her funeral, wishing to honor her whom\nthey had too long despised, whom too late they had known. This\nwas the first testimony of public veneration. Her body was buried\nin the church in front of the pulpit. Forty-three years after, it\nwas found entire and preserved from corruption. It had been\nembalmed with her virginal purity. In her hands were a taper and\na garland of pinks and heads of grain. The flowers had scarcely\nfaded. The grain was fresh as at the time of harvest.\n\nThe holy body was removed and finally placed in the sacristy,\nwhere people of all ranks, incited by the wonders wrought at her\ntomb, came to offer their homage.\n\nIn 1843, more than four hundred legally attested miracles had\nbeen wrought at her shrine, and so excited the faith of the\npeople in her power before God, that the Archbishop of Toulouse,\nand nearly all the other prelates of France, petitioned the Holy\nSee for her beatification. It had been desired before the French\nRevolution, but it was not attempted till the time of Gregory\nXVI.\n\n{759}\n\nWhen the commissioners went to examine the condition of the\nremains of the venerable Germaine, a most extraordinary scene\ntook place. The inhabitants of Pibrac, thinking that the\nbeatification of their shepherdess might terminate in the loss of\ntheir holy treasure, came in a body to the door of the church.\nThey received the commissioners with threats and even with\nstones, so it was only with difficulty an entrance could be\neffected into the church. The furious multitude followed, and the\nexamination was made in the midst of a frightful tumult. \"No!\nno!\" was heard on all sides. \"No beatification. St. Germaine\ncures us when we are sick; that is enough. She belongs to us. We\nwish to keep her.\"\n\nThe brief for the beatification of Germaine Cousin was issued by\nthe order of his holiness Pius IX., on the 1st of July, 1853.\n\nThe Triduo which was held at Pibrac, in 1854, in honor of this\nevent, manifested the joy and the faith of the people. Altars,\nlighted up by the bright sun of France, were erected in the\nfields once trod by the feet of Germaine, so that hundreds of\nMasses could be offered at once. The whole country around poured\nin. Toulouse seemed vacated. There were eighty thousand persons\nassembled around that shrine. On the first day there were\nfourteen thousand communicants. In the procession were eighteen\nhundred young ladies robed in white. They all held white lilies\nin one hand, and wax tapers in the other, and as they entered the\nchurch and passed the altar, they deposited their tapers on one\nside and their lilies on the other. Conspicuous in the procession\nwere those who had been healed by the intervention of the holy\nshepherdess. Lights were in their hands, and they made an\noffering of gratitude at the altar.\n\nThe house in which the blessed Germaine had lived was endangered\nduring those days of religious triumph. It was in a tolerable\nstate of preservation, but every one seemed anxious to secure a\nportion of the walls that once sheltered her, and especially of\nthe spot sanctified by the angel of death.\n\nA resident in the south of France at the time of the\nbeatification of Saint Germaine, as she was even then, with one\naccord, called in that country, I was forcibly impressed with the\nenthusiastic veneration and confidence with which she was\nregarded by all classes. Every week I heard of some new miracle\nat her tomb; so they soon ceased to excite wonder, and seemed to\nbelong to the established order of events. There was scarcely an\nindividual in my circle of acquaintance who had not been, at\nleast once, to prostrate himself at her shrine, and there was a\nlively faith in her protection, which proved to me how strongly\nthe spirit of the middle ages still animates the hearts of the\nfaithful.\n\nSo popular a devotion was a novelty to me--a \"_native\nAmerican_\"--but I could not long remain insensible to its\ninfluence. One misty October day found me likewise an humble\npilgrim at the shrine of the holy shepherdess of Pibrac.\n\nThe very air of that antique chapel inspires devotion. A\nsupernatural influence seemed to impregnate everything around me.\nI saw, too, that I was not the only one who felt this subtle\ninfluence penetrating to the very heart; for the faces of all the\npilgrims, priests, religious, and laymen of every rank who are\nconstantly arriving and departing, were indicative of a holy awe.\nThough I got there at a late hour, and it was raining, Masses\nwere still being celebrated, and the church was full. It was no\nfestival. It was so every day. Masses were said at every altar\nfrom early dawn till the latest canonical hour.\n{760}\nProstrate groups from different parishes were always there,\nclustered in the nave, or gathered about the shrine; and here and\nthere were lone pilgrims who, like me, had been brought from the\nends of the earth. And around and over all were constellations of\nbrightly burning tapers, emblematic of the prayer of faith, left\nthere by the pilgrim as loth he slowly left the hallowed\nsanctuary.\n\nThe tomb of Saint Germaine is in a side chapel, protected by a\ngrate. Her relics are covered with gold and silver and precious\nstones, _ex votes_, which gleam in the light of the votive\ncandles around. Involuntarily there comes to the heart in this\nfitting place, and to the lips, the strain, _Exaltavit\nhumiles!_\n\n\"Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick!\" is the cry of every\nweary, sin-laden heart; above all here, where thou dost love to\ndisplay thy goodness and thy power. The sacred heart of thy\nhumanity, ever touched with feeling for our infirmities, is not\nhardened. It is still as tender and as compassionate as when thou\ndidst weep over the grave at Bethany, and thy hand is as\npowerful. I believe that thou, who art honored in thy saints,\ndost heal here both soul and body of those who approach thee with\nfaith and with love, especially with _love_. \"Many sins are\nforgiven her, because she hath loved much,\" was uttered centuries\nago, but has been repeated times without number since, over\npenitent, loving souls. O power of love over the divine heart! It\nis only the cold, the feeble in faith, who have no power to draw\nfrom this inexhaustible well of compassion.\n\nIf every Catholic heart were, as it should be, a _chapelle\nardente_, all aflame with the love of God, how soon would the\nspiritual infirmities of entire humanity be healed, and the\nwounds of Christ's bleeding body be bound up!\n\nReader! let the aspiration of divine love, indulgenced by our\nsovereign pontiff on the 7th of May, 1854, in honor of the\nbeatification of Germaine Cousin, be often on our lips and in our\nhearts: \"Jesu, Deus MEUS, AMO TE SUPER OMNIA!\" Jesus, my God, I\nlove thee above all things!\n\n----------\n\n{761}\n\n\n     From The Latin Of Prudentius.\n\n               An Elegy.\n\n\nAurelics Prudentius Clemens, the glory of the early Christian\npoets, was born in Spain in the year 348. He studied eloquence in\nhis youth under a celebrated master. He was twice made governor\nof provinces and cities, raised to the highest rank, and placed\nat the court by the Emperor Theodosius I., next in dignity to his\nown person.\n\nBut in the vigor of his age, he quitted worldly honors and\nemployments, made a pilgrimage to Rome, and thence returning to\nSpain, led a secluded life, consecrating his leisure to the\ncomposition of sacred poems. He is esteemed the most learned of\nthe Christian poets, and, for the sweetness and elegance of his\nverses, has been compared to Horace.\n\n\n  Venient cit\u00f2 saecula, quum jam\n  Socius calor ossa revisat,\n  Animataque sanguine vivo\n  Habitacula pristina gestet.\n\n  Quae pigra cadavera pridem\n  Tumulis putrefacta jacebant,\n  Volucres rapientur in auras,\n  Animas comitata priores.\n\n  Quid turba superstes inepta\n  Plangens ululamina miscet?\n  Cur tam bene condita jura,\n  Luctu dolor arguit amens?\n\n  Jam moesta quiesce querela,\n  Lacrymas suspendite matres,\n  Nullus sua pignora plangat:\n  Mors haec reparatio vitae est.\n\n  Sic semina sicca virescunt\n  Jam mortua, jamque sepulta,\n  Quae reddita cespite ab imo\n  Veteres meditantur aristas.\n\n  Nunc suscipe, terra, fovendum,\n  Gremioque hunc concipe molli;\n  Hominis tibi membra sequestro,\n  Generosa et fragmina credo.\n\n{762}\n\n  Animae fuit haec domus olim\n  Factoris ab ore create;\n  Fervens habitavit in istis\n  Sapientia, principe Christo.\n\n  Tu depositum tege corpus;\n  Non immemor ille requiret\n  Sua munera fictor et auctor,\n  Propriique aenigmata vult\u00fbs.\n\n  Veniant mod\u00f2 tempora justa,\n  Quum spem Deus impleat omnem;\n  Reddas patefacta necesse est,\n  Qualem tibi trado figuram.\n\n  Non si cariosa vetustas\n  Dissolverit ossa favillis,\n  Fueritque cinisculus arens,\n  Minimi mensura pugilli;\n\n  Nee si vaga flamina, et aurae\n  Vacuum per inane volantes\n  Tulerint cum pulvere nervos,\n  Hominem periisse licebit.\n\n\n       Translation.\n\n\n  The hour is speeding on amain\n    When back into its olden form,\n    Once more with ruddy life-blood warm,\n  The spirit shall return again.\n\n  The freed soul soars aloft through space:\n    So, dust with dust, aloft through air,\n    This heavy clay swift gales shall bear\n  From its sepulchral resting-place..\n\n  Why doth the crowd surviving fill\n    The air with a lamenting vain?\n    Why with such idle griefs arraign\n  The justice of the Eternal will?\n\n{763}\n\n  Oh! end these pangs with murmurs rife,\n    O mothers! cease your tears, your woe;\n    Weep not for your dead children so,\n  Death the renewal is of life.\n\n  The dead, dry seed lies hid from view,\n    To burst forth to new glorious bloom;\n    The former beauty to resume,\n  The ancient harvest to renew.\n\n  O earth! in thy soft bosom keep,\n    And quicken with new warmth this clay,\n    This sacred frame to rest we lay.\n  It smiles in thy embrace to sleep.\n\n  'Twas once the immortal spirit's cell.\n    That breath breathed from the lips divine;\n    Here was the living wisdom's shrine,\n  Here deigned the Christ supreme to dwell.\n\n  Guard it beneath thy faithful sod,\n    For He, one day, will re-demand\n    From thee this labor of his hand.\n  This breathing likeness of its God.\n\n  Oh! for the appointed hour to rend\n    The grave! the hope God gives is sure:\n    Safe, beauteous, through these gates obscure\n  What now descendeth shall ascend.\n\n  Yes, though this frame divinely planned\n    Be wasted by decay and rust,\n    And naught left save a little dust.\n  The filling of the smallest hand:\n\n  Though these strong sinews ashes be\n    On wandering breezes wafted wide,\n    Inviolate ever shall abide\n  The mortal's immortality.\n\n  C. E. B.\n\n---------\n\n{764}\n\n\n       Translated From Der Katholik.\n\n        The Ancient Irish Church.\n\n\nThe history of the ancient Irish church, for many reasons, claims\nour respectful attention. In the time of the migration of the\nEuropean races, this church had a great mission to accomplish\namong the Germanic tribes. When the Goths had overrun Spain, the\nFranks and Burgundians conquered Gaul, the Anglo-Saxons invaded\nBritain, the Vandals spoiled Africa, and the Lombards gained\nstrongholds in Italy; when the Alemanni and Sueves had penetrated\ninto the valleys and claimed the mountains of ancient Helvetia;\nwho was it in those stormy times that elevated the moral\ncondition of those peoples, drew them out of the darkness of\nGerman paganism, or converted them from Arianism; regenerated\nthem internally, civilized and incorporated them into the kingdom\nof God, after they had devastated the provinces of the Western\nempire, leaving ruins, deserts, confusion, and desolation behind\nthem in their plundering march? It was the missionaries of the\nancient Irish church that rescued Europe from the barbarism of\nthat period. Evidently sent by God, those Irish missionaries\nfounded new Christian colonies in different lands, hewed down the\nforests, civilized the deserts, founded churches, schools, and\nmonasteries. As the Roman empire without the barbarians was\nnothing but an abyss of slavery and rottenness, so would the\nbarbarians have been a wild chaos without the monks. The monks\nand barbarians combined produced a new world which we call\nChristendom.\n\nGermany also owes much to the missionaries of the ancient Irish\nchurch. In the olden time Ireland was called the \"island of\nsaints and sages;\" as her people in our days receive from us the\nhonorable title of \"martyr-nation of the west,\" for their\ninflexible fidelity to their faith during three centuries of\nshameless and brutal persecution. \"No one but God in heaven knows\nthe number of the saints whose dust is mingled with Irish soil,\"\nwrote one of the oldest Irish writers, the biographer of St.\nAilbe of Emly. We count, not by hundreds, but by thousands, the\nholy Irish bishops, abbots, priests, monks, and virgins. Even in\nthe days of St. Patrick, and still more after his successful\napostolate, Ireland was not only a great training-school for\nforeign missionaries, but a second Thebais, in which the\nexercises of the spiritual life were thoroughly practised, and\nwhere students could devote themselves in solitude to the study\nof philosophy and holy writ under the ablest professors. Pious\nmen went from Britain, from the European continent, from France,\nand even from Rome, to the classic and holy \"island of saints,\"\nto learn the doctrines of Christian perfection, literature, and\ntheology, in the renowned monasteries of the land of Columba and\nColombanus.\n\nEven to this day Ireland is specially favored by God. There are\nno snakes in it or other venomous reptiles. The very dangerous\nportion of the animal kingdom is entirely excluded from its\nsacred ground; and all attempts to naturalize poisonous creatures\nthere have been unsuccessful. The old Irish rhyme reads:\n\n{765}\n\n  \"St. Patrick was a holy man,\n     He was a saint so clever,\n   He gave the snakes and toads his ban,\n     And drove them out for ever.\"\n\nThroughout Ireland there are great fields of wheat and grain of\nevery description, and many lakes. The climate is mild, and snow\nso rare that cattle can graze in the fields all the year round.\nRain showers are frequent, and give such fertility and verdure to\nthe soil as no other land in Europe possesses, so that the island\nis known as \"Green Erin,\" or the \"Emerald isle.\" The plants,\nflowers, and trees of Ireland, in their shape, color, and\nmaterial, remind one somewhat of Normandy in France, or of\nAsturia in northern Spain.\n\nThe _History of the Ancient Irish Church_ has been just\npresented to the public by an author who is in a better condition\nthan most of his contemporaries to write such a work, which\ncharms us more and more the more frequently we read it. We speak\nof the recent work of the Bishop of St. Gall, Dr. Charles John\nGreith, in which we recognize one of the greatest efforts of\nGerman historical literature. We cannot, therefore, refrain from\nimparting to our readers an epitome of the contents of this\nremarkable and highly interesting production. The right reverend\nauthor considers his work of four hundred and sixty-two pages as\nan \"Introduction to the history of the Bishopric of St. Gall.\" He\npublished the book on the commemoration and centenary of the\nconsecration of the cathedral of St. Gall, August 17th and 18th,\n1867, and dedicated his literary effort to the chapter and the\nclergy of his diocese. From early youth the distinguished author\nhas been familiar with the legends and history of St. Gall, and\nstudied them with love and veneration. Love for that great Irish\nmissionary saint, whose worthy successor Dr. Greith is, inspired\nthe work whose continuation we desire most earnestly. \"St. Gall\nhas left behind him a world-wide reputation as the apostle of the\nSwiss Alps. Centuries have not diminished his fame, which the\ngratitude of Christians sanctions.\"\n\nVeneration for St. Gall has been spread far beyond the boundaries\nof Switzerland; from the foot of the Alps to Upper Burgundy and\nAlsace, even to the limits of the Vosges; then into Brisgau and\nthe Black Forest, to the Suabian Alps, and thence into Nibelgau,\nand Algau. In all these regions, the monks of St. Gall imparted\nthe blessings of religion and education. Full of admiration for\nthe Christian zeal of St. Gall and his disciples, our author\nrecalls the words spoken by Ermenreich of Reichenau, to Abbot\nGrimald of St. Gall, over a thousand years ago: \"How could we\never forget the island of Ireland, from which the rays of\nChristian light and the sun of Christian faith have shone upon\nus!\" Taking this expression for his motto, the right reverend\nwriter gives us his magnificent _History of the Ancient Irish\nChurch and its Connection with Rome, Gaul, and Germany_.\n\nDivided into six books, the work describes in the two first the\nmigrations of the barbarians and the fall of the Roman empire;\nthen the heresies which swarmed in the church of the period; then\nthe school of the island of Lerins, where St. Patrick, the\napostle of Ireland, was instructed. The four last books are\nconsecrated to St. Patrick and his apostleship in Ireland; to St.\nColumba, the apostle of Scotland; to St. Colombanus and his deeds\nin France, Flanders, and the north of Italy; and to St. Gall, the\napostle of Germany. The sixth and last book treats of\nChristianity and its customs in the Irish church.\n\n{766}\n\nThe illustrious author made use of manuscripts as well as printed\nworks in the compilations of his history. Many manuscripts were\nat his disposal in St. Gall itself. The original sources of\nancient Irish history consist of different materials; genealogies\nwhich trace the origin of kings or saints and their relatives;\nannals which give the year of the death of saints, or of other\ndistinguished characters; church calendars which give the day of\nthe month on which the death of a saint occurred; and finally,\nthe lives of the saints themselves. These biographies are\ncopiously used. We cannot restrain our desire to quote what the\nauthor thinks of those sources of history. \"Erudition is not\nsufficient for us to judge the biographies of the ancient saints;\nwe must have sympathy with them in their zealous labor; and a\nspiritual relationship in their faith. Every age must be judged\naccording to the ideas, and customs which prevail in it; and\nevery saint according to the circumstances in which he lives.\"\nThe poetic as well as the historical element, the legendary as\nwell as the authentic, must be combined in forming a correct\nestimate of a saint's character.\n\nEven in the early part of the middle ages, every cathedral\nchurch, large monastery, or distinguished hermitage, possessed\nits hagiographers, who wrote the lives of the saints of the\nplace, either from authentic written documents, traditions, or\nfrom knowledge acquired as eye-witnesses. Since John Moschus\npublished his collection of legends, extraordinary diligence in\nthe criticism and sifting of the ancient biographies of the\nsaints has been manifested in the church. The collection and\ncritical works of the Bollandists, of Lurius, Mabillon, d'Achery,\nand others, keep their reputation undiminished to the present\nday. These writers display such a thoroughness in their\nresearches, that the modern rationalists have been unable to find\na flaw of any consequence in their criticism. The truthful\nhistorian must describe those apostles of religion and\ncivilization among the Germans, such as they were, children of\ntheir century, representatives of its ideas, views, and manners.\nFollowing this method, he will not cast doubt on the purity of\ntheir motives, or try to lessen their merit in drawing entire\nnations of barbarians out of the darkness of paganism and\nimmorality into the light of Christianity and virtue. The blind\nparty spirit of our times recognizes no justice, and modern\npaganism is only satisfied when it can throw everything that is\nnoble and holy out of history. The modern pagans tear with scorn\nthe Holy Scriptures into shreds before our eyes, and subject to a\nlawless criticism the ablest records of ecclesiastical history,\nwhile they try to overturn every monument that might shelter the\nweary pilgrims of earth on their road to heaven.\n\n\n    II.\n\nThe most trustworthy documents regarding the first traces of\nChristianity in Ireland, inform us that up to the time of Pope\nCelestine I., (a.d. 422-432,) that country had not been\nconverted. Up to the year of our Lord 432, no Christian\nmissionary had trodden the soil of the island, or caused the\nlight of faith to shine over the hills and through the valleys of\ngreen Erin. Palladius and Patrick were the first apostles, (A.D.\n430.) It is true, several High-Church English writers have\nendeavored to prove the establishment of an Irish church prior to\nSt. Patrick; but this theory is unsupported by any authentic\ndocuments.\n{767}\nBesides, the attempt of those writers was prompted by the\npartisan desire of proving an original separation in belief\nbetween Ireland and Rome. Nevertheless, it is not improbable that\nmany non-commissioned Christians may have gone from Britain and\nGaul into Ireland before the year 430, and formed small\ncommunities, or lived scattered among the heathens. \"On the wings\nof every day commerce, the flower-seeds of Christian faith must\nhave been borne to Erin from Britain and Gaul; as from the\nearliest times direct business relations were kept up between\nNantes, other harbors of Armoric Gaul, and Ireland. To the\nnorth-west of Gaul also came the Irish rovers, under the guidance\nof some distinguished chieftain, in quest of plunder, and\nfrequently carried off Christians into captivity. In this way St.\nPatrick, when a youth of sixteen years of age, was taken from the\ncoast of Armorica by the pirates of King Niall, and with many\nthousand others detained in bondage, as he informs us himself in\nhis writings,\" (p. 86.)\n\nBesides the fact that there was no Irish church prior to St.\nPatrick, though there may have been individual Christians in the\ncountry, we must prove that the Christianity imported into\nIreland was Roman, and that her apostles received their mission\nfrom the pope. Pope Celestine, in the year 431, sent Palladius,\ndeacon or arch-deacon of the Roman church, as the first\nmissionary. This apostolic man, who had long been casting his\neyes toward Britain and the other western islands of Europe, had\na double and very important task to execute in Ireland, namely,\nto strengthen the dispersed Catholics in the faith, and to\nevangelize the heathens. He landed in Hay-Garrchon, penetrated\ninto the interior of the country, baptized many, built three\nchurches in the province of Leinster; but, taken altogether, his\nmission was unsuccessful, and he met with much opposition. \"But\nwhen Palladius understood that he could not do much good in\nIreland, he wanted to return to Rome, and died on the voyage, in\nthe territory of the Picts. Others say that he received the crown\nof martyrdom in Ireland.\"\n\nWhat Palladius begun--but which God's providence willed to remain\nincomplete--Patrick accomplished in sixty years of apostolic\nlabor. Him God chose as the instrument, and fitted him for this\nholy work. That he received his commission from Rome from the\nhands of Pope Celestine, A.D. 432, cannot be doubted; for the\nfact is confirmed by a crowd of witnesses, both Roman and Irish.\nWe must, therefore, consider and reverence Patrick as the apostle\nof the Irish people.\n\nAll the early Irish annalists unanimously agree that his mission\nbegan in the year 432, and that he died in 493--an apostleship of\nsixty years! How great and glorious for him and for his people!\n\nPatrick was born A.D. 387, in Boulogne-sur-Mer, in modern\nPicardy, and was of noble Roman origin. In his sixteenth year, in\na marauding expedition of an Irish clan called Niall, he was\ncarried prisoner to Armoric Gaul; thence to Ireland, and there\nsold to a pagan officer named Milcho, whose swine he herded for\nsix years. After this, he escaped, and returned to his native\nland. Having fully determined to consecrate himself to the\nservice of God, he went to Marmontiers, the monastery of St.\nMartin of Tours, to study there the principles of Christian\nscience and perfection.\n{768}\nA few years after, he visited the happy island of Lerins, near\nMarseilles, at that time one of the most famous schools in\nChristendom, and met there, as fellow-students, the holy monks\nHonoratus, Hilary, Eucherius, Lupus, and others. An interior\nvoice there told him that he should return to Ireland to preach\nthe Gospel in that country; and he therefore travelled from\nLerins to Rome, in order to represent to the holy see the\ndarkness of heathenism which brooded over Ireland. But, as the\napostolic see was not then in a condition to provide for the\nIrish mission, Patrick went back to Gaul, and remained with St.\nGermain of Auxerre, under whose guidance he made further progress\nin holiness and learning. Such was his life up to the year 429.\n\nIn this year he accompanied Bishop Germanus and Lupus to Britain,\nwho were sent by the pope to root out Pelagianism in that\ncountry. Thus was Patrick prepared for his apostleship.\n\nIt was then he heard of the mission of Palladius, and its\nfailure. (A.D. 431.) The holy Bishop Germanus cast his eyes on\nPatrick, who knew the Irish language, people, and country from\npersonal observations. Did he not seem peculiarly fitted--sent,\nin fact, from heaven, to undertake the conversion of the Irish\nnation?\n\nPatrick, therefore, with the priest Legetius as his companion,\nwent to Rome, and received from Pope Celestine his blessing and\nthe necessary authority to undertake the task of converting\nIreland. It is hard to tell now whether he was consecrated bishop\nby Celestine before his departure, or by Bishop Amatorex, of\nEboria, a city in north-western Gaul. He reached Ireland in the\nfirst year of Celestine III. A life of continual triumphs began\nfor him. He was repulsed from the coast of Dublin: no matter; he\nsailed for Ulster, and landed at Strangford. He converts the\nchieftain Dicho and his whole house, and celebrates his first\nMass in Ireland in a neighboring barn. At the royal city of Tara,\nhe meets King Leoghaire, with all his clan; defends and explains\nChristianity in their presence, and gains a victory over the\nDruids. Dublach, a Druid and poet, is converted, and sings, for\nthe future, only hymns in the honor of the true God. The\ndaughters of the king, Ethana and Fethlimia, also bow to the yoke\nof the Gospel, and consecrate their virginity to God, and many\nother holy women follow their example. Thus, a happy beginning\nwas made in the island.\n\nSoon the converts number thousands. Everything succeeds; the\nconversion of the Irish people was effected without persecution\nor martyrs. Patrick frequented the national assemblies, and used\nthe occasion to preach to the multitudes. He destroyed idolatry\nand idolatrous practices throughout the whole land, and built\nchurches to the living God on places that had hitherto been\ndedicated to the worship of idols. Wherever he went, he baptized\ncrowds of men, provided the new Christian communities with\nchurches, made the most virtuous of his disciples priests and\nbishops, and appointed them to govern the faithful, and extend\nthe reign of the Gospel.\n\nThus did he labor year after year, going about preaching,\nbaptizing, and blessing, in Leinster, Ulster, Munster, and\nConnaught; and everywhere his astonishing activity and self\nsacrifice effected wonderful results. Everywhere the people were\nready and docile for the reception of Christianity. Divine\nProvidence wonderfully protected him from all danger.\n\n{769}\n\nBut when the whole island was converted to Christ, congregations\nformed, and churches erected in all parts of the country, St.\nPatrick thought of building a metropolitan cathedral for the\nprimate of Ireland. He chose for this purpose the heights of\nAdmarcha, or Armagh, near which stood the old royal fortress of\nEmania. After the building of his cathedral and the conversion of\nthe Irish, St. Patrick passed the remaining years of his life\npartly at Armagh, partly at his favorite spot at Sabhul, where he\nbegan his missionary career. He assembled a few synods, wrote his\n_Confession_, as it is called, on the approach of death, and\nwas attacked by his last illness at Sabhul. When he felt his end\napproaching, he collected his remaining strength, and endeavored\nto go to Armagh, which he had chosen as the place of his burial;\nbut, warned by a voice from heaven, he returned to Sabhul, and\ndied there eight days after, on the 17th of March, 493.\n\n\n\n         III.\n\nLet us now glance at the disciples and followers of this great\nman. They followed up his work with such zeal and indefatigable\nactivity that, at the end of the sixth century, Christianity was\nspread over all Ireland. We distinguish, in the Irish church,\n\"Fathers of the First Order,\" and \"Fathers of the Second Order.\"\nThe holy men from Rome, Italy, Gaul, and especially from Wales or\nCambria, who followed St. Patrick as their leader, and aided him\nin his labors, are the \"Fathers of the First Order.\" Patrick\nbrought with him from Rome, in the year 432, nine assistants; in\nthe year 439, Secundinus, Auxilius, and Iserninus, were sent to\nhim from Rome. The two former of these, together with Benignus,\nwere present as bishops at the first synod of Armagh, in the year\n456. Bishop Trianius, a Roman, another disciple of St. Patrick,\nimitated so exactly the life of the great apostle, that his food\nwas nothing but the milk of one cow, which he took care of\nhimself. The first mitred abbot of Sabhul was Dunnius; and the\nfirst bishop of Antrim was Leoman, Patrick's nephew. The oldest\nIrish bishops appointed by Patrick, were Patrick of Armagh, Fiech\nof Sletty, Mochua of Aendrun, Carbreus of Cubratham, and\nMaccarthen, of Aurghialla. Seven nephews of St. Patrick, who\nfollowed him from Cambria, are invoked in the Irish litanies as\nbishops. They are the sons of Tigriada, Brochad, Brochan,\nMogenoch, Luman; and the sons of Darercha, Mel, Rioch, and Muna.\nWhen the heathen Anglo-Saxons conquered Britain in the year 450,\nand sought to destroy the old British church, many learned and\npious men fled to Ireland, and joined Patrick. Thirty of them\nwere made bishops, and devoted themselves to the special task of\nconverting the neighboring islands. The most renowned of these\nWelsh missionaries are Carantoc, Mochta of Lugmagh, and Modonnoc,\nwho introduced the rearing of bees into Ireland, where they had\nnever been seen before. Three companions of St. Patrick--Essa,\nBitmus, and Tesach--were expert bell-founders, and makers of\nchurch-vessels. The fact that Patrick was sent from Rome, that\nhis first assistants were Romans, and that his co-laborers from\nGaul and Britain were sons of the Roman church, completely\ndestroys the Anglican hypothesis of an Irish church independent\nof Rome.\n{770}\nEven Albeus, who, on account of his services, was called the\nsecond Patrick, Declau, and Ihac, the apostles of the Mumons;\nEnna, or Enda, the founder of the great monastery of Aran;\nCondland, Bishop of Kildare, all disciples of St. Patrick, were\neducated and consecrated bishops in Rome. There also were Lugach,\nColman, Meldan, Lugaidh, Cassan, and Ciaran, consecrated and\nafterward numbered among the earliest bishops and fathers of the\nIrish church.\n\nFrom the time of St. Patrick, continual communication was kept up\nbetween Rome and Ireland by countless pilgrims, as many documents\nattest, (Greith, p. 142-156.) Patrick left his love and reverence\nfor the Apostolic See of Peter as a precious legacy to his\nimmediate disciples; and they, in turn, to their successors up to\nthe present day. The frequent pilgrimages of Irish bishops,\nabbots, and monks, are facts so well proven, that the Anglican\ntheory of a separate Irish church is shown to be a pure\ninvention, no longer contended for as truth by any respectable\nhistorian.\n\nLet us now pass to the fathers of the second order in the Irish\nchurch, and their illustrious foundations. The founders of those\nnumerous Irish monasteries, which counted their inmates by\nhundreds and thousands, those men who were mostly brought up by\nthe immediate successors of St. Patrick, belong to the \"Second\nOrder of Irish Fathers.\" Twelve of them, instructed by the\nrenowned Abbot Finnian, at Clonard, are called the twelve\napostles of Ireland. At their head stands Columba, the apostle of\nthe Picts, shining among them like the sun among the stars. Their\nnames are, Columba, of Iona, Corngall, of Bangor, Cormac, of\nDeormagh, Cainech, of Achedbo, Ciaran, of Clonmacnoise, Mobhi, of\nClareinech, Brendan, of Clonfert, Brendan, of Birr, Fintan,\nColumba, of Tirgelass, Molua Fillan and Molasch, of Damhs-Inis.\nThese holy men erected all over Ireland and in the adjacent isles\nchurches and convents, which became centres of art, learning, and\nsanctity. The monastery of Clonard, founded in Meath by Abbot\nFinnian, contained during his lifetime three thousand monks. At\nClonmacnoise, a monastery founded by St. Ciaran, in the middle of\nIreland, agriculture was made a special study; and Monastereven\non the Barrow, Monasterboyce in the valley of the Boyne,\nDearmach, etc., were renowned institutions. These first and\noldest Irish monasteries were not large, regularly-built houses,\nbut composed of numbers of separate cells or huts, made of\nwicker-work, stalks, and rushes. The church or oratory stood in\nthe midst of the huts, and was made of the same material. It was\nat a later period that the Roman architecture was introduced into\nIreland; and then stone edifices took the place of the primitive\nstructures. Special mention is always made in the Irish annals of\nthe erection of a stone church, for the people preferred wooden\nbuildings, and their preference shows itself up to the twelfth\ncentury. The stone churches were looked upon as the fruit of\nforeign architecture, as St. Bernard informs us in his life of\nSt. Malachy. The Roman church gradually introduced into Ireland\nthe fine arts and a higher order of architecture, as she had done\nat an earlier date in Gaul and Britain. Choral singing became\nusual. The church hymns took the place of the Druidical\nrhapsodies; and the muses of Inisfail forgot to sing of heroes,\nand learned to tune their harps to sing the praise of Christ and\nhis saints.\n\nThe Irish missionaries reclaimed barren lands and made them\nfertile, ameliorated the condition of agriculture, spread\ncommerce, and discovered new islands in the sea. Many of the\nIrish saints, at the period of which we are writing, were great\nnavigators.\n\n{771}\n\nDr. Greith paints in glowing colors the life of St. Columba and\nhis labors in Ireland, the Hebrides, and Scotland, as well as the\ndiscipline and rules of the Abbey of Hy, which was founded by\nhim. We cannot enter into details, but refer the reader to Dr.\nGreith's book. Columba was born on the 7th of December, 521. In\nthe first half of his life, Ireland was the scene of his zeal;\nthe second half was spent among the Scots and Picts. In Ireland\nhe founded Durrow, Derry, and Kells. He went with twelve\ndisciples to Caledonia in the year 563. Christianity among the\nScots had degenerated; and the Picts were still pagans. The king\nof the Picts, Brudrius, gave him the island of Iona or Hy, where\nhis works began which God crowned with wonderful success. He soon\nbecame the beacon light for all the faithful priests and laity of\nIreland and Caledonia. He visited Ireland to counsel his noble\nrelatives, settle their disputes, or oversee the churches and\nmonasteries which he had established, and travelled among the\nPicts preaching the Gospel, founding monasteries, and erecting\nchurches which should consider Iona as their mother. He built\nthirty-two churches, to most of which monasteries were attached,\nin Scotland; and eighteen among the Picts, in the space of\nthirty-three years, (563-597.) Even during his lifetime he was so\ncelebrated that, from all sides, princes, nobles, bishops,\npriests, monks, and the faithful of all classes ran to him for\ncounsel in their difficulties, consolation in their distress, and\nhelp in their necessities. Columba fought against the\nsuperstition of the Picts, the cunning of their magicians, and\nthe wickedness of lawless men. Princes' sons, whose fathers had\nlost their lives and crowns in battle, went to Iona to lay their\ngrievances before Columba, and to each one according to his need,\nthe saint gave consolation and hope. The common people brought\ntheir children to him, to ask him to decide their vocation. It\nwas not an unusual spectacle to see kings and nobles lay aside\nthe insignia of their greatness at Iona, and break their swords\nbefore its altars. Columba's prayers were very powerful. His\nblessing controlled the elements and the forces of nature. He\nseemed to rule nature as a lord. He had also the gift of\nprophecy. He died June 9th, A.D. 597. His departure from life was\nmade known to many holy men in different parts of Ireland and\nScotland at the same time, who declared that \"Columba, the pillar\nof so many churches, had gone to-night to the bosom of his\nRedeemer.\" The isle of Iona was illuminated by a heavenly light,\nemanating from the countless angels who came down to take up the\nhappy soul of the saint to the bosom of his God.\n\nThe Irish monasteries increased wonderfully during the sixth\ncentury. Finnian's monastery at Clonard, as already mentioned,\ncontained 3000 monks; and that of Bangor and Birr had the same\nnumber; St. Molaissi had 1500 monks around him; Colombanus and\nFechin had each 300; Carthach, 867; Gobban, 1000; Maidoc,\nManchan, Natalis, and Ruadhan, each 150; Revin and Molua were\neach the head of several thousand. There was no common rule for\nall those convents, like that which St. Benedict wrote for the\nreligious of his order, (A.D. 529.) Each monastery had its own\nlaws. Columba had made no special rule for Hy or for his other\nmonasteries. St. Colombanus was the first who collected and\nmethodized the customs and traditions of Irish monastic life.\n\n{772}\n\nA thorough investigation of the most ancient custom of the Celtic\nchurch, proves that it was in communion with the church of Rome.\nThe trivial differences between the two churches regarded neither\ndogma, nor morality, nor the essentials of the Liturgy, of the\nMass, or the Blessed Sacrament. The supremacy of the pope was\nrecognized by all the Irish; and the celibacy of the clergy\nobserved as in the other Western churches. In the ceremonies of\nthe Mass, it is true, there were certain usages and forms\nobserved not Roman, as was the case also in the churches of Spain\nand Gaul. The rites of baptism in the Irish church were simpler\nthan those of the Roman. The difference mainly consisted in the\nstyle of the tonsure and in the time of celebrating the Easter\nfestival. The Irish and Britons did not keep the reckoning of the\nAbbot Dionysius the Little, as he is styled, regarding Easter,\nand tenaciously clung to the old Roman calculation. Every\ndeparture from it seemed to them contrary to the traditions of\ntheir fathers. It was only in the year 716, and after hard and\nbitter fighting, that perfect union between Rome and Ireland was\neffected in this particular.\n\nThe history of the Irish, as well as of the British church, is of\nthe greatest importance for Germans who want to know the origin\nof Christianity in their own land. But we shall develop this\npoint in a second article.\n\n----------------\n\n       European Prison Discipline.\n\n            I. -- Newgate.\n\n\nWe take pleasure in offering to American readers the following\nrecord of a visit to Newgate, as exhibiting the enlightened\nhumanity shown in the treatment of public criminals in London.\nThe guide whom we have selected as the interpreter of Newgate's\nmysteries is an imaginary personage. He expresses the\nimpressions, thoughts, and comments of several persons, not the\nconvictions of a single individual.\n\n\n\nThis way, sir, please. Yes, the passages _do_ seem gloomy,\ncoming in out of the sunny street, crowded with free men hurrying\nto and fro on business. Here we are in the kitchen; you see the\ngood allowance of meat and potatoes the prisoners have for dinner\nfour times a week; the other three days they have a good strong\nsoup instead of meat; morning and night a mess of oatmeal, and\nwith each meal half a pound of bread. Yes, they are well fed;\nbetter here, many of them, than they would be outside. Just look\nover your shoulder, sir. Through that low iron door behind you\nthe condemned prisoners pass out into the square to be hanged.\nWhy through the kitchen? Can't say, sir. It has always been so\nand that's all, I suppose. Do they take it quietly for the most\npart? Why--sometimes they give us a little trouble, but--yes,\ngenerally they bear it pretty well, poor fellows!\n\n{773}\n\nMore narrow passages, with grated rooms like aviaries on each\nside. These are the apartments where the prisoners receive their\nfriends, separated from them by two gratings several feet apart.\nIt will remind you of the picture in _Old Curiosity Shop_,\nwhere Mrs. Nubbles and Barbara's mother go to see Kit in prison.\nA prisoner can receive a visit once in three months, write one\nletter, and receive one; but they are seldom here so long.\nNewgate is only a house of detention before trial, except for\nthose condemned to death--a mere jail. Here we are in one of the\ngreat oblong halls with tiers of cells opening on to galleries.\nUp this iron staircase in the middle of the hall and across this\nlittle bridge, and we stand outside a cell door. In the American\nprisons you have seen, you say that the cells open on a corridor,\nwith a grated door, and sometimes a grated window. Not so, here.\nThe door is solid, with merely a small hole for purposes of\n_surveillance_, and a trap below it through which food,\netc., may be passed. If the prisoner wants anything, he rings a\nbell, the action of which is curious. Fix your eye on the\nbell-spring outside. I pull the bell inside and a tin flap flies\nback, showing the number of the cell. Thus the officer knows what\nbell has rung, and the prisoner, having no power over the flap\nwhen it has once sprung back, cannot avoid discovery if he has\nrung merely in order to give trouble. The cell is sufficiently\nlarge, you see, and is lighted from the court-yard through that\narched window near the ceiling. A nice little room enough, with\nthe bedding stowed away on one of those shelves in the corner. On\nthe shelf below is the prisoner's bowl with the spoon lying on\nit. Everything must be in its place. If the spoon were on the\nshelf, it would be out of place; it must lie on the reversed\nbowl. Resting against the wall is his plate, and on the lowest\nshelf are his books. Oh! yes, you may examine them--the same in\nall the cells, Bible, Prayer-Book, hymns, and psalms. [Footnote\n222] The other volume comes from our library, and is changed\nevery day, if necessary> At this little turn-up shelf the\nprisoner takes his meals, or reads by the small shade-lamp above\nit. In the corner is a nice copper basin with plenty of water.\nThere are two apertures, one to admit warm air, the other for\nventilation; every comfort provided for him, you see. Yes, we\nkeep the prisoners entirely apart from each other, never two\ntogether, unless some one comes here for drunkenness, and has\ndelirium tremens, and then we put two others with him for\nsafety's sake. Now we'll go up to the next corridor; in the one\nbelow are the doctors' cells, where fresh prisoners are kept\nuntil they have passed through a sanitary examination.\n\n    [Footnote 222: Prisoners who do not belong to the Established\n    Church can be visited by a priest or by a dissenting\n    minister.]\n\nStep into this cell, occupied, as you see, by a mere boy. There's\nhis pile of oakum on the floor. Go on with your dinner, my man;\nno need to stop for us. As we go up higher, more light comes in\nfrom the courtyard; the upper cells are reserved for prisoners\nwho are likely to be here some time. The next cell occupied too,\nyou see, though we've not many prisoners here now, the trials\nbeing just over. Yes, sir, this man is trying to educate himself\na little; has a dictionary on the shelf beside the\nlibrary-book--a volume of travels this time. Now that we are in\nthe corridor again, let me tell you that this same shock-headed\nyoung man is condemned to ten years of penal servitude and twenty\nlashes, for highway robbery with violence. The lashes are to be\nreceived before he leaves Newgate, but more on that subject\npresently.\n\n{774}\n\nHere we are in the old part of Newgate. In your reading, no doubt\nyou've come across the name of Mrs. Elizabeth Fry. It was in this\nsame long, dark room that she used to assemble the prisoners, and\nread and pray with them. No, I have no means of judging of the\ndurability of her conversions. It is easy to talk of converting\ncriminals; but perhaps her chief merit lay in setting the example\nin England of a friendly and trusting intercourse with these poor\nwretches. Yes, it is strange to see the whipping-block in this\nroom, but indeed, sir, corporal punishment has become an absolute\nnecessity. It is never used to force prison discipline, but is\nadministered in execution of a sentence, imposed by a magistrate\nfor wanton violence. It is a curious fact that these brutes, who\ngo about garroting inoffensive travellers, breaking jaws and\nskulls with their brass knuckles or dusters, as they call them,\nare the veriest cowards on earth when physical pain comes to\nthemselves. In this very room they will cry like children, and\nbeg to be forgiven, I don't feel half the pity for them that I do\nfor the poor creatures going to be hanged. [Footnote 223] This\niron door survived the fire in the Gordon riots, you see. Come\nthrough here, if you please, sir. This is another of the large\nrooms in old Newgate, where prisoners were kept before the\nsolitary system came into vogue. The change is a most fortunate\none for all concerned, I'm confident.\n\n    [Footnote 223: We are not fully convinced of the wisdom of\n    introducing the whipping-block once more into the honorable\n    company of penal inflictions in England. One of the most\n    satisfactory cases of reformation we have known among persons\n    guilty of grave crimes, was that of a \"garroter.\" It is our\n    strong impression that corporal punishment would have\n    degraded him beyond all human hope of redemption. At least,\n    great care should be taken to keep the use of this instrument\n    of torture within the bounds of absolute necessity.\n    Imprisonment may soften the heart; perhaps many persons have\n    died well on the scaffold, who would have died impenitent\n    under other circumstances; but however great may have been\n    the number of spirits crushed by flogging in prisons, we\n    venture to doubt whether there is a single instance on record\n    of its having produced or aided reformation.]\n\nI've no question that many a crime was hatched here among the men\nherded together in these cells. You can see for yourself what\nkind of talk there would be among them. Perhaps some footman was\nsent here for stealing his master's purse. What a chance for an\nold hand to get a little useful information in a friendly way:\n\"Your master was an easy, comfortable kind of a man, was he?\nWell, them well-to-do city-men mostly is easy-tempered. Not\npartickerlerly well-to-do, an't he? Old family he belongs to, eh?\nWhat lots o' plate some o' them poor noblemen do have! Wonder\nmyself that they don't sell it and get the good out on it, 'stead\nof hiding it away at the banker's? Don't keep it at the bankers!\nPity the poor cuss as cleans it, then! Go to Brighton or Bath, of\ncourse, when the season's over; I thought as much; it takes poor\nfolks to travel,\" etc., etc. And then, the first step after\ngetting out of Newgate would be to make love to the maid-servant\nwhen the family was out of town. Very devoted he'd be, until some\nevening he'd think it \"such a pity there were no oranges in the\nhouse, or something else to cool your mouth with; there was such\na nice, respectable place round the corner; wouldn't she just\nstep round there and choose something for herself?\" And then,\nwhile the the poor girl was gone, the accomplices, well\ninstructed as to the whereabouts of the plate, would ransack the\nsafe at their leisure. You may depend upon it, sir, it was a good\nthing for society when the present discipline was adopted.\n\n{775}\n\nThe little court-yard we are crossing now is one of those where\nthe prisoners take their exercise. Oh! yes, sir; they all have\nregular times for exercise, and in these yards within the\nbuilding there is no possibility of their making their escape. I\nam going to show one of our cells for solitary confinement. Let\nme turn up the gas in this small room. You see this door which I\nopen, and again an inner door, which I open too. Step in, sir.\nNow, turn so that your eye may catch the gaslight outside. Here\nis a bedstead; you can feel it, if you don't see it. In this\ncell, pitch-dark and cut off from the rest of the prison so\ncompletely that no shouts or screams would be heard, unruly\nprisoners are confined for any period between one hour and three\ndays, with only bread and water for food. There is ventilation\nand warmth here, as in the other cells. The doctor comes each\nmorning to see that mind and body are sound. Only by sentence of\na magistrate can the confinement be prolonged beyond three days.\nYes, sir, it is an awful place; and then, too, the men look upon\nit as sheer lost time. We have soldiers in here sometimes, and\nthey say that they can make up for three days on bread and water\nin the guard-house, by spending their whole pay in eating and\ndrinking when they come out; but here it's just loss of rations,\nand nothing else. You'll hardly ever catch an old thief in here.\n\"Oh! don't stop my grub, whatever you do,\" he'll say, and so he\ntakes care to behave well enough to keep out of \"solitary.\" The\nprisoners who mind it least are little ragamuffins, accustomed to\ncreep into any dark hole, to curl themselves up and go to sleep.\nThey are never afraid of anything. Decent boys, in prison on\nsuspicion of forgery or whatever, are dreadfully scared. But\nyou'll be glad to get out into the daylight again, I am thinking,\nsir.\n\nI'll show you our chapel now. In that screened gallery the women\nsit, where they can see everything without being seen. There is\ndivine service here every morning, as well as on Sundays. No,\nsir; I've no authority to show you the female side of the prison,\nwhich is quite distinct from ours, and has female warders, and a\ncommittee of lady visitors. The system of female keepers works\nperfectly well; but it would have been impracticable before we\nadopted separate cells, because the talk among the prisoners was\nsuch as no decent woman should hear. A wicked woman is a thousand\ntimes worse than a bad man, and less intelligent, too. You see,\nsir, a woman falls because she is either pretty, or silly, or\nunprotected. Now, bad men and boys are often the most intelligent\nof their class, and are selected as tools for that very reason,\nby older rogues than themselves. It is one of the terrible\nfeatures of the case, that the country loses valuable servants in\nthese quick-witted outlaws.\n\nHere we come out upon the sloping passage, leading to the\ncriminal courts--Birdcage-walk, the old thieves call it.\nOver-head we get the light through the open iron-work, you see.\nUnder the flags are buried all those who have been hanged, and\nthe initial letter of the name is scratched on the wall above the\ngrave. That iron door at the end leads to the court-rooms. Yes,\nindeed, sir, some of the prisoners one learns to like best are\nthose awaiting execution here, educated men sometimes. Oh! yes; I\nknow the names that all these letters stand for. Muller lies\nthere. No, he was not much of a man, any way. Here's Courvoisier,\nwho murdered Lord Russell; he was my lord's valet.\n{776}\nThose five letters stand for five pirates. This one was a\ncoachman, who murdered a female in the city, and burned the\nremains in his stable. Here's a man who killed his wife. Why,\nyes, sir; there are a good many in here for wife-murder;\naggravating, I suppose, at times. That was an Italian, who killed\nanother female in the city. This man hung his own child in the\ncellar. Oh! no, he was not insane; jealous of his wife, or\nsomething of the sort, I believe. There are a good many more\nhere, but their cases were not so well known. Another court-yard\nto be crossed, sir, and here we are in one of the condemned\ncells. A good deal larger it is than the common cells, you see,\nwith a bedstead, a good-sized table, and a long bench. From the\ntime of his condemnation, the poor fellow is never left alone,\nnight or day; two officers take turn and turn about in staying\nwith him. Oh! certainly, sir, they talk with him; not about his\ncase, of course, but of any book they have been reading, or of\nthings outside the prison, and so on. The idea is not to let his\nmind dwell much on what is before him, and so spare him all the\nsuffering we can.\n\nYou are right, sir; it would be absolutely impossible to dispense\nwith capital punishment in this country. Murder is common enough\nnow, but I am confident it would be much more frequent if the\nfear of death were withdrawn. Your professional thief\n_never_ commits murder. All rogues have an especial line of\nbusiness. A house-breaker is never guilty of highway robbery; a\nhighway-man never picks pockets; and they none of them commit\nmurder. Now, sir, there is a deal of talk about the horrors of a\npublic execution, and the bad effect such a sight must have on\nthe people. Well, sir, I am of a different opinion. The people\nwho come to a hanging are the very scum of London. Some gentlemen\nthere are, too, I know, by the looks of the windows opposite; but\nthe crowd is chiefly made up of the mere scum and dregs of\nLondon. I think, sir, it is a lesson to them, and a lesson they\nneed badly. Sometimes we say to the little ragamuffins who get in\nhere, \"Did you ever go to a hanging?\" \"Yes, sir.\" \"And what did\nyou think of it?\" \"Why, I wasn't in a very good place, sir; I\ncouldn't see much.\" \"Well, don't you know that if you go on as\nyou're going now, you may come to commit murder one of these\ndays, and be hanged yourself?\" \"Oh! no, sir! I mustn't commit\nmurder.\" He has learned that much, if he's not learned anything\nelse. [Footnote 224]\n\n  [Footnote 224: We present this argument simply as a statement\n  of one side of an oft-mooted question, but we are far from\n  being convinced of its validity.]\n\nI believe that if capital punishment were abolished, a thief,\ninstead of leaving his pal (as the vulgar term is for accomplice)\nin a mask, to watch the man and wife while he searches for plate,\nwould kill them both. He would know that he could only be\ntransported for life, and if he killed the officers placed in\ncharge over him, the law could only repeat the same sentence.\nYes, sir; you are right; capital punishment is sometimes too\nsevere a penalty, in proportion to the crime it punishes. It\nfalls, now and then, on a man who has not led a bad life in\ngeneral, but who is possessed by one passion--jealousy, or\nrevenge, or whatever. There should be a clearer distinction of\ncircumstances in pronouncing sentence. A man who sets out to do a\nthing, with a distinct determination to take life if he can in no\nother way accomplish his purpose, commits murder.\n{777}\nA man devoured by passion, and acting under its influence, should\nbe judged less severely. And yet, sir, since the penalty of death\nis less designed as a punishment of criminals than as a defence\nof the public, even this distinction is very hard to make. We can\nonly hope that our children will judge the matter more wisely\nthan we do.\n\nThis room, sir, inclosed in glass, is the apartment where a\nprisoner meets his solicitor. The door is closed upon client and\ncounsel, and the officer in attendance cannot hear their talk, or\nlearn what points are to be used in the defence.\n\nHere we are in the room where the prisoner is prepared for\nexecution. I'll get the key, and unlock the closet where our\nirons are kept. This is the old style, sir, very cumbrous, as you\nsee. Here are the identical irons Jack Sheppard wore. They would\nbe so much too large for me, that I could slip my foot out at\nonce; but in those days they wore pads around the ankle, so that\nthe ring fitted close. When you read of Jack's breaking loose\nfrom his irons, it sounds very grand; but all he did was to\nunwind the pad from his ankle, and draw his foot out. These are\nthe irons we use in travelling with convicts; here are common\nhandcuffs, as you see; and here is the sort of harness worn by\nprisoners about to be executed. It pinions the arms firmly, and,\nat the last moment, fastens the legs together. Why, no, sir; I\ncan't say that educated men bear it any better than ignorant\nones. I've seen educated men most awfully frightened. I think it\nwas death they feared, sir, not shame. When they are ready, they\npass through this passage, and out through the iron door I showed\nyou in the kitchen, on to the square. Step into this cabinet a\nmoment, sir. On those shelves are casts taken after death from\nthose who have been executed. There is Muller, there is\nCourvoisier, there is Marchand. The young fellow with negro\nfeatures was only nineteen. He murdered his fellow-servant. Yes,\nthe one next him looks like a negro too; you are probably right,\nsir. The one with the well-formed, dimpled chin little thought\nhow his pleasure-loving youth would end. Surprisingly life-like\nthey all are. Yes, these are the men who lie under the flags in\nthe Birdcage-walk. This way, sir, for your hat and cane. Good\nday, sir. Astonishingly fine weather for the season.\n\n\n\n         II. Saint Lazare.\n\nThe ancient convent of Saint Lazare, in Paris, once the home of\nSt. Vincent de Paul, is now a prison for women taken from the\nlowest depths of Parisian life. Their name is legion; their\nsufferings from sickness and neglect before arrest are\nunutterable. France has no law for such as they beyond the will\nof the prefect of police. What alleviation, you ask, has been\nfound for this corrosive social evil? A more effective one than\ndisbelievers in French virtue would anticipate. All females who\ncome under the notice of the police for sanitary reasons or\ncriminal matters, are sent to Saint Lazare, where, instead of\njailers, there are fifty-five Sisters of Charity. [Footnote 225]\n\n    [Footnote 225: Or, more strictly speaking, fifty-five Sisters\n    of Marie Joseph, the sisterhood devoted to prison discipline\n    in France.]\n\nHow many of the miserable creatures are converted by intercourse\nwith these noble and refined women, God only knows. The day of\njudgment will reveal the difference between real and apparent\nsuccess. But a woman who has been first the plaything and then\nthe scorn of society, must think more tenderly of God in Saint\nLazare, than in any ordinary prison or workhouse.\n\n{778}\n\nTwo objections which may be made to the system of treatment\nadopted at Saint Lazare, I will try to answer before enumerating\nthe very details which would probably suggest them.\n\nIn the first place, it may be urged that the prisoners are made\nso comfortable that imprisonment becomes a reward rather than a\npunishment, a bribe rather than a threat. Secondly, it may be\nwith truth asserted that the wicked poor receive better care in\nsuch an establishment, than society gives to the virtuous poor\nwho have never seen the inside of a jail.\n\nTo the first objection I answer, that imprisonment is never easy\nfor such women to bear, because the passions which bring them so\nlow, love of excitement and vanity, find no food in a\nwell-ordered prison; that the opposite system has been tested\never since the world was, and still the world overflows with\nimpenitent sinners; that at least half the prisoners of Saint\nLazare are wicked for want of precisely what they find\nthere--judicious training; a decent dwelling-place, good example;\nand, last and best reason of all, that this system is the one\nmost in accordance with the teaching and example of Christ.\n\nAnd my answer to the second objection is this. Let us seek out\nthe honest poor, provide them with decent lodging-houses at low\nprices, with practical education, useful and entertaining\nreading, innocent amusement, and, above all, with religious and\nmoral instruction; but do not let us relax our efforts to reform\nsinners merely because we have shamefully neglected our duties\ntoward saints. We may say truly that the respectable poor are\nhard to find, because their very virtues conceal them from the\npublic eye. We have no such excuse where sinners are concerned;\nfor they are festering in every jail, penitentiary, and almshouse\nin every city throughout the world. Justice, not charity, demands\nthat society should provide decent asylums where its victims may\nhide their wretchedness.\n\nBut let us examine the discipline of Saint Lazare in detail, that\nthe reader may judge for himself whether these objections have\nbeen satisfactorily disposed of.\n\nThe inmates are divided into three classes: 1st. Women who have\nbeen tried for crimes and condemned; 2d. _Filles publiques_,\nconsigned to St. Lazare by the police for sanitary or other\nreasons; 3d. Young girls and children sent thither by their\nparents (_correction paternelle_) for safe keeping, or\nbrought there by the police as vagrants.\n\nThe uniform is neat and inconspicuous, dark blue for one class of\noffenders, and maroon for the other; I think the children wear no\nuniform. The clothes-rooms are arranged very methodically,\nunder-clothing and dresses being laid on shelves in orderly piles\nwhich would satisfy the most fastidious Yankee housekeeper. The\ncommon prison garments are comfortable and well made; but there\nis a higher grade of clothing for those who can afford to pay for\nit, who are there on \"pistole,\" as the technical term is, taken\nfrom an old French coin. The same is to be said of food and\nlodging; comfortable accommodations being provided for all, while\nsmall luxuries can be purchased at a small expense. Tariffs are\nposted all over the prison, that the inmates may know the fixed\nprices of various articles, and not be subjected to dishonesty on\nthe part of sub-officials.\n{779}\nThe present writer, who endured the terrible ordeal imposed on\nall conscientious visitors, of tasting everything the various\nkitchens produced, can answer for the excellent quality of soup,\ncoffee, bread, etc., etc. Having been allowed to content himself\nwith visual proof in passing through the well-ordered pharmacies,\nhe can only vouch for their neatness and apparent convenience.\n\nThe work-rooms are generally furnished with tiers of benches\ngraduated nearly to the ceiling, so that one sister can\nsuperintend a roomful of work-women. The gentleman who\naccompanied me in my first visit showed me with some pride the\ncomfortable straw seats. \"The empress came here one day,\" he\nsaid, and asked the prisoners if they were in need of anything.\nThey told her the wooden benches were uncomfortable, and her\nmajesty ordered these seats to be made, where they can sit and\nsew all day without great fatigue. Yes, our empress is a good and\ncharitable soul.\"\n\nMany institutions send work to be done at Saint Lazare, and each\nprisoner receives a certain proportion of the proceeds of her\nlabor, that she may have the wherewithal to begin an honest life\nwhen her term is out. Each day's earnings she writes down in her\nown little account-book, a dingy record of hopes, as it must be\nto some of them. The court-yards, where there is an hour's\nrecreation twice a day, are large and cheerful. In the centre are\nlarge tanks where the women are allowed to wash small articles of\nclothing; an inestimable privilege, as any one knows who has seen\nprisoners trying to extemporize a laundry in their cells with a\ntin wash-basin. These courts are the favored haunts of sparrows\nwho twitter as cheerfully within the old prison walls as under\nthe eaves of good men's dwellings. A magpie was hopping about in\nthe cloister with the air of an _habitu\u00e9_, looking amazingly\nas if he were there on sentence.\n\nThere are a number of infirmaries, all tended by Sisters of\nCharity, and well supplied from a kitchen devoted to hospital\ndiet. The patients are of the lowest class, their maladies the\nsaddest that flesh is heir to. That such a hospital should have\nany attraction to the visitor is impossible; but remembering the\nhosts of such forlorn creatures who throng our jails and\nalmshouses in America, I longed to transport wards and warders to\nthe other side of the Atlantic and inaugurate a change in prison\ndiscipline for women. [Footnote 226]\n\n    [Footnote 226:  In the February number of _The Catholic\n    World_ appeared an article entitled _Paris Impious, and\n    Religious Paris_, giving some interesting details\n    concerning Saint Lazare.]\n\nI had the good fortune to be accompanied by a gentleman\nassociated for many years with prison reforms, and charged with\nhigh authority in the matter of prison discipline in Paris. He\nmakes it his rule to visit the prisoners at all times and\nseasons, that he may detect any breach of discipline or lack of\nfidelity on the part of the superintendents. He is a man who\nunder the wretched disguise of vice recognizes humanity, no\nmatter how defiled; who looks rather to remove the causes of sin\nthan to procure its punishment, and sees in every culprit a good\nman spoiled. Let no one suppose that I mean to advocate a feeble\nadministration of justice. No; in a prison, over-indulgence means\nchaos; present weakness means future severity. At Saint Lazare\nsteady, unswerving vigilance is observed, and silence enforced\namong the prisoners. Discipline being maintained evenly, not\nspasmodically, the prisoners can be allowed privileges very\nimportant to them.\n{780}\nVisitors are admitted twice a week to converse with the women\nthrough two gratings, as at Newgate, a sister standing in the\nnarrow passage between. Recreation in the yards is taken in\ncommon, instead of separately. It is surprising to find how a\nprisoner clings to the privilege of seeing his fellow-creatures,\neven when there is no chance of communication. The peculiar pangs\ninflicted by the solitary system, when endured for a long time,\ncan only be appreciated by those who have had confidential\nintercourse with prisoners.\n\nThe prisoners' chapel is very cheerful, and has a pretty\nsanctuary with stained-glass windows, and an altar beautifully\ncared for. One of the points most worthy of approval in Saint\nLazare, is the attractive form under which religion is everywhere\npresented. In each dormitory, infirmary, and work room, is an\noratory; or, at least, some image or picture suited to impress\nthe souls of the prisoners.\n\nOne part of the establishment is full of tender associations to\nevery Christian soul--the sisters' private chapel, whose\nsanctuary was once the cell of Saint Vincent de Paul. The stone\nfloor in the recessed window where he used to pray is worn hollow\nwith the pressure of his knees. Saint Lazare was frequented in\nthose days by many pilgrims, and in his cell the saint sought\nrefuge from distraction and dissipation of spirit. It is from\nkneeling-cushions such as his, that the prayers go up to heaven\nwhich work true reforms, which achieve immortal victories whose\nlaurels are fresh centuries after the conqueror's soul glories in\nthe presence of God. I have never stood in any cathedral with a\nsoul more filled with veneration than in this little chapel of\nSaint Lazare, where Saint Vincent de Paul prayed; and where his\nchildren pray still, devoted to the work most repugnant to human\nnature, that of tending beings who remind us what we should all\nbe but for the grace of God.\n\nOne infirmary is a lying-in hospital. The mothers can keep their\nyoung children at Saint Lazare, or send them away as they choose.\nIn this infirmary shone forth the kindly spirit of my guide.\n\"This always touches me,\" he said; \"for I am a _p\u00e8re de\nfamille_\" and he went from baby to baby with gentle looks and\nwomanly sweetness, a man stalwart of frame as a grenadier. And it\ntouched me, too, though I am not _p\u00e8re de famille_, to see\nthe lines of little cribs, and the poor, forlorn mothers tending\ntheir tiny waifs and strays.\n\nThere is one serious defect in the construction of Saint Lazare,\nmaking it in that respect unsuitable for a prison. There is but\none large dormitory for the adult prisoners who are in good\nhealth. The others sleep, two, three, or even four in a large\ncell, and with no arrangements for _surveillance_ beyond a\nsmall aperture in the door, covered with glass. I remarked upon\nthe imprudence of this arrangement, and was told that the danger\nwas fully appreciated and deeply regretted. The French government\nis too generous in its treatment of public institutions to leave\nthis evil long unremedied, I am confident.\n\nAnother defect in the regulations surprised me. There is no daily\nMass in the public chapel of Saint Lazare, the prisoners hearing\nMass on Sunday only. I had no opportunity of asking the reason of\nthis omission, and will therefore refrain from making farther\ncomment upon it. The third department in Saint Lazare is the most\ninteresting, being the portion devoted to young girls and\nhomeless children.\n{781}\nThe sentence is for six months only, but can be renewed if found\nexpedient. My guide called to him child after child, and talked\nwith them as he might talk with his own children at home. One\nlittle thing cried bitterly. Her mother had turned her into the\nstreets to shift for herself, and the police, finding her\nwandering about the city, had brought her to Saint Lazare. He\nheld her little hand in his and patted it softly as he said all\nthe comforting things he could think of; there was not much to be\nsaid, one must confess. I asked where she would be sent when the\nsix months were out. \"To some industrial establishment under the\ncharge of Sisters of Charity,\" was the answer; \"The empress sees\nto all such things.\"\n\nThe young people are kept entirely separate from the prisoners,\nin the new part of Saint Lazare. They have several hours'\nschooling, and have their working hours, in which they earn money\nfor themselves and for the establishment, as the women do. Each\nchild has an exquisitely neat cell to herself for the night,\nopening with a grating on to a corridor, so that the watching\nsister can exercise a strict _surveillance_.\n\nWhenever I see the right thing done in the right way for public\noffenders, I think of the man who first turned my attention to\nthe subject of prison discipline--Governor Andrew, as he will be\nto us all in Massachusetts, no matter who holds the state reins.\nSurely the sun has not often shone on any spirit more steadfast\nor more tender than his; surely, the days of chivalry produced no\nknightly courage more unblenching than his; surely, whatever\nblessings come to Massachusetts in her future career, her\nchildren will never forget how valiantly that brave man fought\nfor judicious legislation, for a humane execution of the laws,\nand for the equal rights of Catholics and Protestants--will never\nforget John Albion Andrew!\n\n--------------\n\n    Translated From Le Correspondant.\n\n     A Heroine Of Conjugal Love.\n\n      Marquise De La Fayette.\n\n\nWhen, at the end of the year 1864, the children of Madame de\nMontagu, having overcome the natural scruples of filial modesty,\nconsented to open to the public the treasure of noble examples\nand Christian virtues enclosed in the remembrances of their\nmother, _Le Correspondant_ was the first among the public\norgans to announce the lively interest felt in the recital. The\nsuccess more than justified our predictions. There is no one who\nwould not be edified by the perusal of the life of Madame de\nMontagu, and the book has already taken its place in our\nlibraries.\n\n{782}\n\nSince that publication, the Duchess of Ayen, around whom are\ngrouped five daughters widely differing from each other, and each\nwith a strongly marked individuality, has become in some sort the\ntype of the Christian mother in modern society.\n\nIndeed, maternal love was in truth the terrestrial passion of her\nheart, and would entirely have occupied it, had not the care of\nthis dear flock borne with it higher duties, and rendered greater\nher accountability. The marvellous gift had been given her to\nform souls; to develop the budding good within them, and, while\nrespecting the originality peculiar to each, to arm them with\nincomparable strength.\n\nWe need not return to what, four years ago, we have already\npublished of the Christian discipline, the simple and retired\nlife to which the Duchess of Ayen had accustomed her daughters,\nrealizing in them her type of true womanhood, making the heart\nsuperior to destiny, neither dazzled by fortune or success, nor\ncast down by the ills of life. When the life of Madame de Montagu\nwas first published, only in episode we recognized those of the\nnoble daughters of the Duchess d'Ayen, reserved by Providence for\nthe rudest trials, or destined for a bloody immolation. We speak\nof the Viscountess de Noailles, who with her mother and\ngrandmother, the old Marchioness of Noailles, perished on the\nscaffold, and Madame de La Fayette, the voluntary prisoner of\nOlmutz, in truth one of the most touching heroines of conjugal\nlove. In the life of their sister they are but secondary figures;\nbut as it is permitted even among the saints of paradise to have\na preference, we must confess that, in this beautiful group of\nheroic figures, our predilection has always been for the two\neldest. It will be readily understood, then, with what respect\nand emotion we have opened the book, in which we would not only\nfind the abridged recital of the actions of Madame de La Fayette,\nbut could see her act, hear her speak herself of her dearly loved\nmother, listen to the passionate accents of her voice, and,\nindeed, almost feel the very beatings of her heart.\n\nThis volume, printed by T\u00e9chener with great typographical care,\ncontains the life of the Duchess of Ayen, written by Madame de La\nFayette, in the fortress of Olmutz, on the margin of a Buffon,\nwith a little India-ink and a tooth-pick, and subject to the\nhateful inspection of the Austrian jailers. We could not find a\nmore touching relic. Nowadays we mount distinguished autographs\nin gold; should this ever pass into public sale, would it not\njustify unheard-of extravagances? And we have now this life of\nMadame de La Fayette compiled by a daughter worthy of her, Madame\nde Lasteyrie, herself the representative of the virtue and\ncharity of a race of which, according to an expression applied to\nan eminent royal family, all the daughters were chaste and the\nsons valiant. And to these two recitals we add another document,\nthat we had the good fortune to publish in April, 1847, in which\nthe good Abb\u00e9 Carrichon, an ecclesiastic full of zeal, but timid\nin character, and who only by the grace of the holy ministry\ncould rise to intrepidity, relates, in the most perfect good\nfaith, the anguish he endured, when to his lot it fell to give to\nthe three condemned ones the peace and consolation of last\npardon. Those who may be astonished to find in a whole generation\nof the same family so many and such extraordinary virtues, may\nrest assured of its truth. Imagination has added nothing to the\nedifying recital of these beautiful lives. The original documents\nthat we give to-day in their sublime nakedness, bear an accent of\naustere heroism and holy enthusiasm that strengthens the heart\nand penetrates it with the love of good; they vouch for our first\npublication.\n{783}\nIn the rapid analysis we will try to make from these documents,\nwe will present the most striking traits of the character and\nlife of Madame de La Fayette. Adrienne de Noailles, second\ndaughter of the Duchess of Ayen, was of ardent temperament, of\ndeep sensibility, with a lively imagination and a mind well\ninformed. She ever refused to adopt any idea imposed upon her,\nthat could not be subject to a free discussion. She seized\ndifficulties and penetrated to their depths. While still a child,\nshe was troubled by doubts of her religion, even when, at the age\nof twelve, she was prepared for her first communion. She does not\ngive us the nature of these doubts, but it is clearly seen they\nnever interfered with the practice of piety; on the contrary, her\nthirst for truth increased her fervor. Her pious mother was not\nalarmed at this state of her soul; she divined the source, and\nwaited with confidence for grace to dissipate the clouds. Only,\nshe believed it best to defer the first communion of her daughter\nuntil, calm and reassured, she could enjoy her supreme happiness\nin all its plenitude. And she did not presume too much on the\nintegrity of her daughter; never was more solid piety or firmer\nfaith implanted in a heart of deeper conviction.\n\nIf we were to study anew the perfect model of a mother which the\nDuchess of Ayen presents in the portrait drawn of her by Madame\nde La Fayette, a portrait depicted, too, with a sincerity that\ndoes not fear to let us penetrate the shadows, and so prove its\nreality, we should dwell upon the profoundly Christian spirit\nthat directed her in the choice of her sons-in-law. We there see\nher rising above all worldly considerations, seeking above all\nthings in them the moral qualities which may assure the happiness\nof her daughters; for she did not look upon marriage, as is too\noften done, as a simple affair of interest, of fortune, or of\nvanity, but it was, in her eyes, the sacred tie in which love\nshould bear the greater part. God, who united man and woman, and\nwho said, \"Man shall leave father and mother, and cleave to his\nwife, and they two shall be one flesh,\" has he not made love the\nduty of Christian marriage? Under the old _r\u00e9gime_ and among\nthe nobility, marriages were contracted early, and Mesdemoiselles\nde Noailles were scarcely twelve or thirteen years old when the\nfirst proposition for their hands were made for them to their\nmother. One of these candidates, the Marquis de La Fayette, was\nhimself only fourteen years old. \"His extreme youth, his isolated\nposition, having lost all his near relations, an immense fortune\nsuddenly acquired, which the Duchesse d'Ayen looked upon only as\na temptation,\" all these considerations, which in a purely\nworldly view would have seduced many a mother, decided her at\nfirst to refuse him, notwithstanding the good opinion she\nentertained of his character. The Duke d'Ayen strongly insisted\non an alliance which combined every advantage of rank and wealth,\nbut the duchess for several months none the less persisted in her\nrefusal; and it was only after a more attentive examination of\nthe character of M. de Lafayette had reassured her of the future\nof her daughter, that, demanding a delay of two years, she\nfinally gave her consent. The idea of the moment when she must\nresign her daughters into the keeping of another, filled her with\napprehension; evidently, she desired for them a felicity that she\nhad not enjoyed herself, that of entire conformity of tastes,\nthoughts, and character in the companions of their lives; and\nwhen the marriages were resolved upon, it is delightful to read\nin the recital of Madame de La Fayette the detail of touching\ncares with which this tender mother charged herself, to prepare\nthese eldest daughters for their new stations--one to espouse\nthe Viscount de Noailles, a cousin whom she had loved since her\ninfancy, and the other to be united to M. de La Fayette.\n\n{784}\n\n  \"'My heart attracted me to M. de La Fayette,' says with much\n  simplicity the manuscript of the prisoner of Olmutz, 'and with\n  a sentiment so profound, that our union has always been one of\n  firmness and tenderness through all the vicissitudes of this\n  life--through all the good and evil that have been our lot for\n  twenty-four years.\n\n  \"With what pleasure I discovered that, for more than a year, my\n  mother had looked upon and loved him as her son! She detailed\n  to me all the good she had known of him--what she thought of\n  him herself, and I soon saw he possessed for her the filial\n  charm that made the happiness of my life. She occupied herself\n  in aiding my poor head, especially about this time so empty and\n  so weak, to keep from going astray during such an important\n  event. She taught me to ask, and she asked for me, the\n  blessings of heaven on the state I was about to embrace.\n\n  \"'I was then only fourteen and a half years old, and, having\n  new duties to perform, my mother believed it her duty to\n  reapply herself to the care of forming my sister and myself for\n  our future destinies. The confidence with which we always\n  conversed with her, gave her abundant opportunity. It was not\n  the kind of confidence to which, I believe, mothers oftener\n  pretend than obtain from their children--that inspired by a\n  companion of one's own age--but the perfect and intimate trust\n  which needs the direction and approval of a parent, and causes\n  a pang of fear in any step, visit, or conversation, of which\n  she may not approve. A confidence, in fine, which always\n  returns to its support--to its guide, in whose light it would\n  repose as well as in its tenderness; a guide who, if even one\n  could not always approve its decisions, and might encounter its\n  reproaches, would still be considered necessary, and to whom\n  the idea of dissimulation would be insupportable.\n\n  \"'Such was my feeling toward my mother, who often permitted me\n  to argue with her.'\"\n\nThe ceremony of the marriage accomplished, the husband of sixteen\nyears set out for his regiment, and the young bride testified by\nher grief at this separation all the affection she experienced\nfor him. He returned: the religious education of Madame de La\nFayette was completed, she made her first communion with an\nentire faith and in the most humble dispositions, and soon after,\non the 15th of December, 1775, she became a mother for the first\ntime.\n\nThe faculty of loving knew no bounds in this youthful heart.\nIdentified in all the tastes, aspirations, sentiments, and\ninterests of him who had given her the right to say, in all\nsincerity, \"I love you religiously, worldly, passionately,\" she\nadopted the political faith of her husband, and, without any\npersonal afterthought, without weakness or hesitation, from her\nmost tender age, valiantly accepted all the sacrifices and all\nthe perils of the public life of a man whose political\npreoccupations governed him exclusively. He held the best part of\nher heart; but, immovable in her religious faith, Madame de La\nFayette never sacrificed a principle nor a practice of piety to\nher conjugal idolatry. It is remarkable, also, that this ardor of\npassion for her husband never weakened the vivacity of her\ntenderness for her mother, her children, and her oldest sister,\nwho, from the cradle, had been her dearest friend.\n\n{785}\n\nInasmuch as she was sufficient for every duty, so her soul was\nsufficient in all its affections. The war which broke out about\nthis time between England and her American colonies, opened to\nthe Marquis de La Fayette the brilliant arena that would give\nimmortality to his name; but for his young companion began an\nexistence full, at the same time, of anguish and delirious joy,\nof grief and devotion. The family of Noailles had strongly\nadopted philosophical ideas, and willingly followed the liberal\nviews of the eighteenth century. The generous enthusiasm,\nhowever, which led M. de La Fayette to devote himself to the\nservice of the American people vindicating their independence,\nwas at first severely disapproved of and considered madness by\nthe Duke d'Ayen and the Marshal de Noailles. The marquis was\nnineteen; he had been married three years, was already a father,\nand soon expected a second child. Madame de La Fayette and the\nDuchess d'Ayen alone understood the motives that determined the\ndeparture of M. de La Fayette; the former studied in every way to\nconceal the torture of her heart, preferring to be considered\ninsensible, or too much of a child, to giving the appearance, by\nshowing her grief, of wrong to the object of her worship.\n\nMeanwhile, the great struggle, of which the new world was the\ntheatre, and in which aristocratic England found herself at war\nwith the principal democracy of modern society, held all Europe\nin suspense. The greatest interest was felt in France for the\nsuccess of the Americans. While the French government, though\nunderstanding how matters stood, hesitated, nevertheless, to take\nan open part in the quarrel, public opinion declared itself still\nmore favorably for the United States; the various incidents of\nthe war were greedily sought after, each success of the\ninsurgents excited enthusiasm, and soon all hearts beat in unison\nwith that of Madame de La Fayette, for the success of the young\nhero who had so actively contributed to such glorious results.\n\nWe must transport ourselves to this time, recall its events,\nwatch the fever of public opinion, to understand what must have\nbeen, after two years' absence, the first return of M. de La\nFayette, and the intoxication of joy his wife experienced. He was\nnot long in setting out again for the new world, and did not\nreturn from there finally until 1782, after the brilliant\ncampaign of which his valor assured the success, and which\nterminated by the surrender of Lord Cornwallis. His return was\nunexpected, a surprise for the court as well as the city: the\n_memoirs_ and _memories_ of the Count de Segur\nfurnished curious testimony to support what we have said. We\nread:\n\n  \"All who lived in that day will still remember the enthusiasm\n  occasioned by the return of M. de La Fayette, an enthusiasm of\n  which the queen herself partook. They were celebrating, at the\n  Hotel de Ville, a brilliant _f\u00eate_ on the occasion of the\n  birth of an heir to the throne. The news came of the arrival of\n  the conqueror of Cornwallis. Madame de La Fayette, who assisted\n  at the _f\u00eate_, received a special mark of favor; the queen\n  placed her in her own carriage, and drove to the Hotel de\n  Noailles, where the marquis, her husband, had just alighted.\"\n  [Footnote 227]\n\n    [Footnote 227: Tome i. p. 180.]\n\nThe excess of sentiment of Madame de La Fayette for her husband\nat this time, was such that she suffered intensely in his\npresence. She endeavored to conceal her passion for him, and\ntrembled lest she might seem importunate, and weary him. Some\nyears after, she confessed to M. de La Fayette this passionate\nattraction for him which she had so resisted; \"but,\" she added\ngently, \"you need not be dissatisfied with what is left.\"\n\n{786}\n\nWe, who have only known M. de La Fayette soured and old, and do\nnot feel well disposed toward him, because, under the\nrestoration, he shadowed his glory as liberator of two worlds by\nintrigues with secret societies; we find it difficult to imagine\nhim so charming, \"carrying away every heart.\" But it was even so;\nand, at the same time that popular favor rendered him so powerful\namong the multitude, the most beautiful, the proudest, the most\nbrilliant ladies of the court, were madly in love with him.\n\nBut we are not writing a biography of M. de La Fayette, and it\nwill be understood that, in an article on the saintly companion\nof his life, we would not wish any controversy on so illustrious\na person, and for whom, with some reservation, we profess great\nand sincere respect. We will not speak, then, of the events of\nthe revolution, in which he played so prominent a part, only\ninasmuch as our heroine was mingled with and took part in them.\n\nThe abolition of the slave-trade was one of the philanthropic\npreoccupations of M. de La Fayette. He bought a plantation at\nCayenne, _la belle Gabrielle_, in order to give an example\nof a gradual enfranchisement of the slaves, and referred to the\nactive charity of his wife the details of his enterprise. With\nthis view, she kept up a correspondence with the priests of the\nseminary _du Saint-Esprit_, who had a house at Cayenne. If\ncircumstances did not permit the realization of her hopes, at\nleast she had the consolation of knowing that, thanks to the\nreligious instruction given to the blacks on this plantation,\nthey were guilty of less horrors than at any other point in the\ncolonies.\n\nWe must recognize here, too, and to its eternal honor, that\nAmerica has always been the portion of the globe where liberty of\nconscience, loudly proclaimed, has never ceased to be practised.\nIt was not so in old Europe and in France before 1789, so the\ncontrast presented by this free state of things, and the numerous\nvexations to which the different religions were exposed with us,\ncould not but forcibly strike M. de La Fayette on his return.\nAfter a journey to Nimes, where he studied more closely the\nsituation of the Protestants, he was able to present, with full\nknowledge of the case, a proposition to the Assembly of the\nNotables in 1787, demanding their restoration to the civil rights\nof which they had been despoiled.\n\nI love to remember that an eminent Catholic clergyman, Mgr.\nLuzerne, Bishop of Langres, and later, Cardinal, warmly supported\nthe proposition for this act of justice. Madame de La Fayette\nshared these sentiments, and received with lively interest the\nProtestant ministers whom the result of the affair attracted\naround her husband. A zealous child of the Catholic Church, she\ndetested the persecutions that could only alienate her children,\nand which appeared to her so opposed to the spirit of\nChristianity.\n\nAfter 1783, M. de La Fayette, whose family had increased\nconsiderably, and whose political importance had reached its\nheight, left the hotel de Noailles, to establish himself in his\nown house, _rue de Bourbon_, now the _rue de Lille_.\nAnd there the ever-increasing wave of the revolutionary movement,\nthat was never able to overcome the virtue and brightness of a\nking, the most estimable as a man of any who ever wore a crown,\nfound our heroine. The high position of M. de La Fayette, deputy\nof the nobility, member of the Constitutional Assembly, and\ncommander-in-chief of the Parisian National Guard, imposed\nobligations on him in which his wife never repudiated her part.\nShe was seen to accept the successive demands of each of the\ndistricts of Paris, to the number of sixty; to preside at the\nblessing of flags and other patriotic demonstrations. The general\nkept open house, and did its honors in a manner to charm his\nnumerous guests.\n\n{787}\n\n  \"'But, says her daughter, Madame de Lasteyrie, initiated into\n  her most secret thoughts, 'what she suffered in the depths of\n  her own heart, only those who heard her speak, can tell. She\n  saw my father at the head of a revolution of which it was\n  impossible to foretell the end. Every evil, every disorder, was\n  judged by her with a complete lack of illusion in her own\n  cause; yet she was so sustained by the principles of her\n  husband, and so convinced of the good he could do, and the evil\n  he might avert, that she bore with incredible strength the\n  continual dangers to which she was exposed. Never, said she to\n  us, did I see him go out during this time, without thinking\n  that I heard his last adieu. No one was more terrified than she\n  by the dangers of those she loved; but in these times, she rose\n  above herself, and in her devotion to my father, hoped he could\n  prevent the increasing crime.'\"\n\nWe may infer from these words the perpetual anguish of Madame de\nLa Fayette during the three first years of the revolution. In the\nDuchesse d'Ayen she found a support full of sweetness and\ntenderness; who, though sharing none of the opinions of her\nson-in-law, believed firmly in the rectitude of his intentions.\nHer angelic sister, the Viscountess de Noailles, felt exactly as\nshe did, loved equally a husband, young, handsome, brave, and\ncharming, associated in the most advanced ideas of M. de La\nFayette, and, like him, a member of the Assembly. The eldest\ndaughter, too, of Madame de La Fayette, began at this time to be\nof much comfort to her; she had her make her first communion in\n1790. It was, in the midst of the great political events of that\nepoch, the first concern of her maternal heart.\n\nThe civil constitution of the clergy was to be one of the most\nsensible tribulations of Madame de La Fayette. She considered she\nshould, more particularly on account of her personal situation,\ndeclare her attachment for the Catholic Church; consequently she\nwas present at the refusal of the oath which the cur\u00e9 of Saint\nSulpice made from the pulpit, of whom she was a parishioner; she\nwas constantly meeting there with persons most known by their\nopposition to the new principles, and with those then called the\n_aristocratie_. She took part assiduously in the offices, at\nfirst in the churches and afterward in the oratories where the\npersecuted clergy took refuge.\n\nShe continually received the nuns who fled to her for protection;\nor priests not under oath, whom she encouraged in the exercise of\ntheir functions, and the preservation of their religious liberty.\nShe well knew that such conduct was hurtful to the popularity of\nher husband, of great importance to her to preserve, but no\nconsideration could stop her in what she considered a duty.\n\nM. de La Fayette never interfered with the conduct of his wife;\nhe held as nobly to his principles of liberty of conscience in\nthis respect as in all others. Aloud he disapproved of the oath\nextorted from the Catholic priests, opposed it wherever he could,\nand was at least successful in preventing the articles relative\nto this civil constitution of the clergy from being\nconstitutional; on the contrary, they were even rejected from the\nclass of ordinary laws that any new legislature might revise. For\nGeneral La Fayette deluded himself that the constitution of 1791\nwas destined to last. But whatever his sentiments, that which\nmade him respect the religious convictions of his wife, and\noppose all his power to the persecution of the clergy, does great\nhonor to his character.\n{788}\nAs the priests under oath were habitually received by the\ncommander of the National Guard at Paris, Madame de La Fayette\nnever dissimulated before them her attachment to the ancient\nbishops; but she mingled in her expressions so much adroitness\nwith her sincerity that she never wounded them. Only once she\ndeviated from the rule of tolerance that she imposed on herself\non her husband's account, and that was when the newly elected\nconstitutional Bishop of Paris, came to dine officially with the\ngeneral. She would not recognize by her presence the quality of\nhis diocese, and dined out, although she knew by doing so it\ncould not fail to be made a subject of remark.\n\nMeanwhile, the ever-increasing revolutionary delirium multiplied\ndisorders, paralyzed the efforts of the constitutional party, and\nrendered the part of M. de La Fayette more and more difficult. He\nwas suspected on both sides, by the court and by the Jacobins,\nand was rapidly wearing out the remains of an expiring popularity\nin an already useless struggle.\n\nThe king, to escape the odious tyranny of which he was the\nvictim, attempted to fly from Paris; we know the rest. Arrested\nat Varennes, brought back to the Tuileries, he and his family\nwere placed in the closest confinement. The unhappy prince at\nlast resigned himself to accept the constitution, the Constituent\nAssembly terminated its sittings, and was replaced by the\nLegislative Assembly, and General La Fayette, sincere in the\nillusion that the revolution was finished and the future secured,\ngave in his resignation as commander of the National Guard, and\nset out for Auvergne with his wife and children. Now in the\ndestiny of Madame de La Fayette there came a short truce of\nhappiness; the journey from Paris to Chavaniac was a series of\novations that popular enthusiasm spread, for the last time,\nbefore her idol. The Duchess d' Ayen and the Viscountess de\nNoailles came a little while to share this apparent and\ntransitory calm; but the Duke d'Ayen had emigrated to\nSwitzerland, and Madame de Montagu had taken refuge in England.\nThe formation of three grand army corps had been decreed, in\nimminent danger of a foreign war; the command of the centre was\nconfided to General La Fayette, who repaired to his camp in 1791.\n\nThe year 1792 saw the hideous journey of the 20th of June, soon\nafter followed by the scenes more lamentable still, of the 10th\nof August.\n\nAt the news of the wicked attempt of the 20th of June, the\nGeneral de La Fayette did not fear to address to the assembly,\nfrom Maubeuge, where were then his head-quarters, a letter in\nwhich he declaimed with indignation and vehemence against the\nJacobins; and finally, quitting his camp, he hastened to Paris\nand appeared at the bar of the Assembly; there to brand\nenergetically the violences committed at the Tuileries, and\ndemand the punishment of the guilty. Was not this act of courage\nalone sufficient honor for a lifetime? But finally, seeing he had\nnothing to hope from the Assembly, he attempted to organize a\nresistance at Sedan in order to save Louis XVI. The triumphant\nJacobins replied, on the 10th of August, by a decree of\nproscription to the refusal which M. de La Fayette made to\nrecognize the fall of the king; a price was put upon his head,\nand, constrained in his turn to seek a refuge in a foreign land,\nthe patriot of 1789 fell on the frontier into an Austrian post,\nwas arrested with his aides-de-camp, conducted first to Namur,\nthen to Wesel, and considered by the allied powers as an _enemy\nof universal peace_, whose liberty was incompatible with the\nsurety of European governments.\n\n{789}\n\nThe arbitrary detention of MM. de La Fayette, Latour Maubourg,\nand Bureaux de Pusy, remains one of the disgraces of the\ngovernment of the Emperor Francis II., and he cannot be blamed\nenough for it; but in the condition of parties and in view of the\nrenown of M. de La Fayette, had it not for him some great\nadvantages? In our eyes, the five years of _carcere duro_\ninflicted upon the hero of American liberty, completed his glory.\nSuch were the sentiments of Madame de Sta\u00ebl when she wrote to\ncongratulate him on his release: \"Your misfortune has preserved\nyour glory, and if your health can be restored, you will come out\nperfect from the tomb where your name has acquired a new lustre.\"\nBut dating from this epoch, what was not the ineffable anguish of\nMadame de La Fayette? Informed of the arrest of her husband, she\nhad but one thought--to release him or share his captivity. But\nshe had two other duties to fulfil; to get her son out of France,\nand, if possible, to confide him to the friendship of General\nWashington, and to protect the interests of the creditors of\nGeneral La Fayette by giving them the sequestrated estates for\nsecurity, and in both she experienced great difficulty. Arrested\nat Chavaniac, where she was resting with her son, aged thirteen,\nher two daughters, and the aged aunt who had brought up M. de La\nFayette, she obtained from Roland, then minister of the interior,\npermission not to be taken to Paris, but to remain at Chavaniac\non parole. Encouraged by this testimony of humanity, and hoping\nto be delivered from an engagement that weighed so heavily on\nher, she smothered her natural pride and again addressed herself\nto Roland:\n\n  \"'I can only attribute to a sentiment of kindness,' she wrote\n  him, 'the change you have brought about in my situation. You\n  spare me the dangers of too perilous a journey, and consent to\n  give me my retreat for my prison. But any prison, be it what it\n  may, is insupportable to me, since I have learned this morning\n  from the gazette of M. Brissot, that my husband has been\n  transferred from town to town by the enemies of France, and is\n  being conducted to Spandau. Whatever repugnance I may feel to\n  owe a service to those who have shown themselves the enemies\n  and accusers of him whom I revere and love as he only is worthy\n  of being loved, yet it is in all the sincerity of my heart that\n  I vow eternal gratitude to him who, while relieving the\n  administration from responsibility and giving me my freedom,\n  will afford me the opportunity to rejoin my husband, if France\n  is sufficiently free to allow me to travel without risk.\n\n  \"On my knees, if necessary, I ask you this favor. Judge of my\n  present state of mind. Noailles La Fayette.\"\n\nA faithful friend bore this letter to Roland. He appeared deeply\nmoved, and replied immediately:\n\n  \"I have placed your touching appeal, my dear madam, before the\n  committee. I must observe, however, that it would not appear to\n  me prudent for a person of your name to travel in France, on\n  account of the unfortunate impressions just now attached to it.\n  But circumstances may change. Be assured if they do, I shall be\n  the first to seize upon them for your advantage.\"\n\nFor three months the poor woman was without any news of the\ngeneral, though she redoubled every effort to obtain it; she\nwrote to the Princess of Orange, to the Duke of Brunswick, to\nKlopstock, but all in vain. Toward the middle of June, there came\nto her, through the interposition of the United States minister,\ntwo letters from M. de La Fayette; they were dated from the\ndungeon of Magdebourg, and the inquietude they gave her\nconcerning the health of her husband made her more than ever\nanxious to join him.\n{790}\nGoverneur Morris, then American minister, proved her constant and\nfaithful friend, and from him she accepted the loan of money of\nwhich she had need, to pay some debts and for the daily expenses\nof her family. At this time many of the wives of emigrants\nbelieved it necessary for their personal security, and\npreservation of their fortunes, to be divorced; Madame de La\nFayette would never consent to save her life by such an act, and\nwhenever she found it necessary to present a petition or make a\ndemand, she took a pride in commencing all she wrote, \"The wife\nof La Layette.\" In the midst of all these terrible agitations,\nthe fervor of our heroine never decreased. She submitted with\nsweet resignation to the divine will, and associated in her\nexercises of piety the women of the village, who, like herself,\nwere deprived of the holy sacrifice of the Mass, which was no\nlonger celebrated. These innocent meetings were the subject of\nmany denunciations; of _aristocracy_ they could not accuse\nher, but now it was _fanaticism_. At the end of the year\n1795, after the complete defeat of the Girondins, the\npersecutions against the priests and the _ci-devant_ nobles\nwere redoubled, and some of the effects of the general were\nexposed to sale. This courageous wife repaired to Brionde, where\nthe auction took place. \"Citizens,\" said she, to the district, \"I\nfeel myself obliged to protest before the sale about to take\nplace, against the enormous injustice of applying the laws of\nemigration to him who now is the prisoner of the enemies of\nFrance. I demand of you certificate of my protestation.\"\n\nThe 12th of November, Madame de La Fayette was informed she would\nbe arrested the next day; and truly she was carried off in the\nevening by a detachment of the National Guard, and incarcerated\nat Brionde. Her children remained at Chavaniac, but at the end of\na few months the jailer was won over, and M. Frestel, preceptor\nof the young Georges, conducted them, one after the other, to\ntheir mother. ... It was in this prison of Brionde that the news\nreached her that Mesdames de Noailles and Madame d'Ayen, both\narrested, had just been transferred to the Luxembourg; then in\nMay, 1794, came the order to bring the Citoyenne La Fayette to\nParis. She entered there the 19th Prairial, eve of the\n_f\u00eate_ of the Supreme Being, three days before the one when,\naccording to Madame de Lasteyrie, \"they built up terror upon\nterror.\" Placed at _la petite Force_, at the end of fifteen\ndays she was transported to Plessis, where she found her cousin,\nthe Duchess of Duras. The massacres of the revolutionary tribunal\nat this time were no less than sixty a day; everything seemed to\nannounce to the prisoner that she was being led to certain death.\n\nOne of the buildings of Plessis served as a depot to the\n_Conciergerie_, and each morning saw twenty prisoners depart\nfor the guillotine. \"The idea that one may soon be of the\nnumber,\" wrote Madame de La Fayette, \"gives firmness for such a\nspectacle.\" She made a will at Plessis, of which several passages\nare given; nothing could be more noble and beautiful. It begins\nin this way:\n\n  \"Lord, thou hast been my strength and my hope in the extreme\n  evils that are poured down upon me; thou art my God.\"\n\n{791}\n\nFifty days were thus passed by the prisoner, when on the 10th\nThermidor, a great tumult being heard in the street, it was\nsupposed the populace were rushing to massacre all in prison; it\nwas the announcement of the death of Robespierre.\n\nThe representatives, Bourdon de l'Oise and Legendre came soon\nafter to visit the prison and assign the fate of each. All were\nset at liberty except Madame de La Fayette, on whom they were not\nwilling to pronounce sentence until they sent for the decision of\nthe committee. The unhappy woman was but little concerned at the\nprolongation of her captivity; for she had just learned that her\nmother, her grandmother, and her sister had perished on the 4th\nThermidor. Her grief was overwhelming, but she never revolted,\nher prayers preserved her. \"Now,\" she wrote to her children, \"I\nfind the sentiments of those I mourn, those, too, that I desire,\nand those that I pray God to put in my heart, and sometimes I\nobtain all at once.\" Notwithstanding the active solicitations of\nMr. Monroe, the new minister from the United States, Madame de La\nFayette was not liberated; Le Piessis was used for other\npurposes, so she was transferred to the Maison Delmas, rue Notre\nDame des Champs; she remained there four months, and met there\nwith the strangest people, for it was now the partisans of the\nreign of terror who peopled the prisons; but there, as\neverywhere, she gained the respect of all. Her physical\nsufferings were great during the rigorous winter of 1794 and\n1795. Everything froze in her room, and she was peculiarly\nsensitive to cold. God granted her in her distress a precious\nconsolation in the visits of the Abb\u00e9 Carrichon. He gave her all\nthe details she hungered after of the death of the three dear\npersons that he had accompanied to the scaffold, and with him she\nmade a complete examination of all the faults of her life. On the\n23d of January, 1795, the deliverance, so long retarded, of\nMadame de La Fayette was finally signed, and she was set at\nliberty.\n\nHer first care on leaving prison was to hasten to Mr. Monroe and\nthank him for all he had done for her, and begged him to finish\nthe good work by obtaining passports for herself and family. She\nhad but one aim, to rejoin her husband in Germany with her\ndaughters, and place her son in safety in America. The letter she\nwrote General Washington, in which she portrays with simplicity,\nfirmness, and dignity the obligations she was under to M. Frestel\nfor his devotion to her and her family, and begs for him the\nregard he deserves, is truly remarkable. As to her son, she\nexpresses herself thus: \"My wish is, that my son may lead a very\nretired life in America, and continue the studies that three\nyears of misfortune have interrupted; and that being far away\nfrom scenes which might abase or too strongly irritate him, he\nmay work to become an efficient citizen of the United States, of\nwhich the principles and sentiments are entirely in accordance\nwith those of French citizens.\"\n\nWhen the time came to part with her only son, the separation\nseemed cruel to her mother's heart; but she was firmly convinced\nshe acted in this matter as her husband would have dictated. She\nfound her strength in this thought. As we read of so many\nsacrifices, sufferings, and sorrows so valiantly supported, we\nfind ourselves so associated in the sentiments of this\nincomparable person, that we wait with feverish anxiety the\nmoment when she should rejoin her husband. The memoirs of Madame\nde Montagu give us the details of the touching reunion of Madame\nde La Fayette at Altona with her two sisters and her Aunt de\nTess\u00e9; they will be found in the account of Madame de Lasteyrie.\n{792}\nThe conversation with the Emperor of Austria is also there given.\nHe granted her permission to shut herself up at Olmutz, and by\nopening heaven to her, he could scarcely have made her happier.\n\n  \"'We arrived,' wrote Madame de Lasteyrie, 'at Olmutz, the 1st\n  of October, 1795, at eleven o'clock in the morning, in one of\n  the covered carriages found at all the posts, our own having\n  been broken on the way. I never shall forget the moment when\n  the postillion showed us from afar the steeples of the town.\n  The vivid emotion of my mother is ever present with me. She was\n  almost suffocated by her tears; and when she had sufficiently\n  recovered herself to speak, she blessed God in the words of the\n  canticle of Tobias: \"Thou art great, O Lord, for ever, and thy\n  kingdom is unto all ages, for thou scourgest and thou savest,\"\n  etc., etc. My father was not informed of our arrival; he had\n  never received a letter from my mother. Three years of\n  captivity, the last passed in complete solitude, inquietude\n  concerning all the objects of his affection, and sufferings of\n  every kind, had deeply undermined his health; the change in his\n  countenance was frightful. My mother was struck by it; but\n  nothing could diminish the intoxication of her joy, but the\n  bitterness of her irreparable losses. My father, after the\n  first moment of happiness in this sudden reunion, dared not ask\n  her a question. He knew there had been a reign of terror in\n  France, but he was ignorant of the victims. The day passed\n  without his venturing to examine into her fears, and without my\n  mother having the strength to explain herself. Only at night,\n  when my sister and I were shut into the next room assigned to\n  us, could she inform my father that she had lost on the\n  scaffold her grandmother, her mother, and her sister.'\"\n\nMadame de La Fayette shared her husband's captivity twenty-seven\nmonths. She paid with her health--we may say with her life--the\nprivilege of being reunited to him she loved, and proving to him\nher tenderness; but it was such great happiness to her that,\nwhatever the severity that accompanied it, it seems not even at\nsuch a price to have been too dearly bought.\n\nAt last the success of the French arms opened the dungeon of\nOlmutz. The French plenipotentiaries, in signing the treaty of\nCampo Formio, exacted that the prisoners should be immediately\nset at liberty. The gates of the fortress were therefore opened\nto them, and the 16th of September, 1797, they set out for\nHamburg. It was just five years and a half since their arrest.\n\nHappy to owe his liberty solely to the triumph of the French\narmy, M. de La Fayette addressed to General Bonaparte the\nexpression of his gratitude and that of his companions in arms,\nin these terms:\n\n  \"Hamburg, Oct. 6, 1797.\n  \"Citizen General: The prisoners of Olmutz, happy to owe their\n  deliverance to your irresistible arms, have enjoyed in their\n  captivity the thought that their liberty and life were attached\n  to the triumphs of the republic and to your personal glory.\n  To-day they enjoy the homage they would love to render to their\n  liberator. It would, indeed, have been gratifying to us,\n  Citizen General, to have offered in person the expression of\n  these sentiments, and to have looked upon the theatre of so\n  many victories, the army that won them, and the hero, who has\n  placed our resurrection among the number of his miracles. But\n  you know the journey to Hamburg has not been left to our\n  choice. It is from the place where we have said good by to our\n  jailers that we address our thanks to their conquerors. In the\n  solitary retreat in the Danish territory of Holstein, where we\n  will go to try and re-establish the health you have saved, we\n  will join to our vows or patriotism for the republic the most\n  lively interest in the illustrious general, to whom we are not\n  only attached for the services he has rendered our country and\n  in the cause of liberty, but for the particular obligations\n  that we delight to owe him, and that the deepest gratitude has\n  for ever engraven in our hearts. Salutation and respect.\n          \"Lafayette,\n           Latour Maubourg,\n           Bureaux de Pusy.\"\n\n{793}\n\nAmong all the marks of sympathy showered upon the escaped victims\nof Austrian tyranny, none touched M. de La Fayette more deeply\nthan one from Madame de Sta\u00ebl--full of respect and emotion.\nMathieu de Montmorency added to it a few lines in which these\nwords strike us: \"The constant occupation of your misfortunes and\nyour courage has outlived in me, and ever will, my alienation\nfrom all political activity; but I believe I should renew all my\nancient enthusiasm to welcome one so constant in the cause of\nliberty.\"\n\nAlthough the health of Madame de La Fayette was destroyed, she\npreserved her wonderful activity and force of character. It was\nshe, the only one of her family, whose name was not on the list\nof the banished, who was able the first to enter France, and\nthere regulate her affairs and the return of all her relations.\nIt was she again who, after the 18th Brumaire, understood that\nGeneral La Fayette should return immediately without waiting for\nany authority that might possibly have been refused him. Sure of\nthe marvellous tact with which she judged her surroundings, he\nfollowed her advice without any other information. The news of\nhis arrival in Paris was not pleasing to the first consul; he\nwanted the general to return to Holland and solicit his entrance,\nlike every one else. Madame de La Fayette called upon him, was\ngraciously received, exposed the peculiar position of her\nhusband, and the favorable effect that his return could not fail\nto produce on all honest and patriotic men, and proved herself\nnoble, skilful, and prudent. \"I am delighted, madame,\" said the\nfirst consul to her, \"to have made your acquaintance; you have\ngreat good sense, but you understand nothing of business.\"\nHowever, it was agreed to that M. de La Fayette might remain\nopenly in Paris without asking permission. Madame de Lasteyrie,\nin her recital, in which the most noble sentiments are expressed\nso simply and happily, has given us a page that portrays the\nwhole soul of her heroic mother.\n\n  \"Retirement would still have been preferable to my father under\n  the consular magistracy of Bonaparte; under the despotism of\n  Napoleon, it was, through honor, enforced upon him. In either\n  case, it fulfilled the wishes of my mother. After so much\n  suffering and exhaustion, a retired life--perfect quietude\n  would not have been necessary for her--in which in peace she\n  could consecrate the affections of her soul to those dearest to\n  her, was the only earthly happiness she sought. She felt too\n  deeply, too passionately, I may say, the emotions of family\n  life to desire others. Neither the grandeur of her former\n  state, nor the _\u00e9clat_ even of her misfortunes, had\n  excited in her that pride of imagination which cannot bear a\n  simple existence. Her devotion rose above every trial, but the\n  sentiments and easy duties of an obscure destiny sufficed for\n  her heart. Love filled it entirely.\"\n\nWhat can we add to this picture? Nothing, only to ask the perusal\nof the admirable letter of M. de La Fayette, which ends the\nvolume. He there relates the long agony, the tender and charming\ndelirium of the heavenly creature whose affections he possessed.\nTo have seen him a practical Christian would have been the\nrealization of her most cherished wish. \"If I am going to another\nhome, you must feel,\" she said to him once, \"that I shall be\noccupied there with you. The sacrifice of my life would be very\nlittle, however much it may cost me to part with you, if it could\nassure your eternal happiness.\"\n\nAnother time, she said to him: \"You are not a Christian?\" As he\ndid not reply, she said: \"Ah! I know what you are, a fatalist.\"\n\"You believe me proud,\" answered the general, \"are you not a\nlittle so yourself?\" \"Oh! yes!\" she cried, \"with all my heart. I\nfeel that I would give my life for that sect.\"\n{794}\nAnother time, in this half delirium which led astray her ideas,\nbut never her heart, she said: \"This life is short, troubled; let\nus be reunited in God, and set out together for eternity.\" Her\nGod and her husband were her thoughts to the last moment. She\ndied on Christmas night, the 25th of December, 1807, pressing the\ncherished hand and saying, \"I am yours for ever.\"\n\nThose who wish to finish this picture of conjugal love, must do\nas we have done, seek in the memoirs of an illustrious\ncontemporary the scene that completes it. In the _Memoires de\nM. Guizot_, in the year 1834, we read:\n\n  \"Some months before M. de Talleyrand had retired from public\n  affairs, another celebrated man, very different in character,\n  and celebrated in other ways, had disappeared from all worldly\n  scenes. No life had been more exclusively, more passionately\n  political than that of M. de La Fayette; no man had more\n  constantly placed his political sentiments and ideas above all\n  other preoccupations and all other interests, and yet in his\n  death he was completely estranged from them. Having been ill\n  for three weeks, he approached his last hour; his children and\n  family alone surrounded his bed. He spoke no more, and they\n  supposed he could not see. His son George noticed that, with an\n  uncertain hand, he sought something on his breast; he came to\n  the assistance of his father and laid in his hand the medallion\n  that M. de La Fayette always wore suspended from his neck. He\n  pressed it to his lips, and expired.\"\n\nThis medallion contained the likeness and hair of Madame de La\nFayette, his wife whom he had lost twenty-seven years before.\nThus, already separated from the entire world, alone with the\nthought and image of the devoted companion of his life, he died.\nWhen his obsequies were spoken of, it was a recognized fact in\nthe family, that M. de La Fayette wished to be buried in the\nlittle cemetery adjoining the convent of Picpus, by the side of\nMadame de La Fayette, in the midst of the victims of the\nrevolution, for the most part, royalists, and of the aristocracy,\nwhose relations had founded this pious establishment. This wish\nof the veteran of 1789 was scrupulously respected and carried\nout. An immense crowd, troops, national guards, people of all\nkinds accompanied the funeral procession through the avenues and\nstreets of Paris. Arrived at the gate of the convent, the crowd\nwas stopped; the interior enclosure could not admit more than two\nor three hundred persons; the family, the near relations, the\nprincipal authorities entered alone, walked silently through the\nconvent into the modest garden, then penetrated the cemetery.\nThere no political manifestation took place; no discourse was\npronounced; religion and the intimate memories of the soul alone\nwere present; politics had no place near the death-bed or the\ntomb of the man whose life it had filled and governed.\n\n                L\u00e9on Arbaud.\n\n-------------\n\n{795}\n\n  Translated From The Revue Du Monde Catholique.\n\n                   Flaminia.\n\n              By Alexandre De Bar.\n\n\n\"So you really believe that the soul lives for ever?\" said the\nBaron Frederic.\n\n\"Certainly I do,\" answered the Count Shrann.\n\n\"That is very strange,\" replied the first speaker, emptying at a\nsingle draught a tankard of beer whose size a German could alone\nlook at without trembling.\n\n\"And you believe that those whom we have loved in this world we\nshall again love in the next, and they will remember us even as\nwe shall remember them?\"\n\n\"Certainly I do!\" again replied the count.\n\n\"This is yet more strange,\" observed the baron; and then both of\nthem continued to smoke on in silence. They seemed, indeed, so\ncompletely absorbed in the contemplation of the bluish clouds of\nsmoke which they continued to puff forth so regularly into the\nalready misty and thickened atmosphere, that one might reasonably\nhave thought that the discussion would end there; but such was\nnot the case.\n\nLet us profit by this interval to make known to our readers who\nwere the Count Shrann and the Baron Frederic. They were two old\nfellow-soldiers, of whom the recollection yet remains in the\nminds of those who knew them, as being the most perfect type of\nthat warm and devoted friendship which is less rare than one\nthinks or than one will admit. They were two brave Germans, who\nhad courageously held their places during the wars in the\ncommencement of this century. They had fought side by side with\nall the ardor of their youth and patriotism, and had on many\noccasions saved each other's lives by their bravery. This\ncommunity of dangers and obligations had yet further strengthened\nthe links of a friendship commenced in their childhood; so that\nwhen the peace of 1815 gave to Europe, wearied out by war, a time\nof rest, our two friends placed their experience and capabilities\nat the service of their country, as they had already offered the\ntribute of their blood and courage, each taking on himself the\ntie and responsibility of married life. Both married on the same\nday the two daughters of a neighbor whom the war had ruined; and\nif their brides were little endowed with worldly possessions, at\nleast they were rich in virtues, and that is a wealth which\nequals the former, although it be much less sought after, and, we\nmay even add, more difficult to find.\n\nUnfortunately these marriages so alike in happiness were far less\nso in their duration; for at the end of two years Gertrude, the\nwife of the Baron Frederic, died, leaving in the heart and life\nof her husband a void which nothing could fill. Many were the\nefforts made to console the poor baron, many were the mothers who\nlavished on him their sweetest smiles; many were the maidens who\ndirected on him their chaste regards, and who pictured to\nthemselves a brilliant future in which his name and fortune held\na prominent place; but all was useless, for the baron remained\nquite insensible to these efforts and designs.\n{796}\nHis friend, and even his sister-in-law, counselled him to seek in\na new marriage that close and loving friendship which he was so\nwell adapted to appreciate; but at length, seeing him so\nobstinately faithful to the memory of Gertrude, they feared to\nafflict him, and so ceased to press him on the subject, trusting\nall to time, which, nevertheless, rolled on without bringing any\nchange to the baron's regrets and resolutions. His was one of\nthose strongly organized minds where the impressions, lively as\nthey are lasting, resist the stronger that they are unaccompanied\nby outward efforts. Hence was it that the baron supported,\nwithout giving way an instant, the blow which had struck him, and\nyet the wound in his heart remained as sensitive and as painful\nas on that day when with his own hands he placed his well-beloved\nGertrude in her shroud. Old age came on, bringing with it its\nlonging for rest, and then the two friends quitted their public\nlife as they had entered it, side by side. The baron went to live\nwith his brother, for thus he designated his friend; and only\nonce every year left his castle to visit his own property and\ntenants, toward whom he showed a kindness without limit. Some of\nthese tenants abused that kindness, and paid their rent year\nafter year, with tears, excuses, and complaints, the worthy baron\nleaving them unmolested; and when his steward spoke to him of\nsending off the estate these families, he replied: \"Better that\nthis should happen to me, who have patience with them, than send\nthem away to those who probably would have none.\" No sooner was\nhe returned to the castle than he forgot all these things, and\nrecommenced spoiling and fondling his nephews and nieces, of whom\nhe had no small number; for the Count Shrann was a descendant of\nthose ancient families who seemed to have presented the prolific\nvirtue of the golden age; nor did the number of his nephews and\nnieces give any anxious thoughts to the baron, since often would\nhe say to his friend:\n\n\"Why torment yourself so much about the future of your children?\nYou will always have enough to settle them all in life; and\nbesides, I myself, who have but cousins in I do not know what\nremote degree of affinity, I find it but just that these my\nnephews should inherit my property before them.\"\n\nAnd then the count became silent, for he found the baron's answer\nquite natural, and such as he himself should have made, had their\npositions been reversed. Between these two men, so closely united\nby affection and so similar in heart and understanding, there was\nbut one subject on which their point of view was diametrically\nopposed, and that was the one with which they were engaged at the\nopening of this chapter. Count Shrann, who had been brought up by\na loving and pious mother, was a Catholic both in heart and soul;\nwhilst the Baron Frederic had, on the contrary, lost both his\nparents at a very early age, and had been brought up by his\nuncle, who boasted of being the friend and the protector of the\nEncyclopedists; so that Frederic had been educated in that cold\nand barren school of materialism which Voltaire has the doubtful\nhonor of having founded. Baron Frederic believed in nothing\nspiritual, a circumstance which caused great chagrin to his\nfriend, whence it happened that on this, as on so many former\noccasions, the two friends, after the dinner-hour, had passed\nlong hours in smoking and drinking huge tankards of beer, whilst\nmaking the same questions and the same answers on this, the one\ngreat subject of their difference in opinion and faith.\n\n{797}\n\n\"So you believe that the soul lives for ever?\" said the baron.\n\n\"Certainly I do,\" replied the count.\n\n\"It is very strange,\" answered the baron; and then both\nrecommenced to smoke yet more vigorously than before. After a\nlapse of time during which two less serious men would have\ndiscussed three or four such subjects of conversation, the count\nrecommenced: \"What do you see so strange in my remark?\"\n\n\"It is to see a mind such as yours give way to similar ideas and\ntales fit only, to say the best of it, to frighten children\nwith.\"\n\n\"I, for my part, am yet more astonished to see a man so logical\nas yourself refuse to believe it; and how dare you treat as\nspringing from weakness of mind that belief which you cannot deny\nfortifies the soul and places it above the blows of adversity?\"\n\n\"The soul, the soul,\" replied the baron, \"what is the soul? A\nname without a substance, and I do not know what of indefinable\nand vague. A something that we can neither see nor touch, and\nwhich eludes both the senses and the understanding. I, for my\npart, believe in nothing but that which I can see or touch.\"\n\n\"I would remind you, my dear friend, that there are a crowd of\nthings in which you believe, without ever having seen them.\"\n\n\"It is because science explains those things, and I believe in\nher.\"\n\n\"Science! why, you are too clever not to admit of her inability\nto give you a full explanation of any one thing. Science proves\nthat the fact exists, but she does not explain the first cause of\nits existence. She discovers the eternal laws which rule the\nuniverse, and it is by that means that she conducts the\nunprejudiced spirit from the discovery of things created to the\nknowledge of the Creator of all things; but the first causes of\nthese same laws are utterly unknown to her.\"\n\n\"And what tells you that she will not yet discover them?\"\n\n\"Never! For if the human understanding is immense, yet it is not\ninfinite. We have seen many discoveries and marvels; our\ngreat-grandchildren will witness yet many more; but these will\nnot be produced in any more developed sense than that which I\njust now indicated to you. The first causes will ever rest\nunknown to them as for us.\"\n\n\"But where are the proofs which prove the existence of the soul,\nand render it palpable to the eyes of the understanding?\"\n\n\"The eyes of the heart, do they not equal those of the\nunderstanding?\" quickly answered the count. \"What! You feel\nwithin yourself a soul which thinks and which loves, which\npossesses in itself a longing for happiness, a thirst for truth,\nso utterly beyond the happiness and the truths of this world that\nit can only be a _souvenir_ or a revelation, from on high,\nof something purer and more perfect; you love the good and you\nspurn the evil, even to self-sacrifice; nay, more, you prefer\ndeath to the evil; you hear in the depths of your heart that\npowerful voice which cries to all humanity that the soul cannot\ndie; and yet you ask for a proof of the existence of this soul,\nand of its immortality! Death is visible to us on every side. He\nmenaces us; he presses upon us; all that is above, beneath, on\neach side of us, is dead or dying.\n{798}\nMan alone drives back before him that supreme law of final decay\nand oblivion; he whose life is comparatively much shorter than\nthat of all other existences in this world, he alone hopes for an\neternity which has no type here below, and which he could not\neven have conceived in himself, had it not been revealed to him.\nSurrounded by errors, he dreams the truth; wretched in this life,\nhe dreams of a happiness without alloy; mortal, he dreams of\nimmortality. Is not all this an infallible proof of his future\ndestiny? God, who created man, would not he be both cruel and\nunjust had he given him all these profound aspirations toward a\nfuture state of happiness, only to plunge him finally in the\nabyss of eternal death? That secret voice speaks to you also, my\nfriend; it resounds in the silence of your heart, and offers to\nyou, as it does to others, its consoling hopes. Why do you not\nlisten to it? When you saw before you, pale and discolored,\ndestined to an inexorable decay, the body of her whom you so much\nloved; when the mouth that had so lately spoken to you, closed\nfor ever; when those eyes, in which you had ever read their\ntenderness, became fixed, dull, and without expression; when that\nhand, which had but a moment before sought yours to press it for\na last time, fell for ever powerless, equally insensible to the\nkisses with which you covered it, and to your tears, which rained\non it--\" Here the baron, without trying to hide his emotion,\ndried, with the back of his hand, the tears that this\nrecollection of his beloved Gertrude caused him. The count\ncontinued: \"That mouth, those eyes, that hand, they are the same;\nbut where is the soul which animated them? Did you not then hear\nthat interior voice which called with yet greater force, Thou\nshalt see her again? That body which the earth will hide\nto-morrow is but the form, and not the essence--the outward\nshape, but not the living spirit. A soul which you loved, and\nwhich rendered to thee an equal affection, animated that form,\nand rendered it palpable to your senses; that soul has fled, and\nthe body falls back lifeless. The outward form rests here\nmotionless and insensible, but the soul has remounted toward that\ncelestial country where it shall await your coming, ready again\nto love you with an affection which shall have to suffer no\nsecond separation. And this is so true, my friend, that even\nwhilst you deny this consciousness that the soul has of its\nfuture life and of its existence, you yourself obey that feeling;\nfor you are faithful, not to the simple memory of Gertrude, but\nto Gertrude whom you feel to be still living, though far distant\nfrom you, and you desire to be able to say to her, when the\nmoment of your meeting shall come: 'Thou seest that no other love\nhas ever been mingled with thine in my heart; my own beloved one,\nthou didst wait for me, and I am come as full of thy recollection\nand of thy love as on that day when thou didst leave me.'\"\n\nWhilst the count was thus speaking, the baron had literally\nhidden himself in clouds of smoke, out of which came forth, by\nand by, a voice, trembling and changed by deep emotion, which\nanswered:\n\n\"Ah! that I could believe as you do! In taking away from men\nthese consoling thoughts, the materialists cried loudly that they\nwere but working for the happiness of humanity yet wrapped in the\nshades of superstition; whilst, in truth, they were but plunging\nit into a gulf yet more profound and more implacable; for there\nis no real happiness possible where there exists a constant fear\nof losing that happiness.\n{799}\nI know very well that the error was much more pleasant than the\ntruth, and that in place of the hope, perhaps false, but\ncertainly full of consolation, to re-find our friends one day,\nthey have left us but the terrible certainty of having for ever\nlost them, and that they leave us with the heavy burden of misery\nwhich is crushing human nature, after having broken the very\nsupport that aided man to bear its weight. Now that the evil is\ndone, how remedy it? And if I do not believe, what must I do that\nI may believe?\"\n\n\"Acknowledge humbly our utter helplessness; humble the pride of\nan imperfect reason, which is irritated by the thought that there\nis something above it; listen to our conscience which speaks\nwithin us; and then, meekly kneeling down before the God who has\ncreated the universe, repeat to him, with simplicity and faith,\nthese words of the blind man in the gospel, who cried, 'Lord,\nthat I may receive my sight!' God is not deaf to persevering\nprayer. Pray, therefore, and you shall see likewise.\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" said the baron, \"if I saw, I should at once believe;\nbut who ever saw a soul?\"\n\n\"My great-grandfather did,\" answered the count.\n\n\"You are joking.\"\n\n\"Not at all. Adolphus Shrann, my great-grandfather, saw not only\none soul, but even two!\"\n\n\"He was dreaming, then.\"\n\n\"No, for he knew what he was going to see, and that thought alone\nwas sufficient to keep him awake.\"\n\n\"Ah! then in that case somebody made a jest of him, and by some\noptical delusion caused him to believe that he had seen a\nveritable supernatural vision.\"\n\n\"No, I assure you it was not so,\" replied the count. \"I am\ndetermined to relate the history to you in full, this evening;\nand,\" added he, with a voice changed by the ardent friendship\nthat he felt for the baron, \"I should esteem myself really happy\nif its recital could cause you to kneel down side by side with me\nbefore the altar of that God whom you are so worthy to know. It\nis but there that we are separated, and did you know all that my\ntrue friendship suffers in the thought that, after living these\nlong years together, and after having shared all the trials and\nthe pains of this life until our old age, notwithstanding this, I\nshould yet be alone when the hour comes to receive the\nrecompense. Ah! my dear Frederic, that single thought would\nsuffice to empoison the joys of paradise.\"\n\nHere the two friends warmly shook hands, and after having again\nreplenished their tankards and their pipes, the count commenced\nthe story that you are going to hear.\n\n\"You know,\" said the count, \"that the Shrann family has always\nbeen cited as one of the most fruitful in all Germany.\"\n\n\"And you! you certainly have not derogated from the example of\nyour ancestors,\" said the baron.\n\n\"Neither had the Count Franz, the same who was raised from the\nrank of baron to that of count by Ferdinand III., in 1645, since\nhe was the father of fifteen children, eight boys and seven\ngirls; and of these lads Adolphus, the seventh son, was the only\none who remained to perpetuate the name and race, for the others\ngave their lives to defend their country and the empire. But if\nthis numerous offspring was an honor to the family, it was also a\ngreat cause of anxiety to the count; it being a fact that though\na numerous family be a source of fortune to a poor farmer, such\nis not the case with a poor nobleman; and it was no slight task\nto place advantageously all these children, so that they might\nworthily bear and uphold their family name.\n{800}\nCount Franz made, therefore, the most active endeavors to marry\nhis daughters and to establish his sons; and he succeeded as well\nas he had hoped, since only one son remained at home, and that\nwas Albert, the youngest child; nor did the future of this the\nlast scion of his race much disturb the count, destined as he\nwas, by him, from his very youth, to enter the church. But divine\nProvidence often smiles at and overthrows our wisest\ncalculations, and this is what occurred in Albert's case; for,\nnotwithstanding the serious tendency given to his education, it\nwas found that of the eight sons of the count this, the youngest,\nshowed the greatest courage and taste for war. This martial\nspirit was the great despair of his tutor; for the lad left on\nthe smallest pretext his studies and his books to play with an\nold rusty sword that he had found in one of the lumber-rooms of\nthe castle, and with this he amused himself for hours, fencing\nagainst his desk or stool, and shouting all the war cries and\nsongs that he had heard or read. When the vexed tutor complained\nof his pupil's conduct to the count, and of his little attention\nto his more serious studies, joined to his openly expressed\ncontempt for them, the count answered, 'Bah! never mind; time\nwill change all this, and you know that it is only natural that\nhe should have imbibed a little of the family taste for war.' The\nseventh son, Adolphus, likewise distinguished himself by his\nrecklessness of danger and by his great courage. This conformity\nof tastes, yet more than the similarity of their ages, had\nclosely united these the two youngest brothers together; so that\nwhen the day came that the younger saw the elder leave home as a\nlieutenant in the army, to engage in that life of adventure and\ndanger of which they had so often talked together, he was seized\nwith a yet stronger repugnance to the future destined for him.\nThe prospect of spending his days in the retirement of the\ncloister, instead of sharing with his brother the glorious\nachievements of a soldier's life, inspired him with not only a\nstrong distaste for this future, but even with an aversion to all\nthat then surrounded him. Albert fell into a great despair and\nlethargy; no longer did his tutor dread that rusty sword with\nwhich Albert had been wont to frighten him; not that his studies\nprogressed any better for that; for although he read with\npleasure the Iliad and the AEneid, he shrunk back with distaste\nfrom the study of theology, and when any observations were made\nto him on the subject, alleged that 'he should always know enough\nto cause him to die from _ennui_.' Not that the sentiment of\nreligious feeling was dead within him, far from that; he was, on\nthe contrary, animated with the liveliest and most sincere faith;\nnor was it that he felt an invincible repugnance to the\nobligations of the priesthood, for he was generous, sober,\ncharitable, and patient, and therefore esteemed slightly the\nsacrifices that the ecclesiastical state requires. What he\ndisliked and dreaded above all was a life of uniformity and of\nrepose, such as seemed to him the life of a priest. This\nantipathy to the future for which he was destined grew from day\nto day, when, unable at last to fight any longer against his\ninclinations, he armed himself with all his resolution, and\nrespectfully represented to his father his invincible dislike to\nbecoming a priest, and asked of him the favor of being allowed to\nbecome a soldier.\n{801}\nGreat was the discomfiture of the count on hearing this demand.\nWhat was he to do? he who had made all his arrangements in order\nthat Albert might become a bishop; and here was this son who in\nplace of bearing the mitre and pastoral staff, desired nothing\nless than to wield the sword and don the coat of mail.\n\n\"'It is very perplexing,' at last answered the count, after\nhaving scratched his ear several times; 'this idea of yours\ncompletely upsets all my plans; but rather than see you become a\nbad priest it shall be as you desire. Although,' again added he\nwith a heavy sigh, 'it is very perplexing.'\n\n\"Albert, after having again explained to his father all the\nreasons for his repugnance to the life of a priest, continued,\n'You see, my dear father, that it is not a taste for the\npleasures of the world that drives me from the priesthood; it is\nonly my dislike to the monotony of such a life that hinders me\nfrom embracing it. My vocation leads me to follow a career of\ndanger and of change, and not one of ease and uniformity. But I\nthink that there is a means of conciliating the ideas that your\ntenderness had suggested for me and my own tastes.'\n\n\"'I desire nothing better than that,' answered the count with\nvisible chagrin, 'but how to do so, that is the question. I wish\nyou to become a bishop, and you desire to become a captain; now,\nwe are no longer in the days when bishops wore a suit of mail\ninside their robes.'\n\n\"'That is true, dear father; but you could place me in a position\nto become one day a knight-commander,' (here the count lifted up\nhis head with an air of satisfaction.) 'The order of St. John of\nJerusalem,' continued Albert, 'is a glorious order, assimilating\nto the church by its vows and its constitutions, and to the army\nby its obligations and labors. The Turks are now menacing\nChristendom; what more glorious use can one make of one's sword\nthan to defend one's brothers in Jesus Christ, and to oppose\none's self against the barbarity of the Mussulman, who already\nregards Europe as a wild beast does his prey? What more glorious\ndestiny than to consecrate one's courage and one's life to force\nback even to the very sands of Asia those hordes of infidels\nwhose domination, similar to a pestilential atmosphere, has\nbrought ruin and death upon the fertile countries where it\nextends?\n\n\"'If, then, as I hope, you will consent to my desires, I shall\nfind in that career the occasion to place in a yet higher rank\nthe glorious name that you have given me; and thus both my\nancestors and yourself shall have reason to be proud of their\ndescendant.\"\n\n\"My worthy ancestor, on hearing this proposition, felt a similar\nsatisfaction to that which a man would feel who, after being shut\nup in a chest during some hours, could at last stretch his limbs\nout again in liberty. Therefore was it that he seized eagerly a\nproposition which drew him out of a great difficulty; for between\nourselves, be it said, the worthy man was more accustomed to\nfighting than to solving difficult questions. It was easy for the\ncount to prove the sixteen quarters of nobility which the rules\nof the order required for the admission of Germans; moreover, he\nhad several friends in the order whose influence he made use of;\nnothing, therefore, opposed itself to the realization of Albert's\ndesires; and, in consequence, a few weeks after the above related\nconversation, he left Germany, and became page to Nicholas\nCoroner, then Grand Master of the order, and Governor of Malta.\n{802}\nIn this position he did not fail to make himself very soon\nremarked by his dauntless courage and impetuous audacity. The\nrequisite occasions did not fail him; each day the galleys of the\norder darted from their ports, as the eagle from his eyrie, and,\npowerful as the eagle, seized on some one of the innumerable\nTurkish pirates which were then ravaging the coasts of the\nMediterranean, burning villages, and carrying off their wretched\ninhabitants to reduce them into a painful and degrading slavery.\nIn this manner the order rendered the most important services to\nEurope, whilst the most adventurous spirit in it found means, in\nthis incessant warfare, to satisfy his thirst for danger. Albert,\nardent and indefatigable, scorning danger and braving Death, who\nseemed to shrink back before so much bravery and audacity, fought\nso often and so well, that scarcely was the time of his novitiate\nfinished, than, by the general consent of his companions in arms,\nand the approbation of the grand master, he was created knight.\nIn truth, it was impossible to show more valor and\nself-diffidence. This latter quality shows forth the more, that\nit was not an ordinary virtue in the order. Some years thus\nrolled on, during which the bravery of Albert had caused him to\nbe known and remarked in all the commanderies of Europe; but the\ntime was come when at length he should appear on a field more\nworthy of his talents.\n\n\"I will not here give you a recital of the events which brought\nthe troops of Mohammed IV. under the walls of Vienna; since, in\nthe first place, you recollect them as well as I do; and in the\nsecond place, it is too sad a thought for him who feels within\nhim a soul truly German, to reflect that there was a day when\nGerman hearts beat with fear before the standards of Mohammed! At\nthe time when the Hungarians, with a blindness that even their\nexcess of patriotism does not excuse, called into the heart of\nEurope those born enemies of European civilization, Albert was in\nGermany. At the first news which reached him of the march of\nMustapha on Vienna, he hurried to the commanderies that were\nnearest to him, and animating the zeal of the knights, united\ntogether without great difficulty a few of his companions, with\nwhom he hastened on to that city. They reached Vienna on the very\nday that Leopold I. left it; and terrible was the consternation\nthen reigning in that town, abandoned by those who ought to have\nbeen the first to face the danger and animate the courage of\nothers by their example.\n\n\"The brave Count of Staremberg commanded the fortress which he\ndid not dare hope to save, although he was determined to die in\nits defence. The aid that Albert brought was joyfully accepted by\nhim; for he had but eight or ten thousand men to defend the city\nagainst the Turkish army, whose number was three hundred\nthousand; and besides this, the city was badly provisioned and\ninsufficiently armed. Nevertheless, the defence was organized in\nthe best manner possible; arms were distributed to all the\ncitizens; and even the schoolboys were taught to carry arms, and\nperform the active service of the defence of the walls; whilst\nthe entire population determined to suffer famine, and all the\nother horrors of a prolonged siege, rather than yield tamely to\nthe enemy. These preparations made, they awaited the infidels;\nnor did they wait long; for in a few days after the departure of\nthe emperor, the Turkish army encamped before Vienna, and opened\nits first trench.\n{803}\nThen began in earnest that terrible siege. Albert performed\nprodigies of valor; now directing a sortie, then driving back an\nassault, ever in the foremost rank, he, as it were, multiplied\nhimself, going on every side; he foresaw and provided against all\nemergencies; his courage excited even the most timid, whilst his\nunchangeable calm reassured their fears. In the midst of all this\nperil, which seemed endless, he alone seemed at his ease; so much\nso, that the Count of Staremberg used to say, 'Oh! that I had\nonly one hundred knights like him; for then, in place of resting\nhere blocked up, like a rat in his hole, I would drive back, and\nfollow up these three hundred thousand Turks to the very walls of\nConstantinople!' During all this time, notwithstanding the\npressing demands of the Pope, Innocent IX., and in spite of the\nnecessity which bound the other Christian nations to prevent\nVienna's falling into the hands of the infidels, the aid so much\nneeded was but slowly organized. Already had the siege lasted two\nmonths, and nothing had yet happened to relieve the despair of\nthe wretched inhabitants, already weakened by famine. There\nseemed to them no alternative between a cruel and lingering death\nand a yet more painful slavery. Almost were they reduced to the\nlast extremities. It was quite impossible to obtain provisions,\nand the ammunition was nearly exhausted, whilst many of the\ncannon had become useless for service; and yet no voice was heard\nthat spoke of surrender. Soldiers and citizens, alike excited by\nthe example and firmness of the chiefs, supported with courage\nand resignation all the horrors of a desperate defence. At last\nthe signals and banners of King John Sobieski were seen from the\nwalls as he came to their rescue, leading the combined forces of\nEurope. It was time! The King of Poland, notwithstanding the\nimmense inferiority of his troops in point of numbers, hesitated\nnot a moment to take the most favorable position for giving\nbattle to the enemy. Mustapha, on his side, divided his troops\ninto two divisions, the one destined to make a last and desperate\nassault upon the city, and to enter it by main force through the\nbreaches already made in its walls; whilst the second division\nwas to stop the passage of Sobieski, and to hinder him from\ngiving any aid to the besieged. But the impetuosity of the attack\nof the Christians was such that the battle became but a rout on\nthe side of the Mussulmans, as they fled before their pursuers on\nevery side, and were as soon and as completely dispersed as is a\nwisp of straw before a hurricane. Vienna free, Europe breathed\nagain, being once more delivered from the immediate fear of the\ncrescent, whilst awaiting the day when the Mussulman should be\nfor ever driven back to the arid sands from whence he came. This\nheroic defence spread a new lustre upon the arms and reputation\nof the order. But none of its knights had acquired a similar\nrenown to that of Albert. The name of this young warrior was in\nevery mouth, his souvenir in every heart, and he shared with John\nSobieski the enthusiastic ovation made by the Viennese to their\ndeliverers. The loudest acclamations of admiration and gratitude\ngreeted him during the day that he accompanied the King of\nPoland, who, still covered with the blood of his enemies, went in\nsolemn state to the cathedral of St. Stephen, there to assist at\nthe Te Deum which was sung in thanksgiving to God for this\nmiraculous delivery of the city from the Turks.\n{804}\nMustapha, forced to make such a speedy retreat, had left in the\npossession of the Christians all his treasures, tents, and\nbaggage. Among the spoil was found the standard of the Prophet.\nThis, it was decided, should be offered to the pope as a gage and\nas a memorial of the victory, and it was Albert who was chosen to\nperform this honorable mission. His old father nearly died with\njoy on learning of the glorious renown of his son; and I leave\nyou to guess if he did not praise himself in his heart for not\nhaving resisted the desires of Albert. The old count foresaw in\nthe future his family giving a grand-master to the Order of St.\nJohn, and he trembled with happiness in thinking of the honor\nwhich would thus result to the Shrann race and name. In fact, one\ncould hardly say where would have stopped the worldly honors of\nAlbert, had not God reserved for him a yet more sweet and\nglorious recompense for his labors in his service.\"\n\nAt this point of his story, the count took a few minutes' repose,\nminutes that were fully employed, to judge by the manner in which\nhe emptied the tankard that stood before him; and as the two\nfriends did nothing without each other's aid or example, the\nbaron hastened to imitate his friend; and when his tankard left\nhis lips, there did not remain sufficient in it to satisfy the\nthirst of a wren. Then, grasping with a firm hand the immense jug\nof beer which awaited their good pleasure, he filled his own\nglass and passed the jug on to the count, who, with an equal\ndignity and silence, took his share. It is true that the baron\npaid but a slight attention to all these details of a family\nhistory that the count so complacently related to him; perhaps he\nwas getting impatient for the appearance of the two souls that\nhad been promised him; but he let no indication of his impatience\nescape him, and continued to smoke on with great tranquillity,\npuffing forth clouds of smoke which seemed timed to the cadenced\nsounds of an old clock that stood beside him, whose sculptured\noak case would have delighted the taste of an antiquary. At\nlength the count recommenced: \"The Turks appeared to have\nabandoned their projects upon Germany, but the war yet continued\nwith activity between themselves and the order and the Venetians\non the shores of the Mediterranean. Notwithstanding the greatest\nsacrifices, and the most valiant efforts on the part of the\nTurks, Candia had fallen into the hands of the order; a new\nexpedition was then resolved upon to lay siege to Coron, and\nHector de La Tour de Maubourg, having been chosen as its\ncommander, he made choice of Albert for his lieutenant.\n\n\"Upon one of the galleys that the pope had joined to the allied\nfleets of the Knights of St. John and of the Venetians, the young\nGiovanni Balbo, only heir to one of the most distinguished names\nin the republic of Venice, had been sent out by his father. This\nillustrious family had long been a friend to our house, and, in\nfact, we counted several alliances between the two families.\nWhen, therefore, Giovanni learnt that Albert was in the fleet, he\nmade several attempts to become acquainted with him; and\nsucceeded so well, that in a short time they became the greatest\nfriends in the world.\n\n\"On this event, so slight in its appearance, nevertheless\ndepended the destiny of Albert. You must have remarked, my\nfriend, that it is the same with us all. The acts the most\nimportant in our lives, those which decide our future, and from\nwhich result our happiness or misery in this world, have always\nas their first commencement, some circumstance which is perfectly\nindifferent in itself, but the results of which have an influence\non our entire destinies.\n\n{805}\n\n\"One would say that divine Providence mocked our proud reason, in\nthus making use of events which at first sight seem so utterly\nunfitted to arrive at the end which it proposes to itself; and I\nmight even add, that this impenetrable mystery would alone\nsuffice to eyes less wilfully blinded than your own, to prove the\nexistence of an unseen power that is unrestrained by human laws\nand prejudices. Does God owe to each one of us a miracle? Ought\nhe to suspend for each individual man the eternal laws which\ngovern the universe? Can we not believe in him unless we see the\nvery rivers flow back to their sources? Does he not manifest\nhimself to us at each instant of our lives, on each side of us\nand in us? Is not the admirable connection of events which exists\nin this world sufficient to make the certitude of his power and\nof his incessant action shine forth to the vision of the soul, as\nshines forth before the eyes of the body the brilliant multitude\nof planets that have each their appointed path in the wide space\nof heaven? The siege was terrible, and its success cost to the\nOrder of Malta one and twenty of its bravest knights; Hector de\nla Tour de Maubourg was among the number of the dead, and Albert,\nwho had flown to his side to protect him, had fallen covered with\nwounds, which caused his life to be despaired of. His youth, the\nstrength of his constitution, and, above all, the tender care\ntaken of him by his friend Giovanni, finally triumphed over the\nseverity of his wounds, and as soon as he was sufficiently\nrecovered to bear the fatigues of the voyage, Giovanni brought\nhim to Venice to visit his family, who received him with the\nwarmest hospitality. I have told you that Giovanni was the only\nheir of the Balbo family; this was but partly true, since there\nwere two daughters, Flaminia, who had then attained her\neighteenth year, and Antonia, who was but seventeen.\n\n\"Nothing could be more unlike than these two sisters, Flaminia\nand Antonia. Although both were in looks and in character equally\ncharming, Heaven had gifted them with very dissimilar talents and\ntastes. Nevertheless, this did not impede the existence of an\nintimate friendship between these two natures so diametrically\nopposed; and, later in their lives, it proved no hinderance to a\ncomplete confidence. It is thanks to this confidence--that arose\nbetween them one day by reason of an imperious necessity of\nmutual aid and sympathy--that I can now describe the more\nintimate particularities of this history. Antonia, as you may\njudge from the portrait of her hanging in the room, was one of\nthat sort of beauties that seem to overflow with vigor and life.\nHer complexion slightly brunette; her eyes of a deep black, ever\nglistening under her well-arched eye-brows, notwithstanding the\ndepth of her eye-lashes; her mouth ever smiling, with its full\nand firmly designed lips; her perfectly chiselled nose, whose\nnostrils dilated at every instant; and, above all, the extreme\nvivacity of her face, where was portrayed, as in a mirror, every\nemotion that agitated her, even the most fugitive; all in her\nappearance indicated one of those vigorous natures that have need\nof real physical exertion. An over-rich development of physical\nforces impedes the flight of the imagination. Thus, Antonia was\nalways remarked for the vivacity of her impressions, for the\nimpetuosity of her sentiments, and for the sallies of her quick\nand brilliant spirit.\n{806}\nBut that world of reverie, peopled with vague and indefinable\nforms; that world illumined by a supernatural light, where we\ncatch the glimpses of a happiness unknown here below; that world\nwhich is created by the soul and colored by the imagination, was\nto her quite unknown. Whilst her sister delighted in all this,\nand listened with her whole heart to those harmonious voices\nwhich spoke to her of a coming happiness penetrating and sweet as\nthe joys of heaven, Antonia was bounding like a young fawn among\nthe trees of their garden, or, mounted on a spirited horse,\nrapidly ascended the paths of the mountains that surrounded the\ntown. The same impetuosity was to be remarked in her sympathies\nand antipathies; she could not moderate her expression of them,\nnor did she even seek to impose upon herself a useless constraint\non this subject. On the other hand, Flaminia seemed already to\nbear in her entire appearance the impress of those sorrows that\nshe was destined to suffer. Her look, so sweet and sad even in\nits smile, was half veiled with her eyelids, and gave to her face\nan indefinable expression of melancholy. That expression could be\nagain found in her delicately shaped mouth, and even in her\nmovements full of languor and grace. Whilst Antonia, lively and\npetulant, employed by every outward effort the too abundant\nforces of her life and youth, Flaminia seemed to place hers in\nreserve for the terrible moment of need. She concentrated in the\ndepths of her soul all her impressions; nor could she give to\nherself a reason for so doing. She had the consciousness of her\nexquisite sensibility, and protected it, under the shield of\nindifference and affected calm, against all contact that could\nhave wounded it. But under this apparent indolence an attentive\neye could have easily recognized the marks of an ardent soul and\nof a strong nervous organization. A sudden flame would at moments\nlighten up those glances usually veiled in indifference, the soft\nand musical voice took an accent of enthusiasm, and her whole\nexpression changed, being animated by the power of an emotion\nthat she no longer restrained, and whose vibrations were the more\nviolent, because her soul, far from pouring itself on all that\nsurrounded her, as did Antonia's, was one of those that at a\ngiven hour in life is destined to concentrate all its force on a\nsingle thought and on an only affection. Outwardly cold and\nimpassible, her excessive sensibility showed itself by scarcely\nperceptible signs; but later in life, happy to find at her side a\nheart filled with similar ideas, all this ice melted. Is there\nnot in us, at the moment when life commences, that is to say, at\nthe epoch when the soul awakes from the long slumber of infancy,\na vague presentiment of our future destinies? For the same reason\nthat we have so often seen the bravest soldiers tremble on the\nmorning of a battle, feeling beforehand that death will call them\nduring the day, is there not likewise in us a voice which warns\nus of the trials that we shall have later in our lives to endure?\nThe birds have a presentiment of the coming storm, even when the\natmosphere is yet full of splendor; the very insects that crawl\nupon the ground foresee in the autumn the rigors of the\napproaching winter, and envelop their eggs with a double covering\nof silk; and why should man be less favored than the birds or\ninsects? Why should he be the only creature that is delivered up,\nas it were, with his hands and feet bound, to the rigors of the\nfuture?\n{807}\nIt is possible that Flaminia obeyed that sentiment of moral\nmodesty that causes us to hide from all eyes our better\nqualities--those secret riches of our hearts, that we may lavish\nthem without stint upon the hidden object that we have chosen.\nShe knew herself to be incapable of half-loving any object, and\nshe felt that her heart was a fragile instrument; that, if\ntouched by a skilful hand, it would render harmonious sounds, but\nthat it would infallibly break under a rude or awkward touch; and\nshe wished to preserve it from such a fate. None of those\nsurrounding her suspected the power of this instrument; on the\ncontrary, her great outward calmness passed for the evident\nindication of a certain coldness of heart, whilst the expansive\nnature of her sister was considered as the sign of an extreme\nsensibility. Flaminia was much grieved at being thus\nmisunderstood, and very often, in the silence of the night,\nbitter tears flowed from her eyes; very often the ivory crucifix\nwhich hung at the head of her couch, saw opening before it that\nsoul so full of purity and love, that came to seek, at that\ninexhaustible source, a present consolation and a future\nstrength. Sometimes she fancied that she heard in herself the\ndistant mutterings of the heart's tempest; then she prayed with\nardor, almost feverishly, as she listened to the murmur within\nher of those mysterious voices which warned her of a near peril,\nand told her to spread around her those riches of affection full\nof loving ardor, that then devoured her, and that one day would\nconsume her. In these moments of instinctive alarm, she drew\nherself yet closer to God, hiding herself under the shadow of his\nprotecting hand, ever lifted up over those who with faith invoke\nit; and then she felt herself reassured. At such moments as these\nwas it that she felt herself to be so completely alone,\nnotwithstanding the parental tenderness that surrounded her, and\nshe suffered by this loneliness. In truth, Flaminia was\nright--she was alone; for though both the Prince and Princess\nBalbo cherished their daughter, yet time seemed to have passed on\nfor her alone, and not for them. The child had merged into the\nyoung girl; the _na\u00efve_ graces of the infant had given place\nto the more opened charms of youth, yet they had remarked nothing\nof all this. They dreamt not even that parental affection ought\nto be modelled after the child of whom it is the object, and\nought to transform itself and grow with that child. They did not\nunderstand that the protecting tenderness accorded to the infant\nwho shelters himself under it as does a bird in its nest, becomes\ninsufficient for the heart that time has developed, and that has\nneed of leaning upon sentiments less protecting and more\nfriendly. One of the most dangerous shoals in the difficult task\nof educating children, is doubtless that of noticing the first\nmoments when the child whom we have held until then under our\nhand, and caused, as it were, to live of our own life, lays aside\nthe trammels of infancy, and seeks to fly with his own wings. It\nis then that we ought to know how so to modify our affection that\nwe may inspire that freedom and that confidence in ourselves that\nwill protect this second period of life, as a salutary fear\nprotects the first.\n\n\"Now for the development of these sentiments, so fragile and\ndelicate, we must seize the instant when the child commences to\nbecome a man, when he first feels awakening in him thoughts and\nsensations that are his own, and not simply the echo or\nreflection of our own.\n{808}\nIt is at that moment, and then only, that we can ever arouse such\nconfidence. If we allow this fleeting and critical period of his\nexistence to escape us, never can we hope to recall it; and\nhowever powerful may be his sense of filial affection, the child\nwill never again show us that confidence that we have repulsed;\nwe shall have left his young heart, just awakening to the dawn of\nlife, in an isolation that is always painful, and oftentimes\ndangerous, since it lends to the already strong voice of the\npassions the charms of solitude and mystery. Unhappily--and this\nis almost always through an ill-advised tenderness--we too often\nclose our eyes to this transformation; habit blinds us, and the\nchild escapes from our control. Such had been the case with\nFlaminia. Her mother was one of the most virtuous and excellent\nof women; the prince, as I have already told you, adored his\nchildren; but both of them, as well as Giovanni, who was fifteen\nyears older than the eldest of his sisters, regarded these two\nlovely girls but as the two children who so lately had charmed\nthem by their _na\u00efvet\u00e9_ and grace. This situation, in which\nthe two sisters shared, should have sooner given rise to a\nconfidence equal to their friendship; but besides that their\ndifference of tastes often separated them, no exterior event had\nyet happened to show them the power of their mutual affection and\nthe community of ideas that ought to be its consequence. Thus\nFlaminia lived alone and gave herself up without reserve to the\nsweet charm of vague reverie; she listened with a deep joy to\nthose mysterious aspirations that spoke to her of happiness, nor\ncould she assign any form to these thoughts, that, all uncertain\nas they were, yet threw her into a delicious trouble. She sought\nsolitude, and spent long hours sitting at the balcony of her\nwindow, her forehead leaning on her long white hands, while her\neyes filled with tears that had no sorrow as their source, as she\nregarded the deep and large purple shadows which the setting sun\ncast on the blue waters of the Mediterranean. Although she was\nunconscious of the meaning of these frequent reveries, and would\nhave been unable to explain the reason of that melancholy, so\nfull of mingled pain and pleasure, into which she loved to plunge\nherself, yet she hid most carefully from every eye the state of\nher mind, dreading above all things lest any one should suspect\nthe happiness she felt in yielding to its charm. At the moment\nwhen providence was about to bring together Albert and Flaminia,\nhe also found himself in some such a state of mind as that which\nI have just portrayed. A glorious renown had at first seemed to\nhim the only thing in this world worthy of envy; but that idol so\nardently followed had been, little by little, despoiled of its\nbrilliant _prestige_; the nearer he approached it, the more\nfaint and dim became the aureole of splendor with which he had\nbelieved it surrounded; and when he at last saw himself in full\npossession of his desire, when the renown of his name had\nresounded to the most distant commanderies of his order, which\nregarded him as its firmest support and most assured hope; then\nhe saw with affright that a glorious name is insufficient in\nitself, and that it must be regarded in a Christian life, or at\nleast in connection with some one who is dear to us, and whose\nheart would rejoice and sympathize with our glory. When Albert at\nlast understood the truth, he felt himself sad and unhappy; for\nbe looked vainly around him--he was alone!\n{809}\nAn immense void then made itself felt in his soul--a void that\neven his glory was unable to hide from him, and which friendship\nwas powerless to fill. Like Flaminia, he felt himself isolated on\nthe earth; but while her solitude was sweetened by a hope as\nvague as her thoughts and desires, that of Albert was a\nbottomless abyss, full of discouragement and despair.\n\n\"The profound darkness of night then fell upon his soul, an\nobscurity similar to those sombre and cold nights in winter, when\nthe eye sees not a single star piercing the sky covered with\nclouds; and when the sad heart hears but the moans of the wind\nthat bends the tops of the bare trees as it passes over them,\nmingled with the boding cry of the birds of prey which slowly\nwheel around in the thick and misty atmosphere. A lassitude had\nfallen on him similar to that which a traveller feels at the\nsight of a straight and monotonous road which extends as far as\nthe eye can reach in a dry and burning plain. Seeing nothing\naround him that seemed worthy either a desire or an effort, he\nallowed himself to be carried slowly on by time toward the common\nend; nor did he hasten that course by his vows; for even whilst\nhe firmly believed in the joys of eternity, he felt not his soul\ndrawn toward them. If he had run forward to meet death, it was\nthrough his natural intrepidity; for he felt in its presence but\nthe same desolating indifference that he had shown at the moment\nof his recovery to life. Such were the secret sentiments of\nAlbert and Flaminia when their mutual destiny placed them for the\nfirst time in presence of each other in the ancient _salon_\nof the Palace Balbo. We are both of us, my dear Frederic, so far\ndistant from the time when our hearts first experienced these\nimpressions of affection, that there now remains to us but a very\nslight recollection.\"\n\n\"You are deceived,\" interrupted the baron; \"from the day when for\nthe first time I saw my poor Gertrude, until that when I placed\nher in her tomb, I have forgotten nothing of all that has passed\nbetween us. There is not an hour of that much-regretted time\nwhich is not present in my memory; not an incident, however\nslight it may have been, that I cannot recall in even its\nslightest details!\"\n\n\"You can the more easily understand, then,\" continued the count,\n\"how it was that these two souls united themselves so closely the\none to the other, that there soon existed between them but a\nsingle life, a single taste, and a single thought; and how it was\nthat they both preserved, even until their very last moment, the\nmost absolute certainty of their mutual affection, without ever\nhaving interchanged a single word on the subject. Scarcely had\nthey been but a few days together, when already Albert had\npenetrated into all the thoughts of Flaminia. He read in her\nheart as in an open book; he divined all its secrets; that soul\nwhich to all others was closed, he saw opening, and breathed all\nits perfumes< foresaw all its destinies! Was it, then, in a few\ncommonplace conversations that he had gained so complete an\ninsight into that heart habitually closed? No; he had not judged\nFlaminia by any acquaintance that he had gained of her character\nby her words or actions; he had only looked upon her, and\ninstantly, by intuition, he had understood her; and this was so\ntrue, that there were moments when it might have been said that\nhe saw her think. On her side, Flaminia saw the soul of Albert by\nthat same light which I should call supernatural, did I not\nconsider it as one of the eternal laws instituted by the Creator.\n{810}\nShe knew him to be loyal and generous, and she saw his\nunchangeable goodness and patience; not because he had had any\noccasion of showing them before her, but because a lively and\npenetrating light thus showed him to her. All that Albert felt\nfound in her an echo; the mirror does not more faithfully produce\nthe image than did her soul his slightest sensations. By his side\nshe felt happy, because she felt herself understood and loved. A\nnew existence then opened for her; movement and activity\nsucceeded to her vague reveries and habitual indolence; new\nhorizons showed themselves each day to her soul. Nature became\nmore beautiful, the flowers more sweet, the sun more brilliant;\nit seemed to her that her eyes had been shut until then, and that\nthey now opened for the first time. At the same time that a new\naffection acquired over her soul a stronger influence than her\naffection for her family had yet exercised on her, even these\nbecame more lively and more complete. Nevertheless, it was no\nlonger at that source whence she had so long drawn her sensations\nand ideas that she now went to seek them: all came to her from\nAlbert, or had reference to him. She saw by his eyes and thought\nby his ideas; her tastes, her desires, were nothing else than the\ntastes and desires of Albert. Were he present, she seemed to live\nwith delight; in his absence it seemed to her that her life lost\nits intensity, and all became sad and indifferent to her; he was\nthe soul that gave life to all. In a word, he had become a part\nof herself, an indispensable condition for the perfection of her\nbeing and existence. I have no need to tell you that she did not\nrender to herself so exact an account of the state of her soul as\nthat which I have just sketched to you. She had, in truth, the\nconsciousness of the change that was taking place in her, but the\nreasons of this change remained enveloped in a profound obscurity\nthat her spirit could not penetrate; she obeyed her feelings of\ntenderness without being able to analyze them. And yet the more\nshe felt that Albert alone filled her heart and thought, the more\nshe instinctively enveloped herself exteriorly, with regard to\nhim, in her mantle of ordinary indifference. But when hazard left\nher alone with Albert, then a sudden transformation took place in\nher. All that indifference melted away, as do the last snows of\nspringtime under the heat of the sun. She delivered herself up\nunrestrainedly to the generous enthusiasm of her loving nature,\nher expression became more gentle, her voice more tender, and her\nheart beat faster in her bosom, which rose and fell agitated by\nan emotion so delicious and powerful that it resembled even\ngrief; for in our weak nature, joy and suffering have a very near\nresemblance.\"\n\n    Concluded In Next Number.\n\n----------\n\n{811}\n\n\n      John Sterling.\n\n\nWhatever importance may attach to the life and writings of John\nSterling, is due to the fact of his having been a representative\nman. Without being supremely original, without anything wonderful\nin his career, he has been made the subject of a memoir by two\neminent men, Archdeacon Hare and Thomas Carlyle. The one\nrepresents Anglican belief, which is partial infidelity, and the\nother nineteenth-century belief, which is infidelity, pure and\nsimple; and both the one and the other have drawn the portrait of\ntheir friend and hero in colors of their own mind. Archdeacon\nHare has traced with regret the lapse of Sterling into unbelief,\nwhile Carlyle has seen in that very lapse a rise into\ntranscendental faith of the highest order. Neither of them has\nneglected, but, on the contrary, both keenly appreciated\nSterling's literary labors and merits; and both would concur in\npointing him out as a type of that new creation of thinkers and\nsupposed philosophers in whom doubt and trust are ever contending\nfor the mastery--who are ever seeking, and never able to come to\nthe knowledge of the truth--a mongrel breed, sprung from an\nunnatural union between scepticism and Christianity.\n\nJohn Sterling was born at Kaimes Castle, in the Isle of Bute, on\nthe 20th of July, 1806. His father rented a small farm attached\nto the Castle, and the first four years of Johnny's life were\nspent on a wild-wooded, rocky coast, among headlands, storms, and\nthundering breakers. Nature gave him a good schooling; for, when\nhe left the Isle of Bute, it was for the well-grassed,\nmany-brooked village of Llanblethian, in the Vale of Glamorgan.\nFive years more passed in that pleasant spot, and time never\neffaced the lovely images it imprinted on Sterling's mind. Every\nline and hue, he said, were more deeply and accurately fixed in\nhis memory than those of any scene he had since beheld.\nBeautifully and with deep feeling did he retrace the impressions\nthey made on his childish fancy, in an article written in the\n_Literary Chronicle_ in his twenty-second year. He had not\nseen the spot since he was eight years old, yet he described the\nold ruin of St. Quentin's Castle, the orchard of his home, the\nschool where he used to read the well-thumbed _History of\nGreece_ by Oliver Goldsmith, and the garden-sports of himself\nand his playmates, with as much distinctness as if they had been\n_souvenirs_ of the previous spring. Very precious are such\nrecollections, for one personal experience is worth a hundred\nfacts learnt from books.\n\nWhen Napoleon returned from Elba, in 1815, little Sterling was in\nthe midst of French school-boys, at Passy, shouting, _Vive\nl'Empereur_. His father had become a writer in the\n_Times_, under the name of _Vetus_, and was in hopes of\nbeing appointed one of its foreign correspondents. The Hundred\nDays which convulsed Europe drove the Sterlings from France; and\nfortune, who tries literary aspirants with her ficklest moods,\nshifted the father from Russell Square and Queen Square, to\nBlackfriars Road and the Grove, at Blackheath. At last he rode at\nanchor, and was permanently connected with the _Times_.\n{812}\nJohn was sent to Dr. Burney's school, at Greenwich, and afterward\ncame under the tuition of Dr. Waite, at Blackheath, and of Dr.\nTrollope, the master of Christ's Hospital. He was twelve years\nold when his younger brother, Edward, died. It was an early age\nto become familiar with death. John felt the loss as if he had\nbeen a Catholic. God or nature, one knows not which, taught him\nthe communion of saints. \"Edward is near me now,\" he used to say\nto himself. \"Edward is watching me. He knows what I am doing and\nthinking. He is sad for my faults. I must, I will strive to do\nwhat he would approve.\" Very active was his mind at this period.\nHis keen eye observed everything; his soul was winged. He read\nthe entire _Edinburgh Review_ through, from the beginning,\nand cart-loads of books from circulating libraries, \"wading,\" as\nCarlyle says, \"like Ulysses toward his palace, through infinite\ndung.\" No advantages of education were denied him. At the\nUniversity of Glasgow he was tutored by Mr. Jacobson, since\nRegius Professor of Divinity at Oxford and Bishop of Chester; and\nin 1824, when he was in his nineteenth year, he removed to\nTrinity College, Cambridge, where another man of eminence,\nJulius, afterward Archdeacon Hare, became his tutor and his\nlasting friend. He was in all respects worthy of such friendship.\nA youth who, with a delicate frame, could stand waist-deep in the\nriver, to aid in passing buckets to and fro, when the buildings\nof King's Court were on fire, must have had a singular disregard\nof self, and readiness for all moral enterprise. \"Somebody must\nbe in it,\" he said, when his tutor remonstrated with him. \"Why\nnot I, as well as another?\" Friendships were the best gift\nSterling received from Cambridge. The classical knowledge he\nacquired there was not very exact, nor did he submit to any\nstrict discipline. In the Union he was \"the master-bowman,\" and\nout of such comrades as Charles Buller, Richard Milnes, John\nKemble, Richard Trench, and Frederic Maurice, he made of the two\nlast dear and intimate friends. He and Frederic Maurice, indeed,\nmarried two sisters; and to him and Coleridge he owed chiefly the\nformation of his opinions and character. The latter was at that\ntime beginning to found a school of thought, and the former,\nFrederic Maurice, is now, and has long been, a recognized leader\nof the Broad Church party, in the Anglican communion.\n\nIf ever there was a moonstruck prophet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge\nwas one. As a poet, he was a star; as a divine, an _ignis\nfatuus_. He subjected faith to reason, coquetted with\ninfidelity, embraced Germanism, and discoursed by the hour on the\nchurch and the _Logos_ in language all musical and shining,\nbut conveying no meaning whatever to any one of his hearers.\n[Footnote 228]\n\n    [Footnote 228: Carlyle's _Life of Sterling_, p. 73.]\n\nYour reason (_Vernunft_) bound you to accept a multitude of\nfacts and principles which your understanding (_Verstand_)\nrejected. With a good understanding only you might be an\nunbeliever, but reason would exalt you into a Christian.\nEverything depended on this distinction, and if you could not\ncomprehend it, (which nobody could,) so much the worse for you.\nYet English society was fast being ensnared by such theosophic\nnonsense and hazy \"Kantean transcendentalism.\" The clear dogmas\nof traditional faith and the simplicity of Scripture, likewise,\nwere being observed in a cloud of jargon.\n{813}\nDr. Pusey in his youth was sliding into German subtleties; Isaac\nTaylor was watering Christianity down into human philosophy; Dr.\nArnold was pleading for an Erastian church comprising all sects\nand denominations; Dr. Hampden's terminology was effacing the\ntime-hallowed language of the schools; Coleridge, with his\ndrunken imagination, and Milman, with his rationalistic solution\nof Scripture miracles, were paving the way for Strauss and Renan;\nand if it had not been for the Oxford revival of primitive\ntradition and patristic lore, the English mind would have\nwandered away into the bleak desert of infidelity without one\noasis--one guiding path by which to return to the fresh pasture\nof truth and peace.\n\nSterling, unfortunately, was not brought under this happier\ninfluence. The seed sown in him by Coleridge and his compeers\nproduced, as we shall see, its natural fruit, and made him a\nforerunner of that worship of humanity which is now to so large\nan extent superseding the worship of Christ. After spending a\nyear in Trinity College, Cambridge, he migrated to Trinity Hall,\nand in 1827, quitted the university altogether. He had to seek a\nprofession, and knew not what to choose. He tried a private\nsecretaryship, and ended, of course, with literature--the\nprofession of all clever men who have none. For that, and\nespecially for periodical literature, he was best fitted, for his\nthoughts were quick and brilliant, \"beautifullest sheet-lightning\nnot to be condensed into thunderbolts,\" deriving their momentum\nfrom swift strokes, not from metallic weight.\n\nThe copyright of the _Athenaeum_ being for sale, Sterling\nand his gifted friends thought it would make a fine opening for\nthem. He wrote much in it in the years 1828 and 1829, together\nwith Maurice, who was editor. His \"_Shades of the Dead_,\"\n\"Alexander the Great,\" \"Joan of Arc,\" \"Wycliffe,\" \"Columbus,\"\n\"Gustavus Adolphus,\" \"Milton,\" and \"Burns,\" are full of thought,\ncolor, and enthusiasm, but they produce a saddening effect. They\nare \"a beautiful mirage in the dry wilderness; but you cannot\nquench your thirst there!\" Sterling knew not the stand-point from\nwhich alone the characters of past times can be duly appreciated.\nHe describes Joan of Arc as \"perhaps the most wonderful,\nexquisite, and complete personage in all the history of the\nworld,\" yet he maintains that \"her persuasion of the outward\nappearance of divine agency was caused by a _diseased_\nexcitability of the fancy.\" As if to hear a voice from heaven \"to\nassist her in governing herself,\" to see an angel, and receive\nvisits from the departed, implied of necessity a diseased\nimagination! He sees in Wycliffe a Gospel hero almost as full of\n\"immortal wisdom\" as Coleridge, his \"Christian Plato,\" He couples\nhim with Erigena, who \"questioned transubstantiation--the\nmaster-sorcery,\" and Berengarius, who \"opposed the same monstrous\ndoctrine.\" But he tells us in praise of these new lights, what\nmay well be regarded as dispraise, that \"they encouraged\nthemselves to cast away the belief of all that Luther afterward\nrejected by the simple study of the Bible, _unaided by general\nknowledge, and without the guidance of sufficient\ninterpreters_.\" Such is the fatal admission of one of whom his\nfriend and biographer, Archdeacon Hare, writes that \"the most\nstriking and precious quality in his writings is the deep\nsympathy _with the errors and faults, and even with the sins,\nof mankind_.\" Here, then, is another admission--an admission,\nnot of the disciple, but of the master, that while Sterling\ncombated that Catholic religion which is from first to last the\nworship of Christ, he was already exhibiting the most decided\nsymptom of Positivism, or the worship of Humanity.\n{814}\nHe dwells, again, with delight on the goodness and greatness of\nColumbus; he assures us that he was a diligent student of the\nBible, had a childlike simplicity of faith in the truths of\nreligion; was, in his own belief, the chosen minister of\nprovidence, watched over by saints and angels, pointed in his\npath across the waters by the mother of the Lord, and holding in\nhis hand the cross as the only ensign of triumph; and yet, with\nstrange perversity, he comes to the conclusion that the mind of\nthis fearless discoverer was \"in many respects dark and weak,\"\nand that his faith, though nobler than that of the multitude\naround him, was \"not the purest Christianity.\" Sterling himself,\nin short, held a purer creed, (if he could only have defined it,)\nand we shall see presently to what it led.\n\nWhen his mind first came into Coleridge's plastic hands, it was\nsimply chaotic as regards religion. Instructed by the oracle of\nHighgate, he engrafted a belief in Christianity, such as it was,\non his original \"piety of heart,\" (as Carlyle calls it,) and his\n\"religion, which was as good as altogether ethnic.\" In this new\nphase of mental hallucination, his sceptical zeal against what he\ndeemed superstition abated, and his radicalism, toning down, lost\nsome of its wildest features. In this frame he wrote and\npublished a novel called _Arthur Coningsby_. It was then his\nonly book, and it brought him little satisfaction. The babe was\nstill-born, and had it lived, the father, as it seems, would have\nhad little love for his own offspring. Coleridge's moonshine\nglittered on his pages, but its outlooks into futurity were\nconfused and sad. It was \"gilded vacuity,\" opulent misery. The\nhero is himself--a youth plunging into life without any fixed\nprinciple to guide him; full of democratic, utilitarian, and\nheathenish theories; he suffers shipwreck--the shipwreck of the\nmind; and then by the hand of some semi-Christian quack, like\ndreamy Coleridge, is guided into a port which is no harbor, and a\nchurch where there is no anchorage. Such was _Arthur\nConingsby_. But to Carlyle Sterling never mentioned the name\nof the novel, nor would hear it spoken of in his presence.\n\nDuring the years in which it was planned, written, and published,\nfrom 1829 to 1832, Sterling wooed and won Susannah Barton, a\nkindly and true-hearted wife, to share his pleasures and trials;\nmade an intimate friend of General Torrijos, a Spanish exile; and\nwas silly enough to aid him and a little band of democrats\n(including an Irishman named Boyd, who had more money than wits)\nto purchase a ship in the Thames, arms and stores, for the\npurpose of invading Spain and proclaiming a republic! Sterling\nhimself was to have taken part in the mad expedition; but Cupid,\nas usual, was stronger than Mars; and Susannah, who was not yet\nMrs. Sterling, prevailed on her lover to lay his armor aside. Of\ncourse, the Spanish envoy got tidings of the plot; and the ship,\nwith its crew and cargo, was seized in the king's name when\ndropping down the river. Coleridge's moonshine, it seems, was not\nstrong enough yet to dispel the dark frowns of democracy.\n\nIn 1830, the marriage contract was sealed; but alas! in this\nfallen world the glad moment of our realized hopes is almost\nalways dashed with some strange and unexpected sorrow. Sterling's\nhealth failed, and his lungs, menaced by consumption, asked for a\nwarmer climate.\n{815}\nThe year 1831 found him in the island of St. Vincent in the midst\nof tropic vegetation, tornadoes, and slaves as yet unworthy of\nfreedom. One hurricane, fiercer than its fellows, stripped the\nroof from the house where Sterling lived, and whirled about the\ncottages of the negroes as if they had been chaff. Meanwhile, in\nDecember, 1831, Torrijos, the deluded democrat general, reaches\nSpain, runs ashore at Fuengirola with fifty-five desperadoes like\nhimself, seizes a farm, barricades it, is surrounded, surrenders,\nis haled with his comrades to Malaga, and with them all, the rich\nIrishman included, is swiftly fusiladed. \"I hear the sound of\nthat musketry,\" wrote Sterling; \"it is as if the bullets were\ntearing my own brain.\" No wonder, for to his brain the folly of a\nwild enterprise was mainly due.\n\nRepentance came; religion was his study; and prayer, earnest\nprayer for guidance, arose from his lips as he sat under the\ndates and palms, and gazed on the mirror of summer seas. Such\nprayer had been answered more fully if teachers such as\nColeridge, with his gift of words, and Edward Irving, with his\ngift of tongues, had not already imbued him with a multitude of\ntruths which were half untruths, and untruths which were half\ntruths. He believed himself to be \"in possession of the blessings\nof Christ's redemption;\" and though he scarcely as yet knew the\nelements of Christianity, he began to think of teaching it. It is\nalways the way with pious Protestant youths. They have vocations\nto preach before they are schooled; and what ought to be taken\nfor presumption is hailed by their friends as the most signal\nproof of grace. So Sterling, wearied of West India life, formed a\nvague scheme of anti-slavery philanthropy, and turned his face\ntoward Europe and his thoughts toward the ministry of the\nEstablished Church.\n\nIt was in June, 1833, and on the banks of the Rhine, that the\nunripe aspirant for holy orders met his old friend and tutor, the\nRev. Julius Hare. That worthy gentleman encouraged a desire he\nshould rather have checked, and Sterling was not long in arriving\nat a determination to become Mr. Hare's curate at Hurstmonceaux\nin Sussex, and wear, at least, the surplice and stole, though he\nhad no hood or academical degree to adorn himself withal. So on\nTrinity Sunday of the following year, he came out of Chichester\nCathedral a raw deacon, and established himself with his family\nin a modest mansion in a quiet, leafy lane of Hurstmonceaux. Very\ndiligent was Sterling in his pastoral duties; but the fervor of\nhis zeal soon cooled. In September he began to have misgivings,\nand in February following he had quitted the path he had\nprematurely chosen. The reason assigned was loss of health; but\nCarlyle guessed shrewdly, and with too much truth, that Sterling\nwas disappointed even to despair by the church whose garment he\nhad spasmodically caught by the hem. The virtue he expected did\nnot go forth from it, and the glimmer of truth which reached him\ncame through a dense cloud of confused writings. The very names\nof these betokened chaos, and the twilight that struggled through\nthem was sufficient neither to cheer nor to guide. Many pages of\nArchdeacon Hare's memoir are filled with extracts from Sterling's\nletters, and accounts of his favorite studies at this period.\nThey form a labyrinth none can thread, where he wanders to and\nfro without landmarks, bourn, light, or hope. The more he reads\nthe Old Testament, the less can he believe in its miracles; and\nhaving no guide who speaks with authority, he applies for\nsatisfaction in vain to one charlatan after another as confused,\nfanciful, and blind as himself.\n{816}\nFancy a system of theology taught by Tholuck, Schiller, and\nOlshausen; by Schleiermacher, Mackintosh, and Milman, by the\nKoran and Kant, by Jonathan Edwards, Coleridge, and Maurice! Such\nwere Sterling's instructors, and it is not to be wondered at that\nthey created more doubts than they removed, and that under their\ninfluence he discarded all faith in a hierarchy, a church, and a\nBible written by plenary inspiration. Christianity, he thought,\ncould only become true by changing with the times; and if any\nexisting society or church was to be the nucleus of a new system,\nit could only be by the sloughing off of much that was old. How\nutterly deplorable would be the condition of the human race if\nleft to the teaching of such philosophers and divines. After two\nthousand years of Christian schooling, it would know nothing more\nthan ancient Greece and Rome of God and of its own destinies. All\nrevelation must be doubted of anew in order that anything may be\nbelieved, and the _improved_ Christianity to be given in\nthese last days to the world would owe all its changes and\nimprovements to men as feeble and fallible as ourselves. Better,\nfar better, had it been for you, John Sterling, to be instructed\nby a simple parish priest bred among the mountains, and\nministering in that church which is the pillar and ground of the\ntruth, than be handed over as you were by Coleridge, Maurice, and\nHare, to Strauss, Mill, and Carlyle--from unbelief in the bud to\nunbelief in full, gaudy, flaunting blossom.\n\nWe cannot discover anything imposing in Sterling's talents. Even\nin secular learning he was a reed shaken by the wind. His essays\nand poems want definite view and bold outline. It is a grand\nthing to see both sides of a question, but it is a pitiful thing\nto say as much for one side as for another. The want of first\nprinciples makes all Sterling's pages dreamy and pointless. He\nhas no point to steer from, no harbor to steer to; he is always\ntoiling against wind and tide, making no way, and accounting it\ntriumphant success only not to be shipwrecked. Had he confined\nhis criticisms to matters of taste, he might have been endured,\nbut he _will_ be piercing the clouds without any ballast to\nsteady or rudder to guide his balloon.\n\nIn February, 1835, Sterling first became personally acquainted\nwith that extraordinary writer, Thomas Carlyle. He met him in his\nnatural element, the society of brilliant free-thinkers. He was\nside by side with John Stuart Mill at the India House, and then\nat Sterling's father's with the Crawfords and other\n_literati_, with whom unbelief was wisdom. His writings, and\nparticularly _Sartor Resartus_, made a great impression on\nSterling, though he saw the strange and extravagant defects of\nits style, and labored hard to convince the author of his own\nbelief in a \"personal God.\" But the poison did its work. The\nstrong inward unrest, the Titanic heaving of Teufelsdr\u00f6ckh's\nspirit communicated itself to Sterling's, and whirled it away\nstill further from central peace. Carlyle could only stimulate\nthe intellect, and fill it with exuberant images. He had heard\nwithout regret of Sterling's abandonment of democracy, and he saw\nwith greater satisfaction his defection from parochial work. He\nregarded the pen as his vocation, and the greatest instrument for\ngood in the world. Not that Sterling broke outwardly with the\nchurch, or declared himself a renegade.\n{817}\nOn the contrary, he now and then performed service for a friend\nat Bayswater, but it became more and more evident that his faith\nin Christianity was partial and unsound. His mind was not in the\nhighest degree devotional, nor had he that fear of the Lord which\nis the beginning of wisdom.\n\nHis knowledge of German writers hitherto was confined to\nsemi-sceptics and self-appointed evangelists, Neander and the\nlike. Carlyle introduced him to higher souls, if literary merit\nconstitutes height. He brought him to the feet of Goethe,\nRichter, Schiller, and Lessing, and with these he tried to\nsatisfy the void which an imperfect religion had been unable to\nfill. Mr. Dunn, an amiable Irish clergyman, became one of their\nchosen circle, and we learn from Sterling himself that _his_\ntheology was compounded of the Greek fathers, mystics and ethical\nphilosophers, and that its main defect was an insufficient\napprehension of the reality and depth of sin. The very word sin\nis considered objectionable in the school of Carlyle and Mill,\nbecause it, is the correlative of grace. Sterling's friends\nseemed fated to be the enemies of his soul. He had another named\nEdgeworth, a nephew of Miss Edgeworth the novelist. He was well\nread in Plato and Kant, yet even less of a believer than they.\n\"He entertained not creeds, but the Platonic or Kantean\n_ghosts_ of creeds.\" So says Carlyle, of whom Sterling bears\nwitness, that \"_his_ fundamental position is the good of\nevil, and the idleness of wishing to jump off one's own shadow.\"\n\nDeplorable health again, in 1836, drove Sterling to a sunnier\nclime. He was always dodging and jerking about \"to escape the\nscythe of Death.\" At Bordeaux his feeble frame revived, and he\ndelved in the mines of literature for fine gold. The theological\nfever in his mind had abated. Such is Carlyle's account--and the\nhealth of pure reason returned, or almost returned. He had done\nwith theology, rubrics, church articles, and \"the enormous\never-repeated thrashing of the straw.\" But did he find the grain?\nIf theology is chaff, where shall we look for wheat? Will the\nheart of mankind accept literature as the _summum bonum_,\nthe guide of life, the antidote of sin, sorrow, and death? Yet\nfor it Carlyle and Sterling bid farewell to Christianity, and\ncry: \"Adieu, ye threshing-floors of rotten straw, with bleared\ntallow-light for sun; to you adieu!\" _The Sexton's Daughter_\nwas a poem which indicated Sterling's gradual renunciation of\nthose fragments of Christianity which still clung to him. He even\nbegan to think of attacking revelation, on the principle of folly\nrushing in where angels fear to tread. The Christian religion, he\nbelieved, would be really indebted to him for meddling with its\nfoundations, and he should be \"doing good to theology,\" by\nwriting what would for ever exclude him from ministering even in\nthe Church of England. His letters at this period are full of\ndistressing jumble, which Archdeacon Hare records as Christian\nwith a certain unction, and Carlyle, more sagacious, claims as\nantichristian with a chuckle of delight.\n\nA _sickly_ shadow of the parish church still hung over\nSterling's compositions, according to the latter biographer, and\nhe gives an amusing description of the parson-like way in which\nhis friend read aloud the _Sexton's Daughter_ at Blackheath,\nand gave painful effect to its maudlin morality. It was \"a dreary\npulpit, or even conventicle manner; that flattest moaning hoo-hoo\nof predetermined pathos, with a kind of rocking canter introduced\nby way of intonation, each stanza the exact fellow of the other,\nand the dull swing of the rocking-horse, duly in each.\"\n\n{818}\n\nThe invalid poet had returned from Bordeaux, but he did not\nremain long at Blackheath. Again he crossed the waters in\ncheerful quest of balmier air, and the manifold bliss of health.\nDaily he rode among the rocky slopes and redundant foliage of\nMadeira, writing to Carlyle often for recreation, and reading\nGoethe's Life and Works with fear and delight. He called him \"the\nmost splendid of anachronisms,\" and spoke of his life as\n\"thoroughly, nay, intensely pagan, in an age when it is men's\nduty to be Christian. In truth,\" he adds, \"I am afraid of him, I\nenjoy and admire him so much, and feel I could so easily be\ntempted to go along with him.\" Thus all things conduced to lead\nSterling's mind down the steep. Lyell's _Geology_ opened a\nnew flutter (not line) of thought, and bewildered him with the\nview it presented of \"the abysmal extent of time.\"\n\nFrom Professor Wilson, alias Christopher North, the presiding\nspirit of Blackwood, Sterling received great\nencouragement--perhaps more than he deserved. But ingenious\nmadness is all that the public requires in the magazines of some\ncountries. _Laudari a Laudato_ is always a rare delight. Had\nCarlyle been editor, his criticisms on Sterling's Tales and Poems\nwould have been more severe, yea, and more just than Wilson's--he\nof the _Isle of Palms_. Thus he says of _The Onyx\nRing_: \"There wants maturing, wants purifying of clear from\nunclear; properly there wants patience and steady depth. The\nbasis is wild and loose; and in the details, lucent often with\nfine color, and dipt in beautiful sunshine, there are several\nthings misseen, untrue, which is the worst species of\nmispainting.\" This it was that blurred and marred all poor\nSterling's productions; everything was _misseen_, and\ntherefore mispainted. In one particular he was to be praised and\nenvied--he saw things on the sunny side. In spite of sickness, he\nwas cheerful, and buoyancy of spirit kept him afloat on a sea\nwhere many would have sunk. John Stuart Mill was now editing\n_The London and Westminster Review_, and Sterling was\nsufficiently vague and unsound to be thought a valuable\ncontributor. In that _Review_ he discoursed of Montaigne,\nSimonides, and Carlyle, while in the _Quarterly_ of 1842, he\ncriticised Tennyson. Of these critiques the best is that on\nSimonides, for the subject was best fitted to Sterling's taste\nand powers. He was a better judge of Greek poetry and Greek\ncharacter than of writers like Montaigne, Carlyle, and Tennyson,\nwho have lived in Christian times, and must be judged by\nChristian rules. He could hardly wander wide of his theme while\ndealing with the bright wine, luscious fruit, honey, and crystal\nfounts of Ceos, while gathering up the costly fragments of its\ngifted bard, and rendering in English the chaste and delicately\nchiselled verses of him who has \"not left a single line inspired\nby love.\"\n\nBut the case was altered when Sterling tried to appreciate\nMontaigne, The task was above him. He was neither a believer nor\nan unbeliever, but partly both. He could neither wholly praise\nnor wholly blame Montaigne's scepticism. He had an instinctive\nleaning toward the writer who adopted _Que s\u00e7ay-je?_ as his\nmotto, and followed the natural religion of S\u00e9bonde. He honored\none whose writings were condemned at Rome, and thought, for that\nvery reason, they must have some good in them.\n{819}\nHe admired an essayist who sat loose to the received opinions and\nbelief of his time, chose Plutarch for his favorite author, (as\nRousseau and Madame Roland did after him,) and \"of all men seemed\nmost thoroughly to have revered and loved the saint, prophet, and\nmartyr of pagan wisdom, Socrates.\"\n\nPerhaps Socrates would not be in such good odor with the sceptics\nof our day, if he too had not been in some sense an unbeliever.\nPerhaps it is in his _protesting_ character that they\nchiefly admire him, and trace in him some resemblance to the sage\nof Wittemburg. They admire him, and set him up as a model,\nbecause he was a witness against the established and popular\nreligion of his country. Yet it may be that Socrates had really\nmore faith than they have, and with all the disadvantages of\npaganism, made, if we may so speak, a better deist than\nnineteenth-century sceptics. Perhaps his mind was clearer, after\nall, than Montaigne's, or than Sterling's, who wrote of Montaigne\nthat, \"in the bewilderment of his misunderstanding at the\nimmensity and seeming contradictions of the universe, perhaps he\neven hoped that _one day or other_ the puzzle of existence\nwould find its solution in _the accompanying puzzle of\nrevelation_.\"\n\nWe have not time, in this place, to follow Sterling's review of\nhis friend Carlyle's works. Suffice it to say, what we believe to\nbe the fact, that he discovered Carlyle's intellectual stature to\nbe high because the literary world had already recognized it as\nsuch; but he did not discover the extent of Tennyson's powers\nbecause the literary world had not yet recognized them. This is\nnot very complimentary to Sterling's critiques or\npenetration--but dreamy and indistinct beauty is all that he ever\nreaches, and his _expos\u00e9_ of Carlyle's philosophy is as hazy\nand unsatisfactory as his appreciation of Tennyson is hesitating\nand imperfect.\n\nAfter founding the Sterling Club, our hero once more turned his\nface toward the sweet south. In company with his friend. Dr.\nCalvert, he crossed the Alps, and wandered from city to city\nthrough the garden of Europe, till he reached, in the winter of\n1838-9, the city without a rival. Perhaps Sterling was apt to let\nother people reflect for him. If he had set his own thoughts\noriginally to work, he could hardly have failed to detect in the\nmetropolis of Christendom something more than he pretended to\nfind. A philosophic mind, even of a minor order, could not allow\nitself to dwell on Rome, the Holy See, and the pontifical line,\nwithout finding in them matter for the greatest consideration and\nmost searching inquiry. Whence the mighty, the enduring influence\nof these on mankind and mankind's history, if there lie not at\ntheir root, principles which escape the glance of superficial\nobservers? Whether divine, human, or diabolical, they must\ndeserve philosophical research, were it only for the magnitude of\ntheir results. Yet Sterling is bold enough to affirm that \"one\nloses all tendency to idealize the metropolis and system of the\nhierarchy into anything higher than a piece of showy\nstage-declamation, at bottom thoroughly mean and prosaic.\" Again\nhe tells us that \"The modern Rome, pope and all inclusive, are a\nshabby attempt at something adequate to fill the place of the old\ncommonwealth.\" So warped was his judgment that St. Peter's itself\nfound little favor in his eyes. His artistic notes are as unsound\nas his religious ones. Prejudice jaundiced all. \"I have seen the\npope,\" he says, \"in all his pomp at St. Peter's; and he looked to\nme a mere lie in livery.\"\n{820}\nBut to him perhaps St. Peter on his cross would not have appeared\ntruth in undress. He derived, it is to be feared, little good\nfrom his visit to the tombs of the apostles. To him they were\ntombs indeed--vaults, charnel-houses, painted sepulchres. Mrs.\nSterling's premature confinement recalled him to England, and in\nthe summer of 1839 he was housed at Clifton, and enjoying the\nnoxious friendship of an amiable deist, Mr. Frank Newman, brother\nof the great convert to Catholicism of the same name. He, too,\nhad once professed Anglican Christianity, but he resigned his\nfellowship at Oxford, and openly combated the divinity of the\nHoly Ghost.\n\nAt Clifton Sterling became familiar with Strauss; we do not mean\nStrauss in person, but in his still more dangerous _Life of\nChrist_. Here was, indeed, a \"lie in livery,\" yet Sterling\npronounced it \"exceedingly clever and clear-headed, with more of\ninsight, and less of destructive rage than he expected.\" It would\nwork, he said, deep and far, and it was well for partisans on one\nside and the other to have a book of which they could say, \"This\nis our Creed and Code--or, rather, Anti-Creed and Anti-Code.\"\nAlas! John Sterling, are you come to this? The \"lie in livery\"\nwhom you saw in Rome would have taught you better. He bid you\nadore him whom Strauss denies, and hold fast to him as the Way,\nthe Truth, and the Life.\n\nThere is little to be said of Sterling's poetry, and that little\nsuch as his ghost might not like to hear. It never caught the\npublic ear, and if it had caught, could not have charmed it. He\nhad not the slightest taste for music, nor any tune in him. His\nverses were merely rhymed, and barely rhythmical _speeches_,\nnot _songs_. \"The thoughts were not much above the sound,\nand the latter was as unmusical as a drum. Carlyle strongly\nadvised him to stick to prose, and declared that his \"poetry\" had\n\"a monstrous rub-a-dub, instead of a tune.\" Whether in prose or\nverse, haze, insufficiency, and failure marked all he attempted.\nAt Falmouth, as at Clifton, he moved in a luminous atmosphere of\nintellects gone astray. While there he published _The\nElection_, a poem in eleven books, which describes in heroic\nverse the contest between Frank Vane and Peter Mogg for an\nEnglish borough. There were graceful touches here and there; but\nthe pages wanted that originality which is the only passport to\npermanent success. The _Election_ was followed by\n_Strafford_ and _Coeur de Lion_, but the one subject\nwas _too_ dramatic, and the other one _too_ epic, for\nSterling's muse.\n\nIn 1842, he was listening to rhapsodists reciting Ariosto on the\nmole at Naples, or boating round the promontory of Sorrento. His\nspoiled and purposeless existence was drawing near its close. A\npainful sense of its uselessness forced itself frequently on his\nmind. His life, he wrote, had ceased to be a chain, and fell into\na heap of broken links. Versatility in his father became\nirresolution in him. That father, Edward Sterling, possessed an\nimprovising faculty without parallel, and had a fair field for\nits display in the pages of the _Times_. There,\nconjurer-like, he set forth \"three hundred and sixty-five\nopinions in the year upon every subject.\" There, day after day,\nhe hit the essential _animus_ of the great Babylon with\nextraordinary precision. There he performed to admiration his\nmarvellous somersaults, not only without shame, but with the ease\nand daring of one who is always right.\n{821}\nThere he appeared as Whig or Tory, Peelite or Anti-Peelite, not\nas the whim took him, but as it took the blatant public for whom\nhe wrote. There \"Captain Whirlwind,\" as Carlyle used to call him,\nlet loose his winds, and, securely anonymous, looked forth from\nhis cave on the seething seas and thundering surges which he\nrolled on the shore. The son could not but reflect in a degree\nthe father's face. Hence, in John Sterling we find, to his\nmisfortune, great and habitual uncertainty. \"Christianity,\" he\nwrote, not long before his death, \"is a great comfort and\nblessing to me, although I am _quite unable to believe all its\noriginal documents_.\" What kind of Christianity was this which\ncomforted him, and whence did it derive its evidences? The same\ninconsistency and vagueness appears in his remark--and it was\none of his latest--that he had gained but little good from what\nhe had heard or read of theology, but derived the greatest\ncomfort from the words, \"Thy will be done.\" As if these words did\nnot involve the whole circle of theology, as the egg contains the\nchicken, and the acorn the oak.\n\nIn the beginning of 1843, Sterling broke a blood-vessel; his\nmother also became seriously ill; and his father's mansion at\nKnightsbridge, \"built on the high table-land of sunshine and\nsuccess,\" was filled at once with bitterness and gloom. Very\naffectionate and pious were Sterling's letters to his mother; nor\ncan it be said that death came to either of them unawares. They\nsaw the grim shadow approach, and awaited his stroke with such\nfortitude as their sense of religion gave them. \"Dear mother,\"\nwrote Sterling, \"there is surely something uniting us that cannot\nperish, I seem so sure of a love which shall last and reunite us,\nthat even the remembrance, painful as that is, of all my own\nfollies and ill tempers cannot shake this faith. When I think of\nyou, and know how you feel toward me, and have felt for every\nmoment of almost forty years, it would be too dark to believe\nthat we shall never meet again.\"\n\nOn Good Friday, 1843, Sterling's wife had borne him another\nchild, and, with her infant, was doing well. The post arrived on\nthe Tuesday following, and Sterling left her for a moment to read\nthe tidings brought of his mother. He returned soon with a forced\ncalm on his face, but to announce his mother's death. Alas!\nanother bereavement, still more desolating, was at hand. In two\nhours more his beloved wife also was numbered with the dead. His\ntwo best friends were cut down by a single blow; to him they died\nin one day--almost in one hour. A mother's love is unique: there\nis nothing like it in the world; a wife's love is all that\nimagination can picture of earthly affection; and to Sterling\nthey were now both things of the past. Alone, alone he must\npursue his pilgrimage, haunted by the perpetual remembrance of\njoys never to return. \"My children,\" he cried, \"require me\ntenfold now. What I shall do, is all confusion and darkness.\"\n\nIt is in such seasons of bereavement especially that the Catholic\nrealizes his church as the mourner's solace and the outcast's\nhome. But Sterling, unhappily, was debarred from this best and\nsweetest consolation. Friends he had in abundance, but they were\nalmost all errant meteors like himself, and stars shining in\nmist. By the death of his mother he became rich, when riches\ncould no longer purchase increase of joy. He took a house at\nVentnor in the Isle of Wight, and there strove to live for his\nchildren and in a sphere of poetry.\n{822}\nBut his lyre had few listeners; and it would be but loss of time\nto criticise at length what is now forgotten. Now and then he\nwent up to town, and even entertained friends in his father's\ndesolate dwelling at Knightsbridge. It was like \"dining in a ruin\nin the crypt of a mausoleum.\" His silent sadness was manifest to\nall through the bright mask he sometimes wore. \"I am going on\nquietly here, rather than happily,\" he wrote from Ventnor to Mr.\nFrank Newman; \"sometimes quite helpless, not from distinct\nillness, but from sad thoughts and a ghastly dreaminess. The\nheart is gone out of my life.\" That life was fast ebbing away,\nand he knew it; he was drifting into the vast ocean of eternity,\nand he watched without regret the receding shore. A certain piety\nsustained him. \"God is great,\" he would exclaim with Moslem\nfervor, \"God is great.\" His heart yearned especially toward\nCarlyle, and the Maurices were constantly at his side. Infidelity\nand semi-Christianity, in death as in life, were his presiding\ngenii. He clasped the Bible in his feeble hand, though he\nbelieved it but in part. He prayed to be forgiven; he thanked the\nall-wise One; but it was long since he had begun \"to deem himself\nthe opponent, the antagonist of everything that is,\" and\nantagonism is a frame of mind little conducive to peace and joy.\nA few days before his death he wrote to Carlyle: \"I tread the\ncommon road into _the great darkness_, without any thought\nof fear, and with very much of hope. Certainty, indeed, I have\nnone. ... Toward me it is more true than toward England, that no\nman has been and done like you. Heaven bless you! If I can lend a\nhand when THERE, that will not be wanting.\" To this same friend,\nfour days before his death, he addressed some stanzas which\nCarlyle has not published, but says they were written as if in\nstarfire and immortal tears.\" His eyes were closed on this world\non the 18th of September, 1844. He sleeps in the burying-ground\nof Bonchurch, and is embalmed in the memory of his friends.\n\nHis natural virtues were of the highest order; his life was\ncorrect, his temper uncomplaining, his soul transparent, and his\nimagination lively. Standing, as he did, midway between belief\nand unbelief, he conciliated the esteem and friendship of\nbelievers and unbelievers, if Archdeacon Hare and Mr. Maurice are\nto be reckoned among the former. The archdeacon, indeed, goes far\nin the excuses he makes for Sterling, saying, \"Such men we honor,\nalthough they fall; nay, _we honor them the more because they\nfall;_\" a sentiment so extravagant that the most liberal\nCatholic will condemn it without hesitation.\n\nEvery life has its moral; and that of Sterling's is certainly no\nexception to the rule. He is a type of educated England in the\npresent day--half-Christian, half-infidel. Nature and cultivation\nhad given him all that was requisite to make him a useful member\nof society, and to cheer his dying hours with the retrospect of\nan existence applied to the happiest and highest ends. But one\nthing was wanting in him, a steady purpose and a clear view of\nthe means by which it was to be obtained. If he had been\nfortunate enough to know, enjoy, and exemplify the Catholic\nreligion, it would have supplied him with a definite scope, and\nhave laid down a rule of faith and obedience by which to compass\nhis ends; it would have collected all his scattered forces, given\nedge to his arguments, sober color to his imagination,\nsatisfaction to his yearnings, rest to his disquiet, comfort to\nhis sadness.\n{823}\nIt would have enabled him to realize with all the certitude of\nfaith facts which by the light of nature he could not credit, and\ntruths which he could not comprehend. It would have taught him\nwith authority things which his teachers propounded in doubt,\nasserted feebly, or distinctly denied. It would have saved him\nfrom a wasted existence, from the shallow theology of Archdeacon\nHare and his \"Guesses at Truth,\" from the puzzle-headed\nmetaphysics of Coleridge, the wild utterances of Edward Irving,\nthe Arian tendencies of Maurice and Dean Stanley, the\nsupercilious incredulity of Carlyle, the proud unbelief of\nFrancis Newman, and the efforts, intentional or unintentional, of\nthem all to bring about an unnatural and odious alliance between\ninfidelity and Christian faith. They have labored hard to\nestablish a school, and in England the results of their toil is\nunhappily everywhere apparent. Unbelief is wearing a Christian\nmask; and often has the language of Christ on its lips. Ministers\nof religion scatter doubts in evangelical terms, and scoffers\nmimic the tones and language of honest disciples. Atheists and\nDeists do homage to the son of Mary, and speak respectfully of\nsaints, doctors, and popes. Protestant divines apologize for\nsincere unbelievers, and quote with approval the writings of the\napostles of doubt. Conciliation and compromise are loudly called\nfor on both sides, and hatred of all law and dogma is extolled as\ncharitable and wise. The proposal of marriage between\nChristianity and Infidelity is openly published; and the Catholic\nChurch alone solemnly and persistently forbids the banns.\n\n--------------\n\n       Saint Columba.\n\n  Columba, gentlest of all names! Bequest\n  Of a strong Celtic mother to a child\n  Who, unto life's meridian, kept the wild,\n  Impassioned grandeur of his race; his guest\n  The patriot bard; while innocence oppressed\n  Flew, with the instinct of souls undefiled,\n  To his great heart, who, to the guileless mild.\n  Called heaven's swift curse upon the lifted crest\n  Of lawless power. And still the generous mind\n  Pores, kindling, o'er heroic legends quaint,\n  In which grave history dips her brush to paint\n  That nature fierce and tender; but combined\n  With grace celestial, till the man we find\n  Crowned with th' eternal glories of the saint.\n\n----------\n\n{824}\n\n                  Gheel.\n\n            A Colony Of The Insane,\n        Living In Families And At Liberty.\n\n\n\nThe Belgian Kempen Land is a vast stretch of sandy plains in the\nprovinces of Anvers, Brabant, and Limburg. Its chief parish,\nGheel, has a population of some 12,000, about one fifteenth of\nwhich are lunatics in family treatment, and many of them occupied\nin the usual routine of domestic, field, and garden work. This\ncustom has prevailed there for a thousand years. In the seventh\ncentury, a chapel was built and dedicated to Saint Martin, the\napostle of the Gauls. Some cells of pious hermits surrounded it\nand formed the principal nucleus of Gheel. Here the young\ndaughter of a pagan king of Ireland sought a refuge from his\nincestuous love, accompanied by Gerrebert, the priest who had\nconverted herself and her mother to Christianity. Her father,\ndiscovering her traces, pursued her, caused Gerrebert to be put\nto death, and his servants refusing to execute his sanguinary\norders against his daughter, he cut off her head with his own\nhands, thus avenging, by the most horrible crime, the defeat of\nhis guilty passion. Certain lunatics who witnessed this terrible\nmartyrdom, and others whom piety led to the grave of the victims,\nas the legend runs, were cured. Gratitude and faith attributed\nthe merit of these cures to the holy young virgin, henceforth\nhonored as the patroness of the insane. Attracted by hopes of a\nmiracle, other families brought their afflicted to the foot of\nthe memorial cross and double bier. The visitors, on their\ndeparture, confided their patients to the charity of the\nresidents. This custom became an institution. Little by little, a\nvillage was formed here, animated by work as well as prayer, and\nwhich became, at last, an important burgh. A large and beautiful\nchurch, built in honor of Saint Dymphna, replaced Saint Martin's\nchapel, early in the twelfth century, and was consecrated on its\ncompletion in 1340, by the Bishop of Cambrai. The popular\ndevotion there was approved by a brief of Pope Eugene IV., in\n1400. A vicariate composed of nine priests and a director was\ninstituted in 1538, and in 1562 changed into a chapter consisting\nof nine canons and a deacon.\n\nFrom these times up to our own day, a current of pilgrimage has\nbeen sustained by the malady and by faith.\n\nThis fountain of prayer in the desert, these pious cares\nsolicited and granted, have become a source of industry and\nliberty for the insane, and of prosperity for the district. This\nis readily explained. The barren soil of the Kempen renders it\ndifficult to live there, hospitality was more onerous there than\nelsewhere, and economy as well as religious charity counselled\nthe host to have but one board with his guest. To keep him apart\nwould have been losing the time of those occupied in taking care\nof him. Left at liberty, he would naturally accompany them to the\nfields, and there, before the soil which solicited arms, another\nstep of progress was accomplished. So, without any constraint, by\nthe attractions of social labor and of gentle influences, many of\nthe insane became useful members of the family.\n{825}\nThe first inspirations of religion, reenforced by considerations\nof economy, came to be organized in a secular practice of humble\nvirtues by the habit of affectionate cares. Thus, in the rude\nmiddle ages, the Gheel folk, without the light of science, but in\nthat of a religious faith made fruitful by the heart and\nsustained by their interest, practised a treatment of insanity\nbased on the liberty of movement, on rural and domestic industry,\nand on the sympathy of an adoptive family, far from all that\nmight recall a sinister past.\n\nThe arbitrary discipline founded on geometrical and military\nideas in modern times has not spared Gheel; yet, whatever abuses\nten centuries had introduced and habit protected there, as well\nas its good services, were ascertained by a most thorough\ninquest. The new regulations for Gheel in 1851-'52-'57 and '58\nsecure, as far as written laws can go, the well-being of the\ninsane.\n\nThe insane are admitted at Gheel without distinction as to\nnation, religion, age, sex, or fortune. Every one is welcomed\nwith sincere sympathy, and receives the same hygienic and medical\ncare, though nothing prevents the rich from enjoying their\nfortune, or whatever, in the way of luxuries, their relatives may\nprovide for them. One English gentleman, for instance, consumes\nin festive entertainments the income of a large estate. Of late\nyears, the Belgian administration has excluded from Gheel certain\ndangerous forms of lunacy, such as homicidal and incendiary\nmonomanias, and those who are constantly bent upon escaping from\nany place to which they may have been taken, or whose affections\nare of such a nature as to disturb public decency. It does not\nappear, however, that this recent transfer of 250 patients had\nbeen called for by any disasters. It was rather a concession to\nadministrative routine, and Mr. Parigot, the inspector at that\ntime, regrets that the colony should thus have lost a class of\npatients the control of whom best attested its moral power. Both\nthe patients and their guardians felt aggrieved by this arbitrary\nmeasure.\n\nNo distinctive dress is worn by the insane; their garments are\nsuch as are worn by the country folk in general, so that nothing\ncalls public attention to them, nor reminds them of their\npeculiar situation.\n\nLiberty under all its forms is the good genius which has\ninspired, protects, and preserves this colony: especially the\nliberty to come and go, to sleep or get up, to work or to rest,\nto read or write or talk at pleasure, to receive one's friends or\ncorrespond with them without any restriction. The supreme science\nof government consists in not contradicting the insane, but\nhumoring their innocent fantasies, or imposing nothing by force,\nbut obtaining all by persuasion. Unless some evident and\nparticular inconvenience prevents it, they enter public places,\nsmoke a pipe at the _caf\u00e9_, play a hand of cards, read the\npapers, or drink a glass of beer with the neighbors. The\ntavern-keepers are not allowed to sell wine or distilled liquors.\n\nIf liberty, equality, and fraternity are not _political_\nterms there, they are the realities of common life. The lunatic\nis a man, and is treated as such by the same right as all his\nbrothers in God.\n\nYou would never hear at Gheel such a complaint as this, by a poor\nlunatic confined in an asylum, where, indeed, he was the subject\nof intelligent and devoted cares:\n\n{826}\n\n\"They call us _patients_, to control and to oppress us, but\nthey do not allow us the indulgence of sick folk! Often after a\nrestless night, I would like to sleep in the morning. But no: the\nhour has come, the bell rings, we must rise whether we will or\nnot. I am not, then, a patient any longer!\"\n\nAt Gheel, no bell strikes the limit between sleep and waking.\nPleasure, the example of activity, and appetite, are stimuli\nsufficient to counteract sluggishness. Sleep is never disturbed,\nunless by order of the physician on some particular occasion.\nOften, says Dr. Parigot, I have asked on entering, \"Where is\nMr.----?\" The answer would be, \"Doctor, our _heerke_ is\nstill abed; his breakfast is waiting him there by the fire;\" and\nthis at ten or eleven o'clock.\n\nIt may be asked whether the frequency of accidents and of escapes\ndoes not counterpoise the advantages of so much liberty.\n\nNo! accidents are neither common nor serious. Quarrels and spats\nare easily appeased; they occur very seldom, which is due, in\npart, to the tendency of the insane to keep apart rather than to\nassociate with each other. This tendency is not contravened at\nGheel, as at asylums, where the annoyance of forced association\nexasperates susceptible characters and irritable nervous systems.\n\n\"I am really mad, then, for them to condemn me to live with these\npeople!\" cried a monomaniac in despair. Enter almost any hall of\nan asylum where the insane assemble to warm themselves: you will\nbe heart-struck by the sinister expression of this feeling in\npersons most of whom are as sensible as yourself to manias which\nare not their own, and whose punishment consists in finding\nthemselves everywhere and always with the insane. These men and\nwomen are overwhelmed with _ennui_. The room in which they\npass the night does not belong to them, and this warmed gallery,\nthat yard, that garden, are for them but walled cages. You may\nread upon their faces the aggravation thus occasioned, while the\nchances of their cure diminish daily.\n\nNow, turn to the lunatic at Gheel, who enjoys the free air, and\nfeels a property in his chamber, in his books, his tools, his\nplants, his stones and various collections. He adorns his\ndomicile after his own fashion; his inscriptions or designs\nappear upon the walls. He is busy in acting his dream; he roams\nin the woods and fields; he fishes in the streams, or spreads\nsnares for birds, or labors at his will. Another writes all day\nin the sand of the streets the story of his thoughts--\nhieroglyphics to which he alone has the key. A third relieves his\ninward agitation by external movement; all day innocently busy,\nhe returns tranquillized to his lodgings at night The rest are at\nwork with their hosts, or at sport with the children, their\nfriends and peers.\n\nThat melancholy which engenders the disgust of life, may often be\ncalmed by a change so complete in one's whole existence, while\nthe predisposition to it is not aggravated by the despair of\nincarceration. Dispersion in families distinct and often\nisolated, counteracts the danger of contagious imitation.\n\nIn the course of half a century, only two acts of personal\nviolence are on record.\n\nThe enjoyment of their personal liberty sufficiently explains why\nso few try to escape from Gheel. Most of the patients have found\nthere a deliverance from previous constraint; yet, to provide\nagainst all casualties, the administration, as soon as advised of\nthe disappearance of a patient from his guardian's premises, sets\nin movement an effective police corps.\n{827}\nBefore this was instituted, the spontaneous intervention of the\nneighbors sufficed; for it was understood, for many leagues\nround, that any individual whose demeanor awakened suspicions of\nhis sanity, should be conducted to Gheel as to his legal\nresidence. The restorer of a runaway was also entitled to mileage\nfor his trouble. When it is known that a certain lunatic is beset\nwith the idea of escaping, which may take possession of the\ninsane like any other, it is customary, after obtaining a permit\ntherefor from the physician in charge, to fasten two rings or\nbracelets, covered with sheep-skin, upon the legs, with a covered\nchain, about a foot in length, connecting them. By this means the\nlunatic, without being confined, has his movements obstructed,\nwhile attention is directed to him. How preferable this is to the\nmortal _ennui_, to the sullen despair of confinement in an\nasylum! What matters it to the patient that his limbs are free,\nif before him is the barrier of bolts and bars--of massive doors,\nand impassable walls!\n\nThe _morale_ of the insane cannot be otherwise than\nfavorably affected by association with persons who protect him\nwith solicitude, while they appeal to his good sense and good\nwill, admitting him on a footing of equality to their hearths,\ntheir tables, and their work: such a welcome banishes from his\nmind the idea of humiliation and oppression, which everywhere\nelse is connected with that of sequestration. Instead of being a\npariah shaken off by society, he now belongs to humanity; his\ndignity as a man is safe, for it is respected in its chief\nprivilege--liberty.\n\nIn the name of this liberty, he is trusted--he is constituted, in\na measure, the arbiter of his own lot. If he do[es] not abuse it,\nsupervision of him is relaxed. If his freedom be sometimes\nlimited, the least remaining gleam of reason suffices to render\nhim conscious that the restrictions imposed are not hostile in\ntheir spirit, but are simply precautions which he may disarm by a\nrational conduct.\n\nSuch sentiments sustain or awaken within him the life of the\nsoul; they influence his manners and bearing. He does not lose\nthe habit of society, and if he one day return home, it may be\nwithout shame or embarrassment; his absence will have been a\njourney, and not a humiliating sequestration.\n\nTranslated from political into psychologic language, liberty is\nspontaneity; and if we analyze it more profoundly, we find this\nterm applicable to those actions only which employ the limbs, the\nsenses, and the intellectual faculties as ministers of our inmost\naffections of will. For all spontaneous action, the head, the\nhands, and the heart are in union--the conflict between the\nspirit and the flesh is reconciled.\n\nThis supreme harmony implies the unison of man with himself, with\nhis fellow-creatures, and with his spirit-fountain life. Express\nit as you will, its conception is the basis of the Christian\ntherapeutics of insanity. All must be obtained of the lunatic by\ngentleness, and not by intimidation or violence; nothing ought to\noppress the individuality of the patient. The mission of the\nguardians is to render inoffensive, amiable, and useful, a person\nimperfectly conscious of his acts. It is by one of the noblest\npowers of the spirit that they say to him virtually, Be free, and\nunderstand the sympathies that animate us. Alexander of Macedon\naccepted the beverage of his physician Philip before mentioning\nthat Philip had been accused of intending to poison him.\n{828}\nNow the insane are, in the immense majority of cases, no more\nguilty of ill intentions than the Acarnanian doctor, and our\nAlexanders of Belgium are poor peasants.\n\nThese Gheelois have faith in their providential mission, faith in\nthe ancient miracles which have predestined their country to the\ncure of insanity, faith in their own power. Esquirol one day\nexpressed to a peasant of this place his apprehensions about\nparoxysms of mania. The countryman laughed at his fears, and\nsaid: \"You do not understand these folks; I am not strong, and\nyet the most furious of them is nothing for me.\" This is the way\nthey all talk. The sentiment of an unlimited and privileged power\nis insinuated from childhood into the soul of the Gheelois by\nexample and tradition. This power grows with his muscular force\nand experience; it imposes upon the insane, who feels himself\nfeeble and disarmed before a master, and usually submits without\nresistance. Any desired help can be had, moreover, at a moment's\nwarning, from the neighbors. The exigencies of family life with\nthe insane invite the inhabitants of Gheel to respect their\ninoffensive fantasies, and to study in all its aspects the\ndifficult art of directing their erring wills, of redressing\ntheir false ideas when they threaten mischief, of taking\nadvantage of a lingering sentiment of sociality or a last gleam\nof reason, to secure themselves against violence and surprises.\nOn the other hand, as they can have recourse to material\nconstraint only in accidental cases, as they can reckon but\nexceptionally on the intelligent obedience of patients, it is\nespecially by the evolution of sympathies, those quick rays of\nthe soul which usually survive the intellect, and are often\nextinguished only with life, that the Gheelois have understood\nthe tactics of social government. That women should excel in this\ndiplomacy is not surprising. On them devolves the most delicate\nand important part of a system based on managing by gentleness\nthe most whimsical characters. Simple, ignorant, laborious,\nwithout the vanities of fashionable life, but kind by nature,\nreligious by education, and guided by her heart, the woman of\nGheel accomplishes marvels of devotion and sagacity. By her\ncares, which no disgust repels, she is the visible Providence of\nthe poor madman. By her ingenious expedients, she averts stormy\ncrises, and never shows herself afraid. Without title or costume,\nshe is a true sister of charity. To maintain her power over her\nfantastic subjects, she studies their intimate thoughts, observes\ntheir least gestures, divines their secret projects, and learns\nto read souls the most dissembling. To subdue the most savage,\nthe young girl does not shrink from the manoeuvres of an innocent\ncoquetry. At other times, it is the imperious magnetism of the\nlook, of the attitude, of the voice, that lays its spell upon the\nspirit and dissipates fury. It is not rare to see maniacs of\nherculean frame obeying little women bowed and emaciated by age,\nand whose only arms are a few words spoken with authority. The\nhusbands and fathers are not backward in these arts of\nmanagement. Besides their innate turn for it, the peace of their\nhousehold and their interests lead them to it. All idleness is a\nloss, and the boarder losing his time and making others lose\ntheirs, if he remained a non-value, would soon become a burden.\nCompulsion to labor is out of the question. It is necessary to\nhumor the lunatic, to entice him by rendering the work\nattractive. Is he restive?\n{829}\nThey are patient. Is he awkward? They make fun of his blunders\nwithout humiliating him; he will do better next time. As soon as\nhe succeeds a little, he is flattered and encouraged; he soon\ncomes to like the job. Gradually he is tamed and trained. Behold\nhim, then, an active and a useful member of the family, proud of\nhimself, a friend and child of the house, rising at the same hour\nas his companions and sharing their toils. Fallen as he may be\nfrom man's estate, does he not still afford greater capacities of\nsociability than those of wild beasts? To succeed in the\neducation of the insane, the inhabitants of Gheel have displayed\na persevering and intelligent energy, the power of which is\nenhanced by the natural sympathy of man for man. Much charity in\nthe heart, gentleness upon the lips, friendly actions,\n_reasoning_ even, at an opportune moment, exert a sovereign\nempire over characters whose susceptibility is exalted by\ndisease. Patience is the first of virtues necessary in this\ncommunity, and it has always risen to the height of the\naberrations it has had to meet. No eccentricity provokes either\nsurprise or anger. For twenty years Daniel Peter has been\nboarding with a Gheelois. This maniac covers the walls of his\nchamber with the most original caricatures; never does he mingle\nwith the members of the family; he likes only one of the\nchildren, Joseph; but he loves him to the point of abdicating his\nown personality. He nicknames all around him, persons and beasts,\neven the matron, whom he calls the \"tambour major.\" When she asks\nhim through the door whether he wishes to eat, he replies: Joseph\nwould like it; or else, Joseph will have none. The only way of\ngetting anything from him is to compare him with some tall\nobject, calling him a tree, a mast, a tower, etc. On Sunday only\nhe will eat no meat, and takes flight at sight of a woman or of a\nhorse. Notwithstanding all these whims, he is beloved by all the\nfamily, and remains inoffensive, because he is well treated. He\nreturns to his lodgings regularly every evening after having\nwandered in the woods and over the heath. From this exchange of\nkind offices, which is the general tone, the most solid\nattachments spring. \"You must have seen the afflicted family of\n_der Phleger_ around the sick-bed of _die Phlegling_,\nyou must have witnessed the touching scenes when the latter goes\nforth cured from the establishment, in order to get a clear idea\nof the means which constitute the basis of the treatment and the\nproper employment of which assure the success of the colony.\nThese testimonies of gratitude and of mutual affection, these\ntears of happiness and of regret, these promises to see each\nother again, are the sincerest homage that can be rendered to the\nsolicitude of the guardians.\" [Footnote 229]\n\n    [Footnote 229: _Bulckeus_. Report of 1856, pp. 34, 33.]\n    [Transcriber's note: This line is blurred.]\n\nNothing better proves how deeply these feelings have penetrated,\nnot merely into individual souls, but into the blood and race,\nthan the conduct of the children of Gheel toward the insane.\nElsewhere generally, and even at Horenthals, in the neighborhood,\nwe have seen the unfortunate persecuted and derided. Childhood,\nespecially, is without pity for them. Nothing like this at Gheel.\nThere the _Zott_ is, even for children, an amusing\ncompanion, without wickedness, often a comrade of their games,\nsometimes a protector. It seems that between beings who have not\nyet quite attained their reason, and those who have lost it, some\nalliance is formed. Dr. Parigot relates his first visit as\ninspector to a farm near Gheel.\n{830}\n\"It was a cold, snowy spell in the winter. The family were\npressing round the hearth beneath the vast chimney-place, and the\nbest seat was occupied by a lunatic. The unexpected appearance of\na stranger on the threshold of this poor house, troubled the\nquiet inhabitants a little. The frightened children took refuge,\nwith little cries, between the legs of the maniac. This poor\nman's affection for the children was vividly depicted in his\ncountenance, as he protected them with a gesture. This affection\nwas, perhaps, the only tie that attached him to society, but this\ntie of love protected himself, by deserving the regard of his\nhosts.\" We have been gently touched by seeing in the streets of\nGheel an old man bearing two children in his arms, while two\nothers followed his steps. The intellectual focus was extinct, or\nprojected but a feeble and vacillating light, but the affectional\nfocus still revealed by its glow the moral grandeur of man even\nin his saddest miseries.\n\nA woman of Gheel was in company with a maniac, when suddenly he\nwas seized with a paroxysm of excitement. The danger was great,\nher presence of mind was still greater. She took the young child\nthat she was bearing in her arms, and whom the madman loved,\nplaced it in his arms, and availed herself of this diversion to\nslip out by the door; then, concealed behind the window, she\nfollowed with eye and heart the movements of the lunatic.\nMarvellous calculation! the child had at once and completely\ncalmed the madman, who, having caressed him and set him upon the\nfloor, was now playing with him. A few minutes afterward, the\nmother could reenter, the crisis was passed. No one at Gheel\nblamed this conduct in the mother, who had estimated justly the\nfascination of infancy.\n\nWhen the equality of age invites to friendship, this becomes very\nlively between the children of the house and the insane. There is\none family which boards a young lunatic, who is also deaf and\ndumb. She has become a cherished sister for the daughters of her\nhost. When they are at work together, enter and announce that you\ncome to take the afflicted child back to the hospital. Instantly\na cry of terror, followed by the precipitate flight of these\ngirls, carrying their friend along with them, will teach you how\nlively is the alarm of their tenderness.\n\nA woman of beautiful and noble countenance, and superior\neducation, had been found insane at Brussels, without any\ninformation concerning her. From her own imperfect answers, it\nseems she was a native of Mauritius, where her father had been a\nman of note in the French revolution. Entrusted to a family of\nfarmers at Gheel, they welcomed her with a delicate deference for\nher probable antecedents. During twenty years, they served a\nlittle table apart for her, with more elegance than their own;\nyet they received on her account only the pittance allowed for\npaupers. One day when Mr. Parigot mentioned this, they answered\nhim, \"It is enough, doctor; we love our little lady, and we wish\nto keep her here. No one could pay us for what we are doing; but\nwe have no children, and this is our society.\"\n\nA father on his death-bed had recommended to his daughter a poor\nlunatic, who had witnessed her birth, and who had amused her when\nlittle. When she married, she brought him in dower to her husband\nby the terms of the contract. Heaven blessed her generosity. The\nlunatic lived to be nearly a hundred years old. During this\nperiod, their house had to be rebuilt; but the spouses made a\nsacrifice of its symmetry and convenience, so as to leave\nuntouched the cell of this old man which had become endeared to\nhim by a long abode.\n\n{831}\n\nThe relatives of patients are often too poor to offer presents.\nOne day Dr. Parigot was visiting a young epileptic. As he had\nalways found him well cared for, and knew that his friends came\nto see him every year, he ventured to ask the mistress of the\nhouse what she received on his account. She smiled and replied:\n\"Our Joseph's relations are poor like me, and make their journey\nafoot. I keep them here a week, and they return afoot, but I give\nthem a rye loaf and bacon to eat on the road. These are our\npresents.\" The exercise of these pious and delicate virtues has\nformed in the heart of the Gheel folk a sentiment of corporate\nhonor and of mutual responsibility, which withstands individual\nperversions as well as the conflicts of social life. The whole\ncommunity is interested in the fate of these unfortunates. Every\none there might affirm concerning the insane, the _humani nihil\na me alienum puto_.\n\nThe household that has no lunatic seems to lack something, and\nlooks out for a favorable occasion to supply this want. The\nreciprocal supervision of the inhabitants prescribes moderation\nand justice to all. If woman presides in the household, and man\nout of doors, the eye of the community, watching over both,\nprotects the weak in the course of daily life, as in the\nstruggles which a paroxysm sometimes necessitates. Denounced by\nthe cries of the victim, any arbitrary violence would be promptly\nreported to the physicians and to the administration. If official\ndefenders were absent, the public voice would suffice, and it\ncould not be silenced. Any suspicion of improper conduct is\nreadily cleared up by the interchange of visits in the\nneighborhood, and thus a protection is established permanent,\nuniversal, invisible, sanctioned by custom and superior to all\nadministrative patronage or written rule.\n\nA population thus reared in the practice of sincere devotion to a\nspecial humanitary office, by immemorial tradition, by interest,\nby personal and communal honor, and by religious faith, may well\nbear comparison with the most zealous servants of any public or\nprivate asylum. The brothers or sisters of charity, who are but\ncasually guardians of a certain infirmity the more difficult of\ntreatment, because it attacks the soul as well as the body, can\nhardly possess those hereditary faculties and the thousand\nexpedients which from infancy upward germ in the child and\ndevelop in a family and locality, devoted to the treatment of\ninsanity. How much more unequal is the comparison with simple\nmercenaries! Heaven forbid we should ignore the abnegation of\nself, so often evinced in the most obscure services, or the\nunprovided aptitudes which neither danger nor disgust discourage.\nYet it cannot be denied that the insane generally persist in\nregarding all overseers as jailers and complacent tools of the\ninjustice of families or of society. At Gheel, on the contrary,\nthe most susceptible patients can see around them only hosts who\ntake in boarders, and among whom they often find friends and\ncompanions. Before all disinterested judgment, what is elsewhere\nthe competition of business here assumes the character of a\nsocial and medical mission, while a closer analysis discerns, in\nthis creation of a lively faith sustained at once by charity and\ninterest, a fortunate equilibrium of the springs of human action.\nThe twofold motive of honor and interest acts in effect like a\nspring regulated by a counterpoise.\n\n{832}\n\nIs the guardian distinguished for his sagacity and fidelity in\nthe discharge of his assumed cares? He will be kept upon the list\nand recommended to families by the administration. He will have\nthe opportunity of selection, and may exercise it so as either to\ngratify his sympathies or to advance his interests.\n\nIn the sphere of a true rural life, are freely developed those\naffinities which re-ally man with the beast and bird, and this\nfirst degree in the scale of affections is far from being without\ninfluence on the state of certain patients. Some are interested\nin the cattle which they tend, in the horses, the dogs, or the\nbirds, of which they make companions. One lunatic at Gheel is\nconstantly thinking of birds; no one is more ingenious than he in\ncatching them. Once caged, he never leaves them, he takes them\nfrom his cell into the family apartment, or, while they disport\nin the sunshine, their vigilant master mounts guard to protect\nthem from their enemy the cat. Is it doubtful that these\nchild-like enjoyments dissipate many sorrows, or that they aid to\nre-establish the harmony of the soul with the body? Deprive this\nman of the society of his birds, indubitably his condition will\nbe aggravated. Whether as predisposing or exciting causes,\nwounded pride and vanity and passional isolation amid the\npressure of crowds underlie many forms of insanity. In assembling\nunder his protection the group of inferior animals, every man may\ninnocently satisfy sentiments which are ruffled and disappointed\namong his own species. Spiritual space is enlarged about him, and\nthe heart is amused by the play of passions similar to his own in\norganisms so different as to render impossible the collisions of\nrivalry.\n\nTo this first appeasement of internal agitation by all the voices\nof nature, labor comes to add its powerful revulsion. Its\nbenefits are now so universally known and proclaimed that,\nwherever space permits, it is becoming one of the bases of\ntreatment. At Bic\u00eatre, the neighboring farm of Saint Anne is in\ngreat part cultivated by a squad of lunatics chosen among those\nwho most readily accept the discipline of command and corporeal\nexercise. Work is at Gheel the easy law of every day and every\ndwelling, allowing for the antipathy which certain lunatics\nevince toward every occupation, and for incapacity by certain\nkinds of illness. But industry at Gheel has this precious\ndistinction, that there the insane works among persons of sane\nmind, whose speech and actions bring him back to reason, whereas\nelsewhere he is surrounded with his companions in misfortune,\nwhom he finds the same in the fields as at the asylum. Instead of\nbeing sequestrated in fantastic and unnatural society, he\ncontinues to live in the real bosom of a social family whose\nchildren are reared by his side, he hears rational conversations\nand witnesses amusing scenes. Does he desire to take part in\nthese? He is obliged to the act of intelligent reflection.\nOccasions naturally supervene when the lunatic, butting against\ninflexible reality, is led to recognize the bewilderment of his\nideas.\n\nThe family compassionates his real or imaginary troubles, and the\nlatter are not the least afflictive. The lunatic is very sensible\nof such kindness; for among many of them, the memories of\nchildhood, of friendship, or of neighborhood, are preserved quite\nvivacious amid the ruins of the intellect. The death of a parent\nor friend will often draw warm tears.\n{833}\nThe unfortunate is consoled by showing interest in him. When this\nsympathetic indulgence can no longer be asked of the natural\nfamily, where hope for it elsewhere than in the adoptive family?\nLess discomposed by its tenderness, the latter more easily\nobtains the obedience of the lunatic, who even through his\ndarkened reason, fails not to perceive that he has neither the\nright nor the means of imposing his caprices on strangers.\n\nOne fact constantly occurs at Gheel upon the arrival of raving\nmaniacs. After a few days passed in their guardian's house they\ncan scarcely be recognized. Coming with the strait-jacket or in\nbonds, they are appeased as soon, almost, as these are taken off.\nMust this change be attributed to the new sphere that environs\nthem, to the regard that is extended to them, or to the new\ncurrent of impressions and ideas that traverses their own folly?\nThese influences, severally useful, are strengthened by their\nassociation. Through them, what remains sound in the mind is\naided by good tendencies; what there is morbid, is restrained. At\nGheel is perpetually renewed the phenomenon which occasioned so\nmuch surprise at Bic\u00eatre, at Charenton, and in all the hospitals\nof Europe, when intrepid humanity broke their chains and whips,\nconsidered, until then, the only possible instruments for\ncontrolling the insane. It now remains for science to confess\nthat every closed establishment is in itself a chain, the last\nbut the heaviest that remains to be suppressed.\n\nThe lunatic taken to an asylum is, from the first, assailed with\npainful impressions, bunches of large keys, massive doors, bolts,\nbars, cells, yards, walls, guardians, uniforms, regulations,\nbells, all the appearances and all the realities of a prison. At\nGheel, welcomed with alacrity by the family to which his abode\nsecures a pension, he feels himself at his ease. This first\nwelcome exerts over the insane soul the most auspicious\ninfluence; for one who comes from a hospital, it is a true\nemancipation. By daily repetition, this contentment soon becomes\nan energetic preference. When of late years certain councils of\nthe Belgium hospitals decided on withdrawing their insane from\nGheel, to transfer them to a rival establishment for the sake of\nsome trivial economy, it occasioned the most touching scenes.\nGuardians and lunatics embraced each other weeping, and several\nof the latter hid themselves to escape from this transfer. Force\nhad to be employed with others. Besides breaking in upon their\naffections and their habits, they knew they were passing from\nliberty to confinement! When questioned on this subject, their\nfeelings clearly appear. A foreign physician visiting Gheel with\nme, one day asked a lunatic who had spent some time in one of the\nlock-up establishments, which system he preferred. \"You may\nanswer that for yourself,\" he replied reservedly; but a long and\nsilent look beaming with joy was the expressive interpretation of\nthese words. This attachment to Gheel and to the guardian's\nfamily often survives the cure. Guardians have often been known\nto keep gratuitously, wards restored to their right minds, but\nwho had lost their families or their relations with the world.\nNot seldom is a friendly correspondence kept up all their lives,\nwhile living far apart. Annual pilgrimages from Brussels to Gheel\nrenew ties formed during the malady.\n\n{834}\n\nThere seems to be no possible doubt that life for the insane is\nmore benign at Gheel than in the immense majority of asylums.\nPatients sent there in the initial period of insanity, frequently\nexperience a change for the better, and many recover their\nreason. Some cures have been effected at Gheel, after two or\nthree years of abortive treatment elsewhere. Maniacs, much\nagitated, in whom the spring of life preserves its energy, are\ncured sooner than the quiet ones, who often become imbecile.\nMonomaniacs, especially religious monomaniacs, are seldom cured.\nThey are more fortunate with intermittent forms of insanity, and\nsuch are the patients preferred by the Gheelois, as most helpful\nin their work. Cures are more frequent on the farms, where the\ninsane labor, than in the village, where they are less occupied.\nIt seems to be ascertained that the number of cures has\ndiminished with the falling off in devotion, and this result is\nno surprise to science, which, without intervening in the\nreligious question, accounts faith among the most powerful\ntherapeutic agents. Among the patients classed as curable, the\nproportion of cures has averaged between fifty and sixty-five per\ncent. Unfortunately, about three fifths of the patients sent to\nGheel are desperate cases, on whom all the resources of art have\nbeen vainly exhausted elsewhere; for Gheel makes no flourish of\ntrumpets, and only of late years has possessed even an infirmary,\nor a corps of physicians. Its simple hygiene of liberty, and the\nfamily life of poor peasants, is not calculated to exert the\n_prestige_ of those sadly magnificent palaces in which the\ninsane are confined by thousands, and where pretentious science\nso unwisely snubs nature. Certain medical administrators have\neven pretended that Gheel was only fit for the incurable.\nFormerly, they came in search of miracles; now, they seek a last\nabode here. It should be remarked, moreover, that hospitals,\nwhere the keeping of the insane is a burden, are inclined to\ndismiss them as cured on the earliest signs of real improvement;\nwhile at Gheel, where their keeping is a source of profit, and\nwhere the patient is often more comfortable than at home, nothing\nhastens his departure, which is authorized only after mature\nexamination by the physician of the section and the general\ninspector. The chances are greater here than elsewhere, that the\npatient's dismissal corresponds to a solid cure.\n\nIn default of complete restoration, the conditions of life at\nGheel determine in the insane a general amelioration which\nconstitutes the gentlest manner of being compatible with mental\nderangement. The morbid state, reduced to its simplest\nexpression, excludes neither physical comfort nor a certain order\nof moral enjoyments, some of which are delicate even to\nrefinement. The subversive tendencies are attenuated, if not\nquite annulled. A young lady, confined for a year in a large\nasylum, used to break up there everything that she could lay her\nhands upon, and the severest restraints had to be forced on her.\nAt Gheel, free among the peasants, she breaks up only little bits\nof wood. Unable to overcome entirely the fatal impulse that\nbesets her, still she understands that she is in a family which\ndeserves consideration, since, far from oppressing her, they\nallow her to obey her instinctive needs of active movement. The\nyoung lunatic does her hosts as little harm as she can, and this\ntrait admirably exhibits the influence of Gheel, which mitigates\nwhen it cannot cure, and obtains, better than any other system,\nthe state of passive \"innocence.\"\n\n{835}\n\nThis innocence rises occasionally to a sympathetic and rational\nbenevolence. Among the old lunatics there are, generally,\ncompatriots or acquaintances of the new-comers. The former become\nthe interpreters of their companions in misfortune; they initiate\nthem into the kind of life led at Gheel; they advise them how to\nmanage, point out to them what the place presents of interest,\nand thus assist in naturalizing them. If liberty is the first\nprinciple of the colonial system, labor is the second. Although\nevery lunatic is free to abstain from it, and no physical\ndiscipline or coercive measure is brought to bear on him, a few\nsympathetic words and example frequently suffice to wean the\ninsane from idleness. From half to two thirds of the whole number\nare usefully occupied. The household cares are shared by women,\nby the aged and the infirm, along with the children and servants\nof the family. Most of the artisans, such as tailors,\nshoe-makers, cabinet-makers, blacksmiths, bakers, curriers, etc.,\nfind a place in the local industry. Some work on their own\naccount, and are patronized in proportion to their skill. There\nused to be at Gheel an excellent cabinet-maker, very intelligent,\nand who earned a good deal of money in the exercise of his trade.\nA Dutchman, he had served in the French army, was made prisoner\nin Russia, then incorporated among the Cossacks of the Don. In\n1815, being in Belgium, he deserted, or rather resumed his\nliberty and nationality, and married at Brussels, where he fell\ninto hallucinations which occasioned his transportation to Gheel.\nHe lived twenty-five years there, practising his art with\nsuccess, and talked very rationally about matters in general,\nonly he affirmed that the devil every night entered his body by\nthe heels, and lodged somewhere in it, which led him to conclude\nall his discourses by asking for a probe to hunt the evil spirit.\nCare is taken to place every lunatic in a family so situated in\nvillage or country, as to employ his or her industrial capacities\nto the best advantage. The furious maniacs are most in request by\nthe peasants, a preference easily explained. Fury attests the\nenergy of the organism; the internal force, physical or moral, is\ndisordered but abundant. In their periods of calm, madmen of this\nclass are vigorous laborers; whereas no profit can be made of an\nidiot or a paralytic. On a sudden and violent paroxysm of acute\nmania, the farmer's family, aided by the passengers and\nneighbors, soon obtain control of it. Quieted again, the lunatic\nresumes his work, and this work, which profits the farmer,\nameliorates by an energetic and continuous diversion the state of\nthe patient, rendering his paroxysms less frequent.\n\nAlthough the importance of working is now very generally\nunderstood, few asylums are provided with adequate grounds,\nworkshops, and implements for employing their patients to\nadvantage; hence this progress is still a rare exception, and\neven when it exists, its benefit is much diminished by the\nvexatious constraint of its discipline resembling penitentiary\nlabor. In most of the rich establishments life passes in\noppressive idleness, leaving the patient all day long to his\ndreams, without procuring him that muscular fatigue so propitious\nto sleep at night. It is enough to drive a sane man mad.\n\nAs for mental occupation with books, games, spectacles, and\nsocial assemblies, they tend to excite instead of reducing the\ncirculation of the brain, and are often opposed to the desired\nequilibrium of the organism.\n{836}\nIn the Russian hospitals, the military organization of labor\nbecomes but a tribute of passive obedience to absolute authority,\nand ceases to effect energetic revulsion from the bewilderment of\nthe mind. So needlework affords to women a kind of instinctive or\nmechanical activity of the fingers, which leaves the imagination\nvagabond. Such labors, prolonged for many hours, are so much the\nmore objectionable from their sedentary nature, which rather\nfavors than averts glandular obstructions and correlative\ndisturbance in the circulatory and nervous systems.\n\nThe mode of life of the small farmer, considered as a whole,\ncombines natural interests with varied occupations and movements\nrequiring skill and strength in moderate degree, observation and\nattention. Above all, man feels himself here a direct coagent\nwith the elemental forces, a shareholder in the commonwealth of\nthe universe, alternately obeying and commanding, utilizing and\nenjoying the play of solar and planetary forces. It is true that\nall have not equally the intellectual consciousness of their\nparticipation in this great drama, nor the intimate satisfaction\nand dignity that accrue from it; yet none can be alien to its\npenetrating virtues, they sustain the meanest hind and the most\noppressed slave; much more, the free, the voluntary, and amateur\ncollaborator. The aspects of nature wear the color of the spirit;\nthey are sanative in proportion as man becomes the mirror, the\nguide, and the instrument of her powers. In the prisoner, at best\ntheir suggestions cherish painful aspirations. For the free\nlaborer alone are they pregnant with infinite sweetness.\n\nThe arts, and especially music, contribute to the social life of\nGheel, and repeat for many a tormented spirit the experience of\nDavid with Saul. [Footnote 230]\n\n    [Footnote 230: I Kings xvi. 23.]\n\nA lunatic, surnamed Colbert the Great, a skilful violinist,\nfounded the harmony or choral society, and his name is still\nhonored in the memory of all the Gheelois. His portrait adorns\nthe hall where the society holds its meetings, and this homage\nattests the cordial fraternity, devoid of prejudices and of false\nshame, which characterizes the Gheel folk. In their concerts, at\npatriotic or religious festivals, the parts are distributed to\nthe musicians according to the irrespective talents; if they play\nor sing well, nothing more is required. To improve natural gifts,\nthere is a singing-school for the insane. M\u00fcller, a distinguished\nGerman composer and chief of the harmony club, is the director\ndesignated by the public voice, who solicits the honor of\nforming, among the insane, pupils who shall assist him in his\nconcerts.\n\nSeveral of the insane are members of the choir of Saint Dymphna.\nMany of them piously mingle in the processions. They are often\nseen in this church imploring on their knees the grace of heaven.\nOnly those whose illusion it is to believe themselves gods or\nkings, do not kneel, but otherwise behave themselves with decency\nand respect. Here, as elsewhere, individuals subject to\naberrations of reason, still undergo the influence of the\nprevailing tone and manner of deportment, and give in their turn\ngood examples. They are generally much attached to the faith of\ntheir childhood. In health or in sickness, and at the approach of\ndeath, they are admitted to the sacraments of the church whenever\ntheir condition is not such as to exclude moral conscience. These\nacts raise the poor lunatic in his self-respect, and in the eyes\nof the population they are a medicine of the soul.\n\n{837}\n\nToward the close of the eighteenth century, when the rigors\npreviously enforced against the insane were relaxed, a king was\nthe first to experience the benefits of an opposite system.\nGeorge III. was treated by Willis on the conditions of personal\nliberty, out-door amusements, and the family life. The sons of\nWillis, faithful to their father's lessons, continued to receive\nat Greatford, lunatics boarded in private families, but at prices\nwhich limited this privilege to the wealthy. Gheel, without\nsplendid palaces, gardens, and parks, which delight visitors, but\nmake little impression on those who are used to them, accords to\nthe poorest the treatment of George III., and with the precious\naddition of work.\n\nIn France, Pinel was the promoter and persevering apostle of the\nreform first inaugurated at Bic\u00eatre, then extended to the\nSalp\u00e9tri\u00e8re and Charenton. Aiming to raise to the dignity of\npatients those hapless victims who had previously been treated as\ncriminals or as wild beasts, beaten and chained, he realized half\nhis programme in making them simple prisoners, watched and cared\nfor with intelligence. His successes were propagated throughout\nEurope, and all public or private asylums abandoned the system of\ndirect violence or constraint, to give, in the measure of their\nresources in grounds and buildings, a larger part to liberty of\naction and to labor. The so-called \"_non-restraint_\" system\nof England merely substitutes for active cruelties dark cells\npadded with mattresses. Some asylums endeavor to utilize the\ninfluence of the director's family circle, but only at Gheel are\nthe common rights of man accorded to the insane. Benevolent\nsentiments toward the insane have been cherished in Mohammedan\ncountries; regular and methodical labor with a view to economy is\ncommon to many establishments; excursions and amusements are\norganized by a few: but nowhere so effectively as at Gheel have\nliberty, sympathy, and labor been combined in the common interest\nof the insane and of their keepers. These, with the sedative\ninfluence of a mild, moist climate on the temperament, and the\nconsolations of religion for the soul, have almost divested\ninsanity of its dangers, and authorize emancipation from those\nchains of stone which elsewhere weigh no less than chains of iron\non the unhappy victims of fear and distrust.\n\nThis humble parish addresses to every conscience a lesson\neloquent in its simplicity of tender devotion toward our brothers\nthe most fallen, and whom the world disdains and repulses. It\nshows how charity may precede and complete science.\n\n---------\n\n{838}\n\n         Life's Charity.\n\n\nAnd the great sea closed over that wild struggle, and the wreck\nwent down with its precious freight of immortality!\n\nThere was a single cry that came from the white lips, one glance\nfrom the tearless, appealing eyes.\n\n\"All ready!\" sounded a rough voice from the long-boat.\n\n\"For my child!\" she called out to me, above the awful din and\ntumult. And I could only clench the rosary with its precious\ncrucifix in my bosom, and spring into the already crowded boat. I\nmissed and fell, and, grasping an oar, fought the angry sea for\nlife.\n\nI vaguely recollect a fearful shriek, as the steamer turned and\nsettled; and when she sank, the strong current drew in the last\nof the boats, the boat in which _she_ had taken refuge. I\nclosed my eyes, but in my ear rang the agony, the wild despair of\nthat cry, \"My God! my God!\" I suppose I fainted; for I only\nremember opening my eyes on the deck of a small vessel, which was\nscudding under bare poles before a perfect hurricane. Weeks\npassed by, and in a quiet English village, on the soft, balmy\nsouth coast, I lay trying to regain the strength which brain\nfever had quite exhausted.\n\nMy kind English nurse told me that through it all I grasped the\nrosary, and her heart was touched by my devotion to the crucifix.\nThis recalled that fearful autumn morning, when, amid the dimness\nof the fog, the _Arctic_ went down to her burial.\n\nReverently I kissed the crucifix, and murmured my _Credo_;\nfrom the very depths of my soul went upward, \"I believe in God!\"\nThen, as I clasped the cross, I felt it move; but I went through\nmy prayers, and I suppose that the pressure of my hands caused\nthe spring to move, and a closely folded paper fell upon my\nbreast. The crucifix was large and hollow. I carefully unfolded\nthe delicate paper, and a shudder passed over me as the vision of\nthat pale woman, struggling amid the breakers, arose from\nmemory's gloaming. The very first words that met my eye were, \"I\nbelieve in God! and,\" she wrote, \"I will follow his guidance. Far\nfrom those that are dearest to me, I have buried my husband where\nhis fathers rest; and now, my child's voice calls me from my home\nacross the Atlantic. I dreamed last night of a fog, a dense mist,\nthat hung like a curtain; of a fearful crash, and a vision of\nanguish that seems too real for dreaming; but my child's voice is\nechoing in my heart, and may God speed my wanderings! A sorrow as\nof coming woe oppresses me; but I believe in God! and his mercy\nwill save me.\n\n\"My little daughter, Marguerite Cecil, is with her guardian,\nHenry Alan, No. 86 East ---- street, New York. May the\neverlasting Arms forever enfold her!\n    Ruth Cecil.\"\n\nPoor lamb! my heart whispered, the one idol, and so desolate!\nWell, the spring found me on my journey to the busy metropolis;\nand wending my way to East ---- street, I found the most elfish\nlittle fairy that fate had ever set drifting on life's ocean all\nalone. A bonnie wee thing was Madge Cecil; so frail that her\ntenure here seemed too slight for holding; yet from the wonderful\ngray eyes came flashes that gave promise of a splendid future.\n{839}\nGolden hair courted the sunbeams, and, flecked with light,\nwrapped around the most graceful contour that twelve summers had\never shone upon. She knew of her mother's death, for her deep\nmourning dress contrasted almost painfully with the delicate\nwhiteness of her complexion. And when I drew her upon my knee and\nput the rosary in her hand, she threw her arms around me, and\nsobbed as though her heart would break. I really trembled as I\nlistened, for a storm of passionate agony was convulsing a frame\nwhich had little to offer in combat. \"Mamma! mamma!\" she sobbed\nout, and she clasped me closer. \"Will God take me home to her? O\nmamma! come back!\"\n\nMy heart ached for the child, whose grief seemed agonizing her\nvery soul, so I tried to quiet her, and told her of the brighter\nhome where, with the holy Mother of God, her own mother would be\nsinging hallelujahs. I told her that this earth was only a brief\njourneying-place which led to the sweet haven of eternal love,\nthe land where farewells could never bring a cloud, nor partings\ncast a shadow. Then the large gray eyes looked trustingly up into\nmy face, and with her arms around me, I felt the love of my heart\ngo out toward her with a strength and purity I had never known\nbefore.\n\nSoon after this, her guardian placed her at Madame Cathaire's\nlarge boarding-school, and \"Uncle Hal,\" as she now called me, was\nalways her chosen confidant and friend.\n\nYears passed, and I watched her beautiful girlhood unfold. She\nhad rare talents, a quick intellect, and intense appreciation of\nthe beautiful; indeed, a purer spirit seldom lived in this mortal\ntenement. Yet, with her enthusiastic, impulsive nature, she\npossessed a quiet strength of control that caused visions of the\nold martyrs to rise; for I felt that she, too, could wrestle with\npassion, and, with God's grace, subdue all sin.\n\nAnd thus time sped on, and each passing season left its impress\nonly to mature and render more perfect the succeeding; and her\neighteenth birthday found her the realization of spiritual\nloveliness. The exquisite golden curls of her childhood fell in\nirregular waves from the low Grecian brow, and the sweet, earnest\neyes always recalled those of Guido's angel, bearing the branch\nof lilies, in his beautiful picture of \"The Annunciation.\" She\nwas living with her guardian, and her great wealth attracted many\nin a city where gold is \"the winning card.\"\n\nThere was a charming freshness and _na\u00efvet\u00e9_ in the young\ngirl, and at times almost a religious light gleamed from the\ndepths of her large gray eyes.\n\nHer guardian's nephew, Henry Elsdon, had just returned from\nEurope, and I watched him as he dallied, at first carelessly,\namong the crowd that gathered around her.\n\nI did not fancy the young man, and there was an indescribable\nbarrier which rose up always when I tried to like him. He was\nwhat the world would call handsome and _distingu\u00e9_, but the\ndroop of the lower lip, the heavy jaw, and narrow forehead truly\ntold of the fierce animal nature within. Madge was very lovely in\nthis first season, and it was plainly apparent that he entirely\nfailed to impress her; indeed, at times her coldness toward him\nwas marked.\n\nOn returning from vespers, one mild May evening, she asked me to\naccompany her on her Sunday visits. Of course, I went, for who\ncould refuse her? Down the dark streets we wandered, till we\narrived at an old brick house that, a hundred years ago, may\npossibly have been in its prime.\n{840}\nShe tapped at the dingy door, and, like an angel of light, her\npresence seemed to brighten the room. A sick woman lay stretched\non a miserable pallet, and a racking cough shook her weak frame;\nbut a smile of happiness illumined the pinched features, and her\nvoice was tender as it thanked Madge for her gentle deeds of\nlove.\n\nA woman's kindliness is nevermore beautifully displayed than in a\nsick chamber; and my heart did homage to the young girl, as she\nknelt by the sick woman's bed, murmuring, in low, comforting\ntones, the prayer:\n\n\"Visit, we beseech thee, O Lord! this habitation, and drive far\nfrom it all the snares of the enemy. May thy holy angels dwell\nherein, to preserve her in peace; and may thy holy benedictions\nalways remain with her, through Christ our Lord. Amen.\"\n\nHer face was radiant, and her upturned eyes were holy with\ninspiration. Just then a shadow darkened the doorway, and I\nlooked, to meet the eyes of one perfectly absorbed in the scene\nbefore him. My startled movement recalled Madge, and a soft color\ndeepened in her cheeks as she seemed to feel the observation of\nthe stranger.\n\n\"O Miss Cecil! here is Mr. Grey, who has been as kind as\nyourself. This is Miss Cecil, Mr. Grey.\" And then he advanced,\nand the fading sunlight fell upon a splendid specimen of manhood.\nSix feet of magnificently proportioned height, and a head which\nVandyke would have gloried in; steel-gray, flashing eyes, a brow\nupon which intellect and will were marked, and a complexion which\nthe suns of Southern Europe had darkened into olive.\n\n\"Pardon me. Miss Cecil, but the likeness is perfect, and the name\nso familiar. Was your mother Ruth Anderson?\"\n\nTears streamed from her eyes as she half-whispered, \"Yes!\" She\ncould never speak calmly of her mother, for her love seemed only\nto strengthen as years made the loss more keenly felt. In an\ninstant he was by her side, and, with the tender but perfectly\nrespectful manner--the manner so acceptable to a woman--he told\nher how eagerly he had sought for this child of his old and\nesteemed friend. He had gone abroad with her mother, and remained\nin Europe till within a few months. He had read of the fearful\ndoom of the _Arctic_, and vainly tried to trace the child.\n\n\"I need not tell you, Madge, how very glad I am to see you, and,\nbefore long, I shall hope to be a very good friend.\"\n\nAnd they did meet very often. Madge spent the summer at Newport,\nand Mr. Grey's cottage was near her guardian's lovely home. I\nsuppose there is truth in the old and familiar theory of elective\naffinities; for the strength of his nature seemed to absorb her\ngentle, loving trust, and her impulsive, passionate heart was\nentirely swayed by his steady, strong affection; in truth, each\nchord felt the echo from his. And so, in the autumn, I was not\nsurprised when she pointed to a magnificent _solitaire_\ndiamond on the forefinger of her left hand, and told me that she\nhad promised to be the wife of Newton Grey.\n\nThey had returned to New York, and Madge and Mr. Grey were\nlooking over a portfolio of engravings at the further end of the\nlibrary, while I sat smoking in front of the bright coal-fire,\ndreaming day-dreams, as the smoke curled and floated away, when\nsuddenly the door opened and Henry Elsdon came in. I shall never\nforget the look that, only for one single moment, darkened his\nfeatures; only for an instant his face looked thus, and then,\nwith a quick, soft step, he crossed the library, and\n_suavely_ joined the circle\naround the engravings.\n{841}\nI could see that Newton Grey would never stoop to suspect him;\nbut Madge recoiled from him, for there was not the slightest\naffinity between such natures.\n\n\"Uncle Hal,\" she told me one morning, \"I always feel that I ought\nto cross myself when Henry Elsdon comes near me, that I may pray\nto be saved from some impending evil.\"\n\nAnd my lamb was right, for truly a wolf did prey near for her\ndestruction.\n\nBusiness called me to the South, and I left New York to breathe\nthe balmier air of Charleston. It was a delicious winter, that\nsoft season in the sunny South. Violets in the gardens in\nDecember, and the scarlet winter roses and sweet mignonette\nbrightening the lovely villa--like houses on the battery.\n\nI was slowly descending the stone steps that led from the\nbeautiful cathedral, while the last echoes of the bishop's gentle\nvoice yet rang in my ears, when a letter was put into my hands by\nmy friend Colonel Everett. I did not open it then, but strolled\ndown Broad street, to the Mills House, and in my pleasant room I\nsat down to enjoy Madge Cecil's confidence. Imagine my horror as\nI read:\n\n\"Come to me, dear Uncle Hal, for God alone can strengthen me in\nthis fearful sorrow. I cannot understand, but yesterday Mr. Grey\nleft me after a short visit, and to-day they tell me that he is\ndead. I hear low whisperings of a terrible sin, of which Henry\nElsdon is guilty. For my dead mother's sake, come and aid your\ndesolate Madge.\"\n\nI left that evening, and on Saturday held my darling in my arms.\nThen the whole story in its fearful detail was repeated. Henry\nElsdon had wished to marry my ward, but she had refused him, some\ntime before her engagement with Newton Grey. Elsdon's pride was\npiqued, and he determined to be revenged. Then began a system of\ndeceit that was Machiavelian; for with subtle skill he won Grey's\nfriendship, till at last, in one unguarded moment, he dared to\nspeak lightly of Madge. In an instant Grey rose, his face white\nwith a terrible calm:\n\n\"I am in my own rooms, Mr. Elsdon, therefore you are safe; but\nyou must feel that each word that you have uttered shall be\nretracted, else there can be but one settlement.\"\n\n\"And, by God! there shall be but one settlement!\" And Elsdon's\nface glared with hate.\n\nAnd so in the code that teaches murder--cold, passionless, brutal\nmurder--they sought refuge; and Newton Grey fell, pierced through\nthe temples.\n\nSorrows seem truly convoyed on this ocean of life, this sea of\nwild unrest; for in a few months Mr. Alan lost his fortune, and,\nof course, my ward's wealth was also engulfed in the great\nwhirlpool of ruin.\n\nA strange suspicion clouded my heart, and with an intuition of\nthe truth, I felt that I could single out the demon who had\nspread destruction in this home.\n\nBut with the suavity of deceit, he subtly turned aside the tide\nof censure, so justly his due, and the world even forgave him for\nthe duel; for strange travestied stories floated through the\ncity. Who gave them to the public? I felt, I knew that Henry\nElsdon had only added to the infamy which weighed upon his soul;\nbut as yet the avenger had not struck, the race of hell had not\nbeen accomplished! ...\n\nIt was the exciting winter of '60 -- December, 1860! South\nCarolina had torn herself from her sisters, and Washington was in\na ferment. Crowds congregated at the hotels to watch the opening\nof a season fraught with destiny.\n{842}\nMen with reckless, evil passions increased the excitement; for\ncognac burned and whiskey infuriated, and the whole mass of\nhumanity seemed consumed by the one madness, mutual hate!\n\nIt was the evening of the 27th of December. The telegraph had\nspread the news of Anderson's evacuation of Fort Moultrie, and\nthe agitation was culminating in effort. There is a season when\nenthusiasm pulses, till the wild madness intoxicates all feeling;\nthen some sudden crowding on of events drives the fierce current\ninto action, and the mighty mass heaves and surges with one will,\none heart, for the conflict; and so it was to night. I stood on\nthe corner of Pennsylvania avenue and Seventh street, watching\nthe changing faces which the gas-light flared upon, when a\nwoman's voice in wild terror startled me. \"In the name of the\ncross, forbear!\" she cried. And I turned to see a face pale with\nfear and horror. In an instant I was beside her; she held the\ncross of her rosary toward the man who had dared, not only to\ninsult a woman, but one of God's ministering angels, those pure\nspirits of comfort, the Sisters of Mercy.\n\nI struck the brute from her, but not without recognizing the\nfeatures, even though inflamed and distorted by liquor. She\nalmost fainted in my arms, but I placed her in my sister's\ncarriage, just then passing, and ordered it to drive to the\naddress which she gave.\n\nWhat there was in the tones of that woman's voice I could not\nexplain to myself; but a sad chord vibrated till the echoes waked\nin my heart feelings that I thought were sleeping quietly in a\njealously guarded grave of the past. ...\n\nFour years had gone by since that night, and the war that shook\nthis continent had closed; ended were the years that had brought\ntheir holocaust, the proof of the calibre of the men who had died\non the field of honor.\n\nGrant's triumphant legions garrisoned the Confederate capital,\nand I was appointed surgeon in charge of ---- Hospital, where the\nsick and wounded of both armies were tended by the Sisters of\nMercy.\n\nThe intense heat of those early summer days I can never forget,\nand the poor fellows in blue and gray tossed from side to side on\nthe narrow cots in the fever wards. It was my night in ----\nHospital, for I was appointed to relieve Dr. ----, and I observed\na \"sister\" bending over a patient whose white face and faint\nvoice told me that his hours were numbered.\n\n\"Sister Mary,\" said the feeble tones, \"will you bathe my temples?\nthey burn and throb as fiercely as my own heart. Sister, can a\nvile wretch ask you to stand near when he is dying? Sister, you\nwho are pure and holy, tell me if God will pardon me?\"\n\n\"He came to save sinners!\" I heard the low voice whisper. And she\nsmoothed back the tangled masses of dark, waving hair, and\ntenderly soothed the poor fevered brow on which the dews of death\nwere gathering. \"Stay near me, sister. Let me hold your hand,\nwhile I listen to your voice, that recalls one in the long ago. O\nGod! look down in mercy!\"\n\nAnd she whispered sweet words of comfort that calmed the unrest\nof sin and shame.\n\n\"Sister, if I could give all the years that I have wasted, if I\nwould toil and struggle and pray for pardon, would Christ have\nmercy upon one whose years are heavily weighted with sin?\"\n\n\"Repent, and ye shall be saved.\"\n\n{843}\n\n\"Ah God! I do repent, and if a thousand years of suffering could\natone for all, I would not shrink from a single pang. Sister,\"\nand he turned and held her hand closer, and gazed long and\nanxiously into her half-averted face. \"My God! can it be?\" But\nshe turned further into the shadowy twilight, and her face was\nalmost hidden. \"Sister, I must tell you, because there is\nsomething in your tone and look, though I cannot see you well,\nthat brings her back to me; so be patient for a little while and\ndo not leave me yet. In the long ago I loved, and she whom I\nworshipped gave me no return. I think that circumstances might\nhave moulded her differently, though my selfish passions taught\nme then to care for little, save what contributed to my own\ngratification. Well, I watched her love for another, and the\ndevil influenced me; he stole away my truth, my love, my honor! I\nwas mad with jealousy, I was wild with disappointed love, and I\nswore to be revenged. Therefore the schemes I laid, the deceit I\npractised; ay, I bided well my time. I stole the friendship of\nher lover, and poured my poison into his ears; but his noble\nnature shamed me, his trust could not be shaken; then--ah! how\nwell I remember the evening--I spoke of her as my heart never\nbelieved; I lied, wickedly, maliciously lied, upon her! Then his\nknightly spirit rose, and he fell by my hand! I had begun; the\npoison was maddening; I could not stop, even though murder barred\nmy path; so I counselled her guardian as to investments, and in\none mad moment her fortune crashed with his.\n\n\"Still I tracked her on her mission of mercy to Washington; I\ndogged her steps when she left the couch of the sick woman whose\ndeath agonies she had soothed; I stood near the door of the\nwretched hovel, listening to the sweet tones of her voice that is\nhaunting me to-night; and--I hardly knew what I was doing, I only\nfelt that there was yet something undone which might humble her,\nmight place her at my mercy; hell's fires raged in my heart--and,\nmay God forgive me, but I spoke words to her which no man should\nutter and live. But she escaped me, and was torn from my grasp,\nwhile her pallid face grew whiter still as she spoke in terror,\n'In the name of the cross, forbear!'\n\n\"Since that evening, I have never seen her face; but, sister,\nto-night all her saintly purity comes back to shame me, and I\nfeel that the flames of hell would be less fiery if I could hear\nher say, 'I forgive you!'\" There was a brief pause; the twilight\nof June shadowed the whitewashed wards, and the young moon shed a\nsoft light over the starry heavens; but was it a message that\nflashed from Our Lady's crown, that lit the pallet over which the\nsister leaned? Ay, the face of Guido's angel, the angel of the\nlilies, shone over the dying man, as the sweet voice whispered,\n\"Do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which\ndespitefully use you.\"\n\n\"Her voice!\" he cried. And a sudden strength seemed to possess\nhim; for, seizing her hand, he pushed back the black bonnet, and\nwhispered, \"Madge Cecil, dare I pray for your pardon?\"\n\n\"And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass\nagainst us. Amen.\" And she gave him her crucifix, which he\npressed to his lips.\n\n\"Then let me die in your faith; for, if its doctrines teach you\neven to forgive me, then through the prayers of your church will\nGod grant mercy to my soul.\" He fainted in her arms, and she\nsummoned me.\n\n\"Dr. ----, take care of him till my return.\"\n\n{844}\n\nI had heard it all, but she failed to recognize me. Grief had\nwhitened my hair, and an iron-gray beard covered my face; and I\npreferred that she should not know me yet Soon I saw her return\nwith Father Baker. My cordial had revived Elsdon, and in faint\nvoice he repeated his wish.\n\n\"Let me be received, father, into the communion of the Holy\nCatholic Church, and pray God to have mercy on my soul.\"\n\nThe time was short, and no precious moment of it was to be lost.\nThe good priest proceeded at once to his work of preparing the\npoor man for death. His penitence seemed sincere and profound,\nand his desire for the sacraments of the church most earnest.\nThey were at once administered to him; and on his fervently\nexpressed wish that the holy viaticum might be permitted to him,\nit was brought.\n\nA snowy linen cloth was spread on the table by his bed, and two\ncandles placed beside the crucifix. Solemnly we gathered near,\nfor we felt that his life was fast fleeting. I have never seen\nnor realized more of the agony of contrition than when he slowly\nrepeated after the priest, suffering at each word most intensely,\n\"Jesus, Son of the living God, have mercy upon me!\" At last he\ngrew calmer. A quiet peace rested on his pale face, and after\nreceiving the most holy communion, he murmured faintly, \"Jesus,\nhave mercy on me! Holy Mary, pray for me!\" and folding the\ncrucifix to his heart, he closed his eyes and we thought he\nslept. A deathlike stillness reigned, broken only by the solemn\ntones of the priest's voice: \"Into thy hands we commend his\nspirit, which has been created and redeemed by thee!\"\n\nAnd in that pentecostal hour, when the storm of her life wailed\nits wild requiem in her heart, a holy calm, as a message from\nGod, glorified her exquisite face, for the Comforter had sealed\nher with the expiation--the working out of life's great charity--\n\"Do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which\ndespitefully use you and persecute you.\"\n\n--------------\n\n         The Rights Of Catholic Women.\n\n                  By A Lady.\n\n\n  [We took occasion, some months ago, to sketch a number of the\n  charitable works of Paris, in the hope of stirring the\n  emulation of some of our leisured, zealous, and wealthy\n  fellow-citizens to undertake something of the kind in this\n  densely crowded city. The correspondent whose communication is\n  given below, and whose contributions have often graced our\n  pages, has felt her soul stirring with the same impulse in\n  visiting Catholic Europe. Her earnest words came appropriately\n  after the letter we published last month respecting a Refuge or\n  Central Mission-House for vagabond children. There lies an open\n  field where hundreds may work without jostling each other; and\n  we hope this iron may be hammered while it is hot into a\n  practical shape, and not merely serve as a poker to a useless\n  fire of sentimental philanthropy. There is nothing like\n  reducing the abstract to the concrete, sentiment to work,\n  resolution to definite action.\n\n{845}\n\n  We venture to suggest something else, also, to those of our\n  fair readers who may be awakened to a desire of claiming their\n  woman's rights by the appeal of their gifted countrywoman. It\n  is practical, and yet not so difficult, as sending checks for\n  one thousand dollars, or searching the streets for vagrant\n  children. A society exists in Paris for making and embroidering\n  vestments and other ornaments for the altars of poor churches\n  and missions. Why not inaugurate the same work among the ladies\n  of New York, for the benefit, first, of small country churches\n  and chapels in our own diocese, and secondarily of similar\n  churches elsewhere? We cannot rival Paris by a sudden _coup\n  de main_ or accomplish everything in a day. But it is\n  possible to make a beginning with one necessary work of charity\n  after another, and to bring them gradually to the colossal\n  dimensions which want and misery and vice have attained without\n  any effort.--Ed. C. W.]\n\n\nIn _The Atlantic Monthly_ of April and May, 1868, appeared a\ngenerous and high-toned article, entitled \"Our Roman Catholic\nBrethren,\" in which the author, appreciating the fact that no one\ncan lose ground by treating with justice those who differ from\nhim in opinion, frankly recognized the noble struggles of our\npriesthood and the success with which they have been crowned.\n\nOne assertion in this article we shall venture to comment upon,\nmaking this the occasion for a few suggestions to the Catholic\nwomen of the United States, whose right to share the labors of\nCatholic men is inalienable and incontestable, being founded upon\nthe unvarying teaching of the church.\n\nThe author, in speaking of a missionary bishop whom he had known\nand respected as an \"absolute gentleman,\" an \"exquisite human\nbeing,\" in whom all the frailties springing from self-love had\nbeen consumed, leaving the \"whole man kind, serene, urbane, and\nutterly sincere,\" concludes thus: \"_A Catholic priest, indeed,\nwould be much to blame if he failed to attain a high degree of\nserenity, moral refinement, and paternal dignity;_\" because,\nbe it understood, he has neither family cares nor business\nanxieties to harass him.\n\nMost assuredly true, so far as concerns priests in a Catholic\ncountry, where the ranks of the priesthood are full; perhaps true\nin a purely missionary country, where the priest, in his\nintervals of repose, communes with his only companions, God and\nnature; absolutely untrue when applied to a parish priest in the\nUnited States, drained of his spiritual riches all day, and often\nhalf the night, and for relaxation thrown sometimes upon the\ncompanionship of his inferiors. It is no uncommon thing to see a\nnoble priest, at the very centre and core of life, when powers\nshould be ripe, strength unbroken, hope and nerves unshaken,\nbreak down, crushed under the weight of work which should have\nbeen divided between several persons, leaving to each one work\nenough to occupy a man of average capacity, time for study, and\ntime for the recuperation of his spiritual powers by prayer and\nmeditation.\n\nNow, where is the remedy for this? Not in a sufficient number of\nclergymen, because we cannot hope for such a blessing for many\nyears to come. Not in a diminution of labor, thank God, for the\ndomain of the church is constantly widening, and souls are\nclamoring more and more eagerly for the privileges of religion.\n{846}\nThe assistance must come from the laity, not working each one\nafter a fashion of his or her own, but in a systematic manner,\ndoing the work recommended by the parish priest in the way most\nagreeable to him.\n\nThat the Conference of St. Vincent de Paul contains all the\nelements necessary for providing Catholic men with missionary\nwork, we are well aware; therefore we address ourselves\nexclusively to Catholic women.\n\nEarly in February of the present year, on a radiant Roman day,\nthe remains of Saint Ignatius, bishop and martyr, were brought in\ntriumph to the Colosseum from their resting-place in San\nClemente. There, where, 1758 years before, the cry had gone up\nfrom 80,000 spectators, \"Ignatius to the lions!\" the Litany of\nthe Saints arose to heaven; there, where wild beasts had snarled\nover their consecrated prey, canonized bones lay on a gorgeous\nbier, surrounded by cardinals, bishops, priests, and religious,\ngathering about them in veneration. One, at least, of those who\nwatched the scene from the crumbling galleries, asked herself\neagerly if God has ceased to call upon his children for\nsacrifices, as he called upon the early Christians; and\nconviction answered. No; that, though martyrdom has a mysterious\nvalue in the eyes of the church, she tenderly loves those who\npatiently endure the pangs of \"that incurable malady which we\ncall life.\"\n\nAnd the Christian passing through the catacombs of Rome to-day,\npausing in silent awe beside the tombs of martyred virgins,\nmothers, children, and pontiffs, draws in with every breath the\nsame glorious assurance which gave them strength to suffer--the\nassurance that God would have us serve him with every nerve and\nfibre of our being. He claims from the nineteenth century, as he\nclaimed from the first, not, indeed, its blood, but its energies,\nits faith, its charity. He summons every soul capable of the\nsacrifice of self to a life in the catacombs, to a holy, interior\nsolitude, where his inspirations can be distinctly heard, where\nthe buzz and hum of the world are inaudible. And as, after the\ncelebration of the sacred mysteries, the early Christians were\ndismissed, and sent back to the performance of their ordinary\navocations, invigorated and renewed; so God releases such souls\nafter communing with them, and sends them forth to work for him,\nsetting upon them three signs to distinguish them from other\nlaborers--peace, simplicity, and perseverance.\n\nIn the early ages the laity suffered martyrdom with the clergy.\nIn our own day, the laity should share the labor of the clergy.\nWe are not summoned to bear witness to God in one mighty\nconfession of faith sealed with our blood; but we are bound to\nshow our fidelity to him by lives of unremitting devotion, to\nlighten the burdens weighing on the priesthood, to do our utmost\nto leave them leisure for the direction of souls, and for those\nworks of supererogation which are the very heart and pulses of a\nlife consecrated to God.\n\nThere are four things which we do not wish to recommend to\nCatholic women; namely, neglect of domestic duties, overexertion\non the part of invalids, indiscreet activity in recent converts,\nthe undertaking of difficult enterprises by those who are not\ngifted with executive faculty.\n\nHome is the training-school of souls, and a mother's chief duty\nis to her husband and children. The physically weak serve God by\nrenunciation and sacrifice, hardest and noblest of all\napostleships. Converts, generally speaking, should show their\nfamilies, by tact, affection, fidelity to home duties, that\nconversion has only knit them more closely to old friends and to\nnatural claims; and this is seldom consistent with much exterior\nactivity soon after conversion. It is very rarely advisable to\nundertake any work of importance without the advice of a\njudicious confessor; a just appreciation of one's personal\nstrength and weakness is too rare a gift to be relied upon as a\nright.\n\n{847}\n\nIt is our misfortune in the United States that the number of\ncommunities is very small in proportion to the work to be done;\nbut though a clergyman would rather receive assistance from\nreligious than from any one else, he would gratefully accept the\naid of women of the world, provided they were possessed of\njudgment, tact, and perseverance.\n\nTo take up a charitable enterprise from love of excitement and\nlay it aside just as one's assistance had become valuable, would\nnot be a proceeding modelled on the actions of the early\nChristians.\n\nTo make one's way into a public institution to patients or\nprisoners in a manner at variance with the regulations of the\nestablishment, would not tend to advance the cause of religion.\n\nTo foster the whims of the poor and excite in them false wants,\nwould add to their sufferings, not lessen them.\n\nAll these mistakes may easily be made by well-meaning persons who\nhave not prudence. With fidelity, modesty, and common sense, it\nis impossible to make serious blunders, and it is possible to do\na great deal of good without the sacrifice of much time or\ncomfort.\n\nThose who have health and leisure can work for the church; those\nwho are too busy or too ill to undertake missionary labor can\npray for the church. All who have an hour to spend or an ave and\npater to recite, or an ache or a pain to offer to Almighty God,\ncan do their share of the blessed work.\n\nWithout questioning the fact that the highest of all vocations is\nthe call to a religious life--conceding the point that the work\ndone by women has been usually better done by religious than by\nwomen of the world--we think there is a tendency to deny, to\nthat obligation resting upon us all to do the work God marked out\nfor us, the name of _vocation_, unless it leads us to a life\nin the community or to marriage. We venture to predict that an\nimportant share is to be taken in the work of the church in this\ncountry by women who have neither a vocation to join a religious\norder nor to marry.\n\nThere is a correspondence between the various vocations of\nreligious orders and those of persons living in the world. Let us\nread over the golden record, and decide which path we are called\nto follow. There are the working orders, Sisters of Charity, of\nMercy, of the Good Shepherd; the teaching orders, Ursulines,\nSisters of the Visitation, Ladies of the Sacred Heart, and that\nsweetest of orders, the Sisters of Notre Dame, whose fame is\nhidden behind humility and obedience; and the contemplative\norders, on whose prayers hang the fruit of thousands of energetic\nenterprises.\n\nMost of the prisons, work-houses, and hospitals in the United\nStates need the influence of judicious women. As such\ninstitutions are almost exclusively filled with poor people, and\nas more than half our poor people are Catholics, more than half\nthe inmates of asylums, penitentiaries, etc., are Catholics; it\nis, then, a matter of justice that Catholic prisoners, patients,\nand paupers should be under Catholic influences.\n{848}\nObedience to discipline is a principle most strongly inculcated\nby the church, and no consistent servant of the church will\ninfringe the smallest regulation in any institution to which he\nhas admission. When this truth is fully recognized, Catholic\nladies will be allowed to visit freely all the public\nestablishments in the Union. Let those who wish to do work\ncorresponding to that of the working orders use all available\nopportunities for alleviating the sufferings and ameliorating the\ncondition of the lower classes.\n\nThere are hosts of children who must learn the catechism; not\nafter a parrot-like fashion, such as any ignorant person can\nteach it to them, but in a vital manner, so that the truth shall\nbe set in their souls like a jewel, to be transmitted to future\ngenerations as a precious heritage. Every well-disposed and\nintelligent Catholic child can be sent forth from his course of\ninstruction in the Sunday-school with the fervent determination\nto be a missionary in his own little sphere. Those who emulate\nthe labors of the teaching orders have not far to seek for their\nwork.\n\nThe Catholic literature of France, Germany, and Italy should be\nin general circulation in America, through the medium of good\ntranslations. Women are especially fitted to be translators.\nTheir impressionable and adaptive minds make it easy for them to\nunderstand an author's thought and adopt his style. Let those who\nwould follow in the footsteps of the contemplatives of earlier\nages, whose leisure hours were given to writing for the benefit\nof religion, study critically their mother tongue and one other\nmodern language, and thus unlock some of the treasures of foreign\nliterature to those less gifted than themselves.\n\nBut enough, and more than enough for the present. We have sought\nto arouse a sense of the importance of the work to be done, not\nto explain the best method of accomplishing it. We have tried to\nshow Catholic women what are their rights, leaving it to God to\nawaken in them a noble ambition to claim and appropriate those\nrights.\n\n--------------\n\n    The Last Gasp Of The Anti-catholic Faction.\n\n\nProtestantism and the Protestant denominations may be considered\nunder two aspects. Under one aspect, the former is an imperfect\nChristianity, and the latter are societies professing each a\ncertain form of this Christianity. As such we respect them,\nrecognize the Christian and evangelical truths they retain, honor\nthe virtue and goodness which are found among their adherents,\nand freely admit their great utility in many important\nparticulars. We have no desire to wage a fierce polemical war\nupon them, but rather desire to discuss with them in a fraternal\nspirit the differences between us, the causes which keep us in\nseparation, and the means of reconciliation and reunion.\n\nUnder the other aspect, the one is a denial of the first\nprinciples of Christianity, and the others are aggregations under\nthe control of party-leaders whose principal object is the\ndestruction of the church of Christ with its dogmas and\ndiscipline.\n{849}\nAlthough particular denominations do not avow a hostile intent\ntoward all dogma and discipline, each one professing to maintain\nwhatever it has selected as its constitutive principle out of the\nentire Christian system, yet the general sum and result of their\ncombined efforts against the Catholic Church tends to the utter\ndemolition of Christianity. This active, anti-Catholic\nProtestantism in our own day and country is principally confined\nto a comparatively small fraction of nominal Protestants. It is a\nwheel within a wheel, an _imperium in imperio_, a ring, a\nfaction, very impotent, but extremely turbulent. The deadly\nquarrels of its component members with each other interfere\nmaterially with their unity of action against their common enemy.\nNow and then, however, a common sentiment seems to awaken in them\nthat they had better postpone their private disputes until they\nhave compassed by their united energies the fall of Babylon. Such\na phenomenon has appeared quite recently in the ecclesiastical\nheavens. The newspapers of the principal sects have resounded\nwith a call for united efforts on the part of Episcopalians,\nPresbyterians, Unitarians, etc., against the progress of the\nCatholic Church in the United States. Dr. Bellows, who is as\nrestless as if he were pursued by the Eumenides, and who seems to\nget into a more uncomfortable frame of mind every day as he\nprosecutes his travels, sends over a loud call showing the\nnecessity of doing something to preserve that Protestantism which\nit has been the business of his life to overwhelm with ridicule\nand contempt. The liberal papers, false to their reiterated\nprotestations of hatred against orthodox Protestantism and\nsympathy with Catholics, re-echo the sound, which is taken up by\none and another of the lowing presses in turn, until each one\n_quid lachrymabile mugit_. Dear friends, what is the matter?\nIf you will permit the citation of a somewhat trite classical\npassage, permit us to ask, _Tantaene animis coelestibus\nirae?_ We have been much at a loss to divine the immediate\nexciting cause of such a sudden aggravation of symptoms in our\ndomestic \"sick man.\" We think, however, that we have at last\ndiscovered that we are the innocent cause ourselves, through a\nfew little harmless tracts, which were intended as a poultice,\nbut have proved, we suppose on account of the extreme\nirritability of the patient's skin, a violent blister. We made\nthe discovery by reading the following circular, which we publish\ncheerfully, in order to promote as much as possible that free and\nlively discussion which our excellent friends at the Bible House\ndesire:\n\n             (Private.)\n\n  American and Foreign Christian Union,\n      27 Bible House, New York,\n           June 17, 1868.\n\n  Mr. Editor:\n\n  Dear Sir: We are desirous of employing, in your journal, the\n  pen of one of your ablest contributors, in the fair and\n  thorough discussion of the recent publications and pretensions\n  of the Roman Catholic Church.\n\n  You have doubtless seen some of the popular tracts of the\n  \"Catholic Publication Society.\" They have been circulated in\n  all parts of the country with great assiduity. They are very\n  ingenious and plausible, and very fallacious. It is matter of\n  common interest to all who love evangelical truth that these\n  fallacies should be promptly and effectively exposed.\n\n{850}\n\n  We have a proposition to make which seems to us to be for the\n  mutual advantage both of your enterprise and of ours. If you\n  will send us the address of that one of your contributors or\n  collaborators whose papers on this subject will be most\n  acceptable to you and your readers, we will make proposals to\n  him for contributions to your journal, we supplying him with a\n  copy of the series of popular tracts of the \"Catholic\n  Publication Society,\" and such other documents as he may need,\n  and paying for his literary labor at a generous rate of\n  compensation.\n\n  If you shall succeed in introducing us to writers on the Roman\n  Catholic controversy who are learned, accurate, and courteous,\n  and at the same time lively and effective in their popular\n  style, we shall hope to continue and renew an arrangement which\n  must be for the advantage of all the parties to it, and of the\n  great cause of Christian truth.\n\n  Yours respectfully,\n    J. Romeyn Berry,\n    H. C. Riley,\n    Leonard W. Bacon,\n    E. F. Hatfield,\n    Samuel I. Prime,\n\n    _Committee on Publications of the \"American\n    and Foreign Christian Union_.\"\n\nNaturally, we have been on the alert ever since receiving this\ninteresting circular, expecting a rare treat from the articles to\nbe furnished by the learned, courteous, lively, and well-paid\ncontributors to the press who must have jumped at once at this\nhandsome offer. We have not yet gathered in a very ample\ncollection of choice _mor\u00e7eaux_ as the result of our study\nof the anti-Catholic press. We have obtained, however, a few\ngleanings which may be indications of an abundant harvest yet to\ncome. Here is one from _The Episcopalian_, which no reader\nof that paper will expect to find either accurate, courteous, or\nlively, but which, as communicating a piece of rare and recondite\ninformation, may fitly prove a sample of the \"learned\" style:\n\n  \"It has been suggested--and, we think, not without some\n  reason--that the origin of ritualism in the Protestant\n  Episcopal Church may be traced to the Roman Catholic Church\n  itself; in other words, that the Roman Church, with the view of\n  proselyting the Episcopal Church, has sent among us secret\n  emissaries, of the Jesuit stamp, who, while pretending to be\n  Episcopalians, are really Romanists, and whose mission it is to\n  introduce one Romish novelty after another, until the\n  congregations in which they are introduced are gradually but\n  surely drawn into the communion of the Romish Church.\n\n  \"To those who have studied the far-seeing policy of the Roman\n  Church, and its secret workings for ages past, this suggestion\n  will not seem strange or far-fetched. That equally subtle means\n  for proselyting have been used by that church in times past no\n  one can doubt who has read its history; and what has been done\n  can be done--or, at least, tried--again.\n\n    \"Freese.\n    \"Trenton, N.J., June, 1868.\"\n\nThe following, from _The Brooklyn Union_, if not learned or\nlively, is at least in a high degree \"accurate and courteous,\"\nbeing a most respectful remonstrance against the audacity of\nCatholics in presuming to be so numerous, and to lay the\ncorner-stone of a cathedral in open day on Sunday:\n\n  \"He that Rules the City Rules the Country.--The Pope of Rome\n  well knows this axiom. The Jesuits know it. The politician\n  knows it. They all _act_ upon it. Cities are chosen as\n  their centres of organization. From these centres their power\n  radiates through every town and village and hamlet and district\n  of our land. In a government like our own, this is particularly\n  true. The pulsations of life and power of our larger cities,\n  both in religion and politics, indicate the condition, in these\n  respects, of our whole country. Hence the favored policy of the\n  Papal hierarchy of inducing its subjects, when emigrating to\n  the United States, to settle within the limits or easy access\n  of our cities. Statistics show that the foreign Papal\n  immigration, East, West, North, and South, settle chiefly\n  within or about our cities.\n{851}\n  No one with his eyes open has failed to see this with respect\n  to New York, New Orleans, St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati, and\n  Buffalo. The _foreign_ population of these cities\n  _rule_ them. They present a majority of thirty thousand in\n  New York. What may be their exact proportions in our other\n  populous cities, the writer has at present no means of\n  ascertaining. But from the number, the grandeur, and the\n  costliness of their cathedrals and educational institutions in\n  other cities--in such as Chicago and St. Louis--we should judge\n  that their number is greater in proportion to their population\n  than it is in New York. This statement has reference to the\n  Papists. For the _infidel_ proportion who come to our\n  shores from Europe, and who have been driven to infidelity by\n  the tyranny and wickedness of Papacy, have no sympathy with\n  that system in propagating its means of worship. All their\n  sympathies are with our free institutions. Their licentiousness\n  and disregard of the Christian Sabbath are the fruit of their\n  infidelity. Even for this the Papal Church is responsible\n  before God. But the Papacy, in its _spirit_ and in its\n  _policy_ and in its _designs_, is opposed to our\n  republican government. It is the sworn inveterate enemy to\n  every principle and policy which favors republicanism. No\n  bishop, no priest, and no member of the Papal Church ever has\n  been or ever can be a loyal subject of a free government. Every\n  pretence or profession or act which they avow to the contrary\n  is the necessary outgrowth of wilful deception, hypocrisy, and\n  falsehood. Among the _masses_ of her members an oath of\n  loyalty may be the result of ignorance; and it may be permitted\n  to remain of binding authority so long as it does not conflict\n  with their first and paramount obligations with their church.\n  But with the bishops, the priests, and the Jesuitical hordes of\n  their hierarchy, an oath of loyalty or of testimony is of no\n  value as a test of truthfulness. Nay, it is often taken as a\n  means of deception, to accomplish some concealed purpose. Their\n  fundamental doctrines of _mental reservation_ and\n  _universal subordination_ to Rome necessarily exclude from\n  their virtues that of true patriotism. That this hierarchy has\n  for some years past been collecting, arranging, and\n  concentrating the elements of her strength in and around the\n  cities of the United States, is evident to any one who has\n  watched its progress. Her power is abundantly manifest in the\n  influence which she has exerted in the legislation of our\n  cities and our states, in the appointments of many of our\n  highest offices of trust and power, in the disposition and\n  distribution of our public charities, and in the control of our\n  popular system of education; and that the time has come, in\n  their judgment, when she can, with safety to herself, openly\n  assert her power, can be seen in the popular tracts, now\n  numbering some thirty-one, of her religious press, in the\n  public discussions of her periodicals, in her\n  politico-religious organizations, as well as in her open and\n  defiant Sabbath parades, and other desecrations of that blessed\n  day. Let her have full scope to her power and freedom _as a\n  church, in a legitimate way_. Let her seek to build up her\n  cause as a system of religion, the same as Protestant churches\n  in our country. But let her not attempt to ride rough-shod upon\n  the rights of Protestants by her noisy parades, with drum and\n  fife and boisterous shouts in front of our churches upon the\n  Sabbath--by her insolent and brutal outrages upon unoffending\n  Protestants when peaceably pursuing their avocations. Let her\n  no longer refuse to listen to the respectful remonstrances of\n  American citizens against such encroachments. Public religious\n  services and the administration of the Lord's Supper in some of\n  our churches were almost entirely prevented by the noise and\n  confusion of the Papal parade on a late Sabbath. This nuisance\n  has been _repeated_ in New York and Brooklyn in opposition\n  to the respectful but earnest petition of Protestant laymen and\n  clergy. On these occasions, several of our largest streets were\n  piled up with city passenger-cars, that were forced to stop\n  running on account of the procession. And what was all this\n  confusion, all this violation of law and order, upon the\n  Christian Sabbath for? Why, simply that a single Papal\n  congregation might lay the corner-stone of the church of the\n  'Immaculate Conception.' Hundreds of quiet and orderly churches\n  must be interrupted in their worship, the rights of large\n  corporations must be trampled under foot, and the stillness of\n  the Sabbath be invaded by the drum and fife and shout of a\n  _drunken rabble_, for the sake of a single Papal\n  congregation! Such occasions are not without a purpose. They\n  afford the priesthood a fine opportunity of testing the\n  strength of numbers, of trying the patience of the Protestant\n  community, of gradually corrupting their respect for the\n  Christian Sabbath, and of intimidating politicians with a show\n  of power. Their design is a _political_ one. There is no\n  religion about it. Her power is broken upon the 'Seven Hills'\n  of Italy, and she is trying now to re-establish it in the\n  metropolis of America. But who dare array himself against her\n  avowed determination to subordinate all things to her purpose?\n{852}\n  What politician, what party, or what partisan newspaper dare\n  oppose the _political_ system of Papal hierarchy? It\n  remains for the Protestant clergy of our evangelical\n  denominations to take up the cause of religious liberty. No one\n  will dare to speak out if they remain silent. The eyes of all\n  are toward them. They must take the lead in the conflict with\n  'the man of sin.' God has thrown the responsibility upon them.\n  They can, if they will, sway both the religious and political\n  destinies of our nation. Let no one talk about the danger or\n  the fanaticism of introducing politics into our pulpits. The\n  days of such cowardly conservatism are past. Let politicians as\n  well as Papists, at whose feet the former bow, be made to feel\n  that patriotism is a Christian virtue, and that its sacred fire\n  is kept alive and pure only in the breasts of those who swear\n  by an open Bible and a free conscience. If our Protestant\n  ministers will do their duty, the masses of our people will see\n  the danger which threatens us. They will unite their strength\n  in a successful issue with the powers of darkness, and our\n  politicians, seeing the strength of such a combination, will\n  withhold their sympathy and patronage from a system which, in\n  the garb of _religion_, aims its death-blow at the very\n  root of our civil liberty.\n       C.\"\n\nThe following is a specimen of the \"lively and effective\" style:\n\n        Catholicism.\n\n  A Reply To J. G. Parton's Article In The Atlantic Monthly.\n\n  This little treatise is respectfully presented to J. G. Parton\n  and all our Catholic brethren, by their brother and friend,\n  Charles W. Gilbert.\n\n  \"And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying. _All power_\n  is given unto me in heaven and in earth.\"--Matthew xxviii. 18.\n\n  \"This is the _stone_ which was set at naught of you\n  builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is\n  there _salvation_ in any other: for there is _none_\n  other name under heaven given among men, _whereby we must be\n  saved_.\"--Acts iv. 11, 12.\n\n  \"It behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he\n  might be a merciful and faithful high-priest in things\n  pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the\n  people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he\n  is able to succor them that are tempted.\"--Hebrews ii. 17, 18.\n\n\n      Galesburg, June 22, 1868.\n  Mr. J. G. Parton: Dear Sir: I flatter myself you will excuse me\n  for the liberty I have taken in addressing you this letter. It\n  has been called for by reading a communication in _The\n  Atlantic Monthly_, in April last, respecting our Catholic\n  brethren.\n\n  I have neither time nor space to write half I want to, only to\n  mention a few points: And first, you say there is a difference\n  between Catholics and Protestants in the mode of praying; you\n  say a Protestant hides his face in his hands, but Catholics do\n  not, though they kneel, but the body is upright. Dear sir, do\n  you not know the reason? Our Catholic brethren worship images,\n  which God has forbidden. Turn to the second commandment: \"Thou\n  shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of\n  anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth\n  beneath,\" etc. \"Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor\n  serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting\n  the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third\n  and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy\n  unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.\n  Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for\n  the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in\n  vain. Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt\n  thou labor, and do all thy work,\" etc. Take your Bible and read\n  all the commandments.\n\n  Dear sir, can you find one of our Roman Catholic brethren that\n  keeps the commandments? Turn to the First Epistle general of\n  John, second chapter, fourth verse, \"He that saith, I know him,\n  and keepeth not his commandments, is a _liar_, and the\n  truth is not in him.\"\n\n  You speak of their communion. Do they drink the _wine_ and\n  eat the bread, as Christ has commanded? No, no! A little wafer\n  is put on the tongue. Please turn to the seventeenth chapter of\n  Revelation, fourth verse.\n\n  The next topic is the Catholic Sabbath-school. Sir, what is a\n  Sabbath-school _without_ the _Bible_ to direct us how\n  to teach little children the way of life and salvation? Do you\n  not know that the priests do not allow the Bible to be read in\n  a Sabbath-school nor in a day-school? This is the reason they\n  will not send their children to the Protestant schools.\n\n{853}\n\n  What said St. Paul to Timothy? \"And that from a _child_\n  thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are _able_ to\n  make thee wise unto salvation through _faith_ which is in\n  Christ Jesus.\"--2 Timothy iii. 15, We read also, in the\n  sixteenth verse, \"_All_ Scripture is given by inspiration\n  of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for\n  correction, for instruction in righteousness.\"\n\n  What said Jesus? \"Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think\n  ye have _eternal life_: and they are they which testify of\n  me.\"--John v. 39.\n\n  You say the children in the Sabbath-school sing to the Virgin\n  Mary the following stanza, \"O Mary! Mother,\" etc. Dear sir, who\n  is this Mother Mary? Let Christ answer. Turn to Matthew xii.\n  50: \"For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in\n  heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.\" Read\n  also in Mark iii. 35; also Luke viii, 21.\n\n  You quote the prayer that the superintendent uttered, in Latin.\n  How _edifying_ that must have been to the children,\n  especially when he used the word _immaculate_ Host! Could\n  the children have understood that word, they would have\n  blushed.\n\n  You give us a glowing description of the different cathedrals,\n  and how they are occupied. Now, my dear sir, let me tell you,\n  the best prayer-meeting that I ever enjoyed was in a\n  _log-cabin_. Read St. John iv. 23, 24. Jesus told the\n  woman of Samaria that the hour had now come \"when the\n  _true_ worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and\n  in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a\n  Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit\n  and in truth.\" Christ told the woman of Samaria she need not go\n  up into the mountains nor to Jerusalem to worship the Father,\n  but anywhere, in the log-cabin or in your house, if you worship\n  God in spirit.\n\n  The next topic is, you say: \"Our Catholic brethren are very\n  candid, and are as truly and entirely convinced of the truth of\n  their religion as any Protestant.\"\n\n  I am now almost seventy-three years of age, and have labored\n  among our Catholic brethren more than forty years. I have seen\n  many of them _happily converted, born again_; as Christ\n  told Nicodemus, told him repeatedly, \"Except a man be born\n  again, he could not enter heaven.\"--John iii. Yes, I have seen\n  them _put off_ the old man with all his deeds and put on\n  Christ; yes, his very _countenance_ was changed; yes, he\n  will not visit the Dutch gardens or saloons on the Sabbath.\n  Said a _converted_ Roman Catholic lady to me, the other\n  day: \"I have _perfect peace_ now. When I belonged to the\n  Roman Catholic Church, I was in constant misery.\"\n\n  Said a converted Catholic man, aged sixty-six years: \"I never\n  took any comfort before.\" I asked him if he was ready to die.\n  He said, \"_Yes_.\" I asked him how he knew. Putting his\n  hand on his breast, he said, \"_Spirit tell me so_.\" So\n  Christ says his Spirit shall enlighten every man that cometh\n  into the world.\n\n  In all my conversation with our Catholic brethren, I have never\n  found the first one that could say with St. Paul: \"I long to be\n  absent from the body that I might be present with the Lord,\n  that I might be clothed upon with another body like unto his.\"\n\n  Our Catholic brethren are taught that there is a\n  _purgatory_. I wonder if St. Paul had to go there first. I\n  have often asked our Catholic brethren where the\n  _penitent_ thief went to, that was crucified with Christ,\n  when Christ said to him, \"To-day shalt thou be with me in\n  paradise.\"\n\n  If there is a purgatory where we have to go to atone for our\n  sins, Christ must have suffered in vain, though he cried on the\n  cross, \"It is finished.\"\n\n  I have seen Catholics die in despair. I had one in my employ as\n  a sailor on the North River. He caught a severe cold; it ran\n  him into a quick consumption. I asked him if he would like to\n  have me read the Bible to him. He said, No; he said the priest\n  had forbidden him to read the Bible or hear it read. As he was\n  failing very fast, I went in again and asked him if he wished\n  me to read to him in the Bible. He said, No, but wished I would\n  go and call the priest. I did so, and after the priest went\n  away, I went into his room and asked him if he was happy. He\n  answered, No, and cried bitterly, and said, \"_I am going to\n  hell! I am going to hell!_\" and died in a few minutes.\n\n  You next speak of young men that were studying for the\n  ministry; you say they study Latin, Greek, and theology. Dear\n  sir, what is theology? If I understand it, it is a Science of\n  God. How can they study theology without the Bible, the word of\n  God? They are not allowed the Bible, so a converted Roman\n  Catholic priest published to the world, at least he said that\n  there was not more than _one_ in twenty that ever saw a\n  Bible.\n\n  You say the Catholic Church is getting very _rich_, I do\n  not doubt it. Oh! how I pity the poor Catholic brethren. See\n  how they _toil_ and _work_ to support the priest and\n  the nunneries, and to _build_ meeting-houses to please the\n  eye and charm the weak minded. And what do they get _for all\n  this_? Let echo answer. Look at our poor-houses. Every\n  winter thousands have to go to our poor-houses to be taken care\n  of by our Protestant churches. Here in our city many would have\n  perished this last winter, had not our poor-master fed them.\n\n{854}\n\n  You next give us a history of a wonderful miracle that was\n  performed in Washington in 1824. Dear sir, do you think any\n  Protestant with one eye, and that half-open, can be made to\n  believe _such nonsense_? If _you_ wish to see\n  miracles wrought in the nineteenth century, just give the\n  _Bible_ to our Catholic brethren, then you may see greater\n  _miracles performed_ than you speak of; for to see a man\n  that is _dead in sin_ changed to a _spiritual_ man,\n  made _alive_ in Christ, is a miracle.\n\n  Our Catholic brethren are taught that their church was the\n  _first church_. Let me inform you that there was no Roman\n  Catholic church on the earth for three hundred years after the\n  death of the apostles. Permit me to quote a few passages from\n  the word of God. 2 Thessalonians ii. 3, 4: \"Let no man deceive\n  you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there\n  come a _falling away first_, and that man of sin be\n  revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth\n  himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so\n  that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself\n  that he is God.\" Could an angel from heaven portray the\n  character of the pope in any plainer language?\n\n  I Timothy iv. 1-5: \"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in\n  the _latter_ times some shall depart from the faith,\n  giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;\n  speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with\n  a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain\n  _from meats_, which God hath created to be received with\n  thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For\n  every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it\n  be received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified by the word\n  of God and prayer.\"\n\n  Paul speaks of visiting the churches; that is to say, little\n  bands of Christians. We read in the Acts of the Apostles xv. 3:\n  \"And being brought on our way by the church;\" that is to say, a\n  few Christians. Read, also, xvi. 5: \"Likewise _greet_ the\n  church that is in their house,\" etc.\n\n  You will now turn to Revelation xiii. 16-18: \"And he causeth\n  all, both small and great, rich and poor, _free_ and\n  _bond_, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their\n  foreheads.\" Now, every true Catholic receives the sign of the\n  cross in his forehead every Ash-Wednesday; every priest, when\n  he is ordained for the ministry, receives the mark of the cross\n  in his right hand.\n\n  A converted Roman Catholic priest, going through one of the\n  streets in a Southern city, picked up the thirteenth chapter of\n  Revelation, and, reading it, he was convinced that he was one\n  of those that had received the mark in his right hand, and was\n  led by the _Spirit_ to see his error and was\n  _happily_ converted, and became a Baptist minister.\n\n  Give the Bible to all our Roman Catholic priests and brethren\n  in America, and in less than _five_ years there would not\n  be a Roman Catholic church in existence. Rev. Mr. Hyacinthe, a\n  Roman Catholic priest, in Paris, France, has come out in\n  _favor_ of reading the Bible. He is now preaching in the\n  Notre Dame cathedral to audiences of _three thousand_. He\n  presses upon the people, in the most eloquent words, the study\n  of the Bible.\n\n  The news from Italy is very interesting. Thousands of our\n  Catholic brethren are inquiring and receiving the Bible, that\n  they may learn the way to Christ. In less than five years there\n  cannot be found a Roman Catholic in all that vast kingdom,\n  except in Rome, where the Catholic religion has to be protected\n  by an army. That is a curious religion that has to be protected\n  by the SWORD. Shame! shame!\n\n  That great city is soon to be destroyed, according to God's\n  word. See Revelation xiv. 20: \"And the wine-press was trodden\n  without the city, and blood came out of the wine-press, even\n  unto the horses' bridles, by the space of a thousand and six\n  hundred furlongs. \"You are aware, I suppose, that the pope\n  claims two hundred miles square around Rome. The above number\n  of furlongs make just that number of miles. Let Bonaparte send\n  ALL his armies to Rome, and he could not _prevent this\n  prophecy from being_ fulfilled when the time comes.\n\n  Dear sir, you have a great deal to say about our Catholic\n  brethren exercising _greet_ faith. Paul says, \"Faith\n  without works is dead.\" What are the works that God requires?\n  Let me tell you. It is not only to clothe the naked and feed\n  the hungry; but it is to go out into the _highways and\n  hedges_, and invite the sinner, the wayward--yes, the poor\n  drunkard--to become _reconciled_ to God; to put off the\n  _old_ man with all his deeds, and put on the new man which\n  is after Christ. Did you ever learn of one of our Catholic\n  brethren doing the like?\n\n  You speak of children being _confirmed_. What does that\n  mean? Why, made _Christians_. Dear sir, who can\n  _change_ the heart of a child or a man? No one but God.\n  What saith the Bible, speaking of those that were Christ's?\n  \"Which were _born_, not of _blood_, nor of the will\n  of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.\"--John i. 13.\n\n{855}\n\n  You tell us that in this easy and pleasant way our Catholic\n  brethren join the church. Dear sir, does joining a church make\n  a man Christ-like? Christ says: \"If ye have my spirit, ye are\n  mine; if ye have not my spirit, ye are none of mine.\"--Romans\n  viii. 9. Read the whole chapter; it contains the whole plan of\n  salvation.\n\n  Our Catholic brethren are taught that the Virgin Mary was\n  _born_ immaculate! What blasphemy! And also that the\n  church is _infallible_! When Christ asked Peter and the\n  disciples, \"Whom say ye that I am?\" Peter answered and said,\n  \"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.\" Upon this\n  acknowledgment or confession of Peter, that Christ was the son\n  of the living God, Christ said, \"I will _build my\n  church_\"--not upon Peter, as the pope claims.\n\n  You say our Catholic brethren are not ashamed to be found\n  praying. Please turn to the sixth chapter of Matthew, and read\n  the sixth verse, which is as follows: \"But thou, when thou\n  prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy\n  door, pray to thy Father which is in _secret_; and thy\n  Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.\"\n\n  You say the superintendent of the Catholic Sabbath-school you\n  visited told you that he had visited many of the Protestant\n  Sabbath-schools and had copied after them. I wonder where he\n  found a Protestant Sabbath-school _without the Bible_!\n\n  You say that the Catholics expect to rule in this country, and\n  that all Protestant children will be in their Sabbath-schools.\n  Let me say, \"Let God be true, but every man a liar.\"--Romans\n  iii. 4. St. Paul has prophesied that the time shall soon come\n  when the Sword of the Spirit SHALL destroy the _Man of\n  Sin_.\n\n  There are thousands of our Catholic brethren in America that\n  are sick of the Catholic religion, and will soon leave it. When\n  I was engaged in teaching a Sabbath-school of Catholic\n  children, a father and mother called on me and wanted to put\n  their children in my school. I said, \"Your priest will not\n  allow you to do so.\" They said they did not care anything about\n  their priest; they had been brought up in _ignorance_;\n  they did not want their children brought up so.\n\n  You cannot tell us of a Sabbath-school in all Italy, or in any\n  other country where the Roman Catholics rule, except those that\n  have been established by Protestants.\n\n  You tell us about Roman Catholic benevolent societies. Where,\n  oh! where is there an asylum for the blind and deaf and dumb,\n  that they may learn to read the word of God, and get a\n  knowledge of our Saviour Christ Jesus, and learn the way to\n  heaven? You cannot show one in any Catholic country.\n\n  Permit me to give you another graphic picture from the Bible,\n  giving a picture of the priests' dresses. Please turn to\n  Revelation xvii. 4, 5; \"And the woman was arrayed in purple and\n  scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and\n  pearls, having a _golden_ cup in her hand,\" etc.\n\n  Now, all this I have seen in the great cathedral in Montreal. I\n  have seen our Catholic priests and brethren _bowing down_\n  to graven images for several minutes.\n\n  Mr. J. G. Parton, dear sir, I sincerely pray that you will,\n  after reading this communication, repent, (not do penance,) and\n  turn to the Lord, and not be under the necessity of calling\n  upon the rocks and mountains to fall on you and hide you from\n  the face of the Lamb. (Revelation vi. 16.) Do read, also, verse\n  17: \"For the great day of his _wrath_ is come; and who\n  shall be able to stand?\" Do read this communication carefully,\n  and pray that it may be blessed to your salvation.\n\n  No more at present, and I remain your friend in Christ,\n                 Charles W. Gilbert.\n\n---------\n\n{856}\n\n           New Publications.\n\n  The Vickers and Purcell Controversy.\n  Respectfully presented to all the lovers of truth.\n  By John B. Purcell, Archbishop of Cincinnati,\n  Printed for the benefit of Mt. St. Mary's\n  Seminary of the West. Benziger Brothers,\n  Printers to the Holy Apostolic See,\n  Cincinnati and New York. 1868.\n\nThe gentleman calling himself the Rev. Thomas Vickers, Minister\nof the First Congregational Society of Cincinnati, is a living\ncontradiction in terms. According to the statement in the volume\nbefore us, he believes in no personal God, declares \"the Christ\"\nto be \"a theological fiction,\" and the Bible \"a crutch.\" What\nthere is \"reverend\" about Mr. Vickers, what sense there is in his\nclaiming the title of minister, or what appropriateness in his\nprofessing to belong to a Congregational Society, we are at a\nloss to divine. What greater absurdity of nomenclature can there\nbe, than calling a pantheistic lecturer against Christianity and\nTheism by the name of a Congregational minister? Of what use is a\nchurch, or a minister, on his principles, or, rather, denial of\nprinciples? Nevertheless, in this very absurd and unnecessary\ncharacter of minister, Mr. Vickers appeared at the laying of the\ncorner-stone of a new temple of German infidelity, denominated,\nwith a ludicrous disregard of common sense, St. John's Church,\nand made a speech, which occasioned the controversy contained in\nthe little volume under notice. In this speech, Mr. Vickers\nwelcomed and blessed the undertaking of the society of German\ninfidels calling themselves St. John's Church, in the name of the\nAnglo-American portion of the population of Cincinnati. At the\nsame time, he gave utterance to the most contemptuous scorn of\neverything which the professedly Christian part of that\npopulation holds as sacred and divine in religion. This was, to\nsay the least of it, a piece of cool impertinence on the part of\nthe young gentleman in question. Mr. Vickers, we believe, passed\na few years in Germany, studying what he calls \"science;\" and he\nappears to have returned with a strong impression on his own mind\nthat he is destined to enlighten the benighted believers in the\nChristian revelation in Cincinnati with the rays of this German\nluminary. He is not the first to engage in this experiment. It\nhas been tried before, and we recommend to the attention of the\nilluminati of Cincinnati the following description of its result,\nfrom the pen of Dr. Hedge, of Harvard University. It is extracted\nfrom an article in the _Christian Examiner:_\n\n  \"Some thirty years ago, a club was formed of young men, mostly\n  preachers of the Unitarian connection, with a sprinkling of\n  elect ladies--all fired with the hope of a new era in\n  philosophy and religion, which seemed to them about to dawn\n  upon the world. There was something in the air--a boding of\n  some great revolution--some new avatar of the Spirit, at whose\n  birth these expectants were called to assist\n\n    'Of old things, all are over old:\n       Of old things, none are good enough:\n     We'll show that we can help to frame\n       A world of other stuff.'\n\n  \"For myself, though I hugely enjoyed the sessions, and shared\n  many of the ideas which ruled the conclave, and the ferment\n  they engendered, I had no belief in ecclesiastical revolutions\n  to be accomplished with set purpose; and I seemed to discern a\n  power and meaning in the old, which the more impassioned would\n  not allow. I had even then made up my mind, that the method of\n  revolution in theology, is not discussion, but development. My\n  historical conscience, then as since, balanced my neology, and\n  kept me ecclesiastically conservative, though intellectually\n  radical. There haunted me that verse in Goethe's bright song,\n  'The General Confession,' as applicable to ecclesiastical\n  incendiarism as it is to political:\n\n    'Came a man would fain renew me,\n       Made a botch and missed his shot.\n     Shoulder shrugging, prospects gloomy:\n       He was called a patriot.\n\n    'And I cursed the senseless drizzle,\n       Kept my proper goal in view:\n     Blockhead! when it burns, let sizzle;\n       When all's burned, then build anew.'\n\n  Others judged differently; they saw in every case of dissent,\n  and in every new dissentient, the harbinger of the New\n  Jerusalem. 'The present church rattles ominously,' they said;\n  'it must vanish presently, and we shall have a real one.' There\n  have been some vanishings since then.\n{857}\n  Ah me! how much has vanished! Of that goodly company, what\n  heroes and heroines have vanished from the earth! Thrones have\n  toppled, dynasties have crumbled, institutions that seemed\n  fast-rooted in the everlasting hills have withered away. But\n  the church that was present then, and was judged moribund by\n  transcendental zeal, and rattled so ominously in transcendental\n  ears, is present still.\n\n  \"It was finally resolved to start a journal that should\n  represent the ideas which had mainly influenced the association\n  already tending to dissolution. How to procure the requisite\n  funds was a question of some difficulty, seeing how hardly\n  philosophic and commercial speculation conspire. An appeal was\n  made. Would Mammon have the goodness to aid an enterprise whose\n  spirit rebuked his methods and imperilled his assets? The\n  prudent God disclaimed the imputed verdure; and the organ of\n  American Transcendentalism, with no pecuniary basis, committed\n  to the chance and gratuitous efforts and editing of friends, if\n  intellectually and spiritually prosperous, had no statistical\n  success. It struggled, through four years, with all the\n  difficulties of eleemosynary journalism; and then,\n  significantly enough, with a word concerning the 'Millennial\n  Church,' sighed its last breath, and gave up the ghost. I prize\n  the four volumes among the choicest treasures of my library.\n  They contain some of Emerson's, of Theodore Parker's, of\n  Margaret Fuller's, of Thoreau's best things; not to speak of\n  writers less absolute and less famous.\n\n  \"Meanwhile the association, if so it could be termed, had\n  gradually dissolved. Some of the members turned papists--I\n  should say, sought refuge in the bosom of the Catholic Church.\n  A few of the preachers pursued their calling, and perhaps have\n  contributed somewhat to liberalize and enlarge the theology of\n  their day. Some have slipped their moorings on this bank and\n  shoal of time. One sank beneath the wave, whose queenly soul\n  had no peer among the women of this land. Of one\n\n    'A strange and distant mould\n     Wraps the mortal relics cold.'\n\n  Finally, a fragment of this strangely compounded body lodged in\n  a neighboring town, and became the nucleus of an agricultural\n  enterprise in which the harvest truly was _not_ plenteous,\n  and the competent laborers few; and of which, the root being\n  rottenness, the blossoms soon went up as dust.\"\n\nMr. Vickers may thank the Archbishop of Cincinnati for having\ngiven his very boyish lucubrations a little momentary notoriety,\nwhich they never could have acquired by their own merit. They are\ncrude, ill-mannered, replete with commonplace, effete, and\nsenseless vituperations of all that is venerable in Catholicity\nand Christianity, and betray an ignorance of the subjects treated\nof which makes them unworthy of any serious attention. The point\nwhich the discussion chiefly turns upon is \"freedom of thought.\"\nIf Mr. Vickers is a disciple of the German pantheistic school, as\nwe suppose him to be, he is not in a condition to maintain that\nthere is any such thing as thought or freedom. We intend to give\nabundant proof of this assertion, in a series of articles, to be\npublished in our Magazine, on Pantheism, in which we shall show,\nto the satisfaction of any person capable of metaphysical\nreasoning, that pantheism destroys the possibility of thought, in\nthe true sense of the word, as the intellection of real,\nobjective truth. Pantheism destroys, also, all possibility of\nfreedom by reducing all phenomena to a fatal, invincible\nnecessity. A pantheist is bound to accept all the persecutions of\nthe middle ages, all the definitions of the church, and the\nencyclical of the pope, as manifestations of God. Our godlike\nfriends are too much like the wife of the Connecticut corporal,\nwho replied to the query of her innocent offspring, \"O ma! are we\nall corporals now?\" with the haughty rejoinder, \"No, indeed! only\n_your pa and I_.\" Mr. Vickers and the members of the\nfree-thinking _coterie_ are not the only participators in\nthe universal deity. If Mr. Vickers's brilliant exposition of the\ndoctrine of the immaculate conception was a divine inspiration,\nArchbishop Purcell was equally moved by divine inspiration to the\npaternal castigation which he administers to his young and\nsomewhat forward fellow-celestial. In fact, Mr. Vickers, the\narchbishop, the book containing their controversy, _The\nCatholic World_, ourselves, our readers, St. Thomas,\nTorquemada, Luther, Heidelberg University, and the Jesuits, are\nall one thing, or one nothing; a _Seyn_, or a _Werden_,\nor a _Nichtseyn_; all bubbles on the fathomless ocean of\ninfinite--nonsense.\n{858}\nIt is a wonder that Mr. Vickers lays so much to heart, and makes\nsuch a serious business out of that which has no reality. A\nnephew of the great German philosopher, Hegel, who was also a\nfavorite pupil of Feuerbach, and who is now a devout Catholic,\ntold us, some time ago, that he asked Feuerbach why philosophy\nwas making no progress, but seemed to be at a stand-still. The\nlatter replied, that they had already proved by philosophy the\nnothingness of everything, and it was, therefore, useless to push\nphilosophy any further, adding, that it was time to go back to\ncommon sense. Such is the end of that lawless, intellectual\nactivity which Mr. Vickers calls \"free thought.\" It is like a\nhead of steam that bursts its boiler, and is then dispersed in\nthe circumambient atmosphere.\n\n------\n\n  Memoirs and Letters of Jennie C. White--Del Bal.\n  By her mother, Rhoda E. White,\n  1 vol. royal 8vo, pp. 363. Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1868.\n\nWe must presage our notice of this interesting book, by saying we\nhave a dislike to memoirs written by fond and partial friends.\nLives of the saints we love to read, but our digestion was early\nimpaired by the memoirs of good children (who all died young)\nwith which we were fed for Sunday food, and we have latterly been\nin the bad habit of turning away from a book labelled, _Memoirs\nof_, etc.\n\nHowever, we read Jennie's life with interest; and it is a\nbeautiful story, giving to the reader a delightful insight into a\ntruly Catholic family, where the breath of piety permeates the\ndaily walk of every member, mingling with and heightening the\nlight-hearted pleasures peculiar to the seasons of childhood and\nyouth. The tale of her courtship and marriage is told with a\nsweet and winning grace, which charms us by its naturalness.\nQuite unlike the prevailing spirit and sentiment of \"Young\nAmerica\" is the history of the prompt obedience to the mandate of\nparental authority, in giving up their engagement. The accepted\nlover, a resident of Santiago, New Granada, had promised his aged\nfather not to forsake his own country, and Jennie's father could\nnot give his consent to the taking of his first-born to that\nfar-off foreign land. After a struggle, they parted with aching\nhearts, released from their engagement; but the influence of the\ntrue woman in the mother reunited that broken bond.\n\nContrary to the fate of many American girls who go to foreign\nhomes, Jennie's marriage was an exceedingly happy one. The secret\nis very plain--they were both earnest Catholics. Oneness in\nfaith, and earnest-heartedness in that faith, are the best\nsecurities for happiness in married life. The sight of this happy\nyoung creature, leaving so fond a circle of friends, and such a\nhome as Jennie left behind in New York, to go to a comparatively\nunknown land--a country distracted by revolutions, with churches\nclosed and priests exiled--gives us a glowing picture of the\nself-sacrificing spirit of true love. Her journeys by land and by\nsea, before she reached her destination, were perilous indeed;\nand we could not but ask, Yankee-like, why such a refined and\ncultivated and intelligent people as those among whom her lot was\ncast should never have provided some more comfortable way of\nreaching their country. She was the first American lady there,\nand attracted much attention and admiration by her brave, active\nspirit, as well as by her large Catholic heart. Her letters to\nher home friends are lovely from their childlike simplicity and\ntruthfulness; giving us glimpses of many homesick heartaches,\neven when she was decking herself for the dance. Sometimes there\nappears a little excess in her efforts to be gay, when she\nwrites, \"I danced every piece but one till five in the morning.\"\nMrs. Del Bal went to New Granada at a time when the so-called\n\"Liberals,\" under Mosquera, were in the ascendant, proclaiming a\npretended religious liberty, of which some of the first acts were\nthe disbanding of all religious communities, turning the sisters\nupon the world, shutting up the churches, banishing the priests,\nunless they took an oath whereby they would cease to be\nCatholics; in fact, Mosquera made himself pope. Professing to\nestablish a government in which there should be no connection\nbetween church and state, the government framed this article for\nthe twenty-third of their Constitution:\n\n{859}\n\n\"In order to sustain the national sovereignty and to maintain\npublic peace and security, the national government, and in some\ncases the state government, shall exercise the right of supreme\ninspection over all religious worships, as the law shall\ndetermine.\"\n\nThis is a law of liberty very like those the English Catholics\nenjoyed under Queen Elizabeth.\n\nMrs. Del Bal exerted herself to give the press at the North the\ntrue state of the case with regard to this matter, since the\npublic papers have loudly lauded Mosquera and his government. How\nfar she succeeded in influencing minds that swallow eagerly\nanything called \"liberal,\" we are not told. Our friend Jennie was\nloyal to her heart's core, and never ceased to call herself and\nher husband American citizens; and her thorough celebration of\nthe \"glorious Fourth\" was a complete success. American thrift and\nindustry carried her through what would have been impossible to a\nNew Granadian.\n\nBut it is Jennie's almost superhuman efforts to revive the faith\nin the land of her adoption which excite our wonder and\nadmiration, even more than the tender breathings of her woman's\nheart, separated for ever from the earliest loved. She had\neverything to struggle against in her work; \"deplorable ignorance\namong the lower classes, and the falling away from faith and duty\nin the educated;\" and this in a land once hallowed by the daily\nsacrifice. Well might she call the country \"God forsaken,\" when\nthose who should have cared for the sheep became themselves\ngrievous wolves devouring God's heritage. The secret of the\ncountry's desolation we may read in this sentence:\n\n  \"It is a well-known fact to Protestant travellers and a wound\n  in the heart of the Catholic world, that the Catholic\n  priesthood in this part of the world and in the West India\n  Islands, scandalize the faithful. Why are they permitted to\n  remain in the church? is asked often by Protestant and\n  Catholic. Because they are sustained by a government which will\n  not acknowledge papal authority; and if the archbishop were to\n  remove them to-morrow, if need be, they would be reinstated by\n  the bayonet. Hence these scandals.\"\n\nBut we turn from this sad picture to our young friend. Working\nwith all the ardor of a soul given to God, filled with the love\nof Christ, her prayers and labors brought forth abundant and\nimmediate fruits; but not till that day when the Great Master\nshall make up his jewels will it be known how many were brought\nback to faith and duty by her efforts. The missionary spirit\npervaded all her life, and we may believe that love for souls, in\npart, led her to give her consent to so sad and final a parting\nfrom her early home; for she laid her plans for these poor,\nneglected people before she left her father's roof. She found\nsome pious, devoted women in Santiago, (where are they not\nfound?) and she gave them work to do. Everything prospered in her\nhands: Sunday-schools, altar societies, associations of the\nSacred Heart; and at last, through her instrumentality, the laws\nwere repealed that closed the churches, the _Te Deum_ was\nsung, the sanctuary lamp was relighted, and 'la nina Jennie' was\nacknowledged, by the grateful people, as a public blessing God\nsent.\n\nIt is extremely touching to mark how, amid the constant terror of\nrevolution, the wearing care of churches, hospitals,\nSunday-schools, altar societies, plantations, and housekeeping,\nwith a retinue of easy-going, lazy servants, she turns to\nentertain a dear friend with tales of her beloved parents,\nrecalling the happy and united life at home, and then runs to\nconsole these absent ones by telling them, in her letters, with\nthe artlessness of a child, that her husband must be good, since\nshe is so happy with him, away from all she loved before! Only\nfour years was she permitted to cheer the heart of her fond\nhusband--only four years to lead the life of a devoted missionary\nin that desolate vineyard. The snapping of the chain by death\nthat bound that household; the departure of her noble father--we\nmay well believe-- coming upon a heart filled with care for the\nsouls about her, lying in worse than heathen darkness, hastened\nher own death.\n\n{860}\n\nAs we close the volume, we can not mourn for her nor for her dear\nfamily; it is a blessed privilege to have such a friend in\nheaven.\n\n  \"Life is only bright when it proceedeth\n     Toward a truer, deeper life above:\n   Human love is sweetest when it leadeth\n     To a more divine and perfect love.\"\n\nNo, we mourn for Santiago, and pray our dear Lord to\ncompassionate a country so piteously torn by revolutions, and\nabandoned by those who should be first to hear the cry that comes\nover the land to all Catholics, \"Send us priests who have an\napostolic spirit, good judgment, and tact!\"\n\nThe publisher's portion of the work is well done. It is well\nprinted on fine paper, and the binding is in keeping with the\nrest of the book. It is, in fact, the handsomest book Mr. Donahoe\never published, and we are glad to see so great an improvement in\nhis book-making.\n\n------\n\n  The Woman Blessed by all Generations; or,\n  Mary the Object of Veneration, Confidence, and\n  Imitation to all Christians.\n  By the Rev. Raphael Melia, D.D.\n  London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1868.\n  For sale at The Catholic Publication House, New York.\n\nDr. Melia is an Italian priest, residing in London; a man of\nsolid learning, great zeal for the conversion of Protestants, and\npossessing a competent knowledge of the English language. His\nwork is a comprehensive treatise on the dignity and office of the\nBlessed Virgin, and the reasons for the veneration and invocation\nof Mary practised in the church; to which is added a devotional\ntreatise on the imitation of her virtues. The author goes\nthoroughly into the arguments from Scripture, tradition, reason,\ntheology, and antiquities. His style is lively, popular, and\nsomewhat diffuse, so that his learning is brought to the level of\nthe understanding of ordinary readers, and his arguments made\nplain by ample and minute explanations. The book is also\nillustrated by _fac-similes_ from ancient works of art. It\nis a treasury of knowledge on the charming and delightful subject\nof which it treats, and both Catholics and Protestants who wish\nto gain thorough, solid information respecting the Catholic\ndevotion to Mary, with ease and pleasure to themselves, will find\nthis book to be the very one they are in need of. The author is\nentitled to the thanks of all English-speaking Catholics for this\nlabor of love, and we trust that his excellent work may be the\nmeans of increasing and diffusing, both in England and America,\nthat solid and fervent devotion to the Blessed Mother of God\nwhich is both the poetry and an integral part of the practical\npiety of our religion.\n\n------\n\nWe have just received from Messrs. Murphy & Co., Baltimore,\n_The Acts and Decrees of the Second Plenary Council of\nBaltimore_. _The Catholic World_, for August, contained\nan elaborate article on this work, written from an advance copy\nkindly furnished by Mr. Murphy. It is unnecessary to say anything\nmore with regard to its contents, except to reiterate what was\nthen said as to its external appearance. It is a handsome volume,\nfinely printed on good paper, and bound in various styles and in\nthe best manner known to the art of binding, and is a credit to\nthe publisher. It is for sale at the Catholic Publication House,\nNew York.\n\n------------------------------","title":"The Catholic World, Vol. 07, April 1868 to September, 1868","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":509879}